The need for affordable housing, at all income levels, is now being considered a critical problem for the region's economic future. Residents drawn by the Bay Area's quality of life are finding that the financial realities of paying for housing overshadow the attractions of the region. This is not a new issue, and tools and partners are available—Richard Rainey of US HUD recently commented that the Bay Area has the best group of nonprofit housing developers in the nation—but the housing problem persists.
As a regional issue, housing has been like many hopeful Bay Area residents, looking for the right home. Now, driven in part by a legislative mandate to work more closely together, three regional agencies have designed a common workplan focused on housing.
The workplan, titled "A Consolidated Work Program for Implementing and Refining the Bay Area's Smart Growth Vision", was developed by the staff of the regional Joint Policy Committee (JPC) which includes the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG), and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (Air District), and staff from the three agencies. The JPC has approved the Consolidated Work Program and will coordinate its implementation.
The Consolidated Work Program is one of two components of a report to the Legislature required by SB 849 (Torlakson); the second component addresses administrative coordination of the agencies. It has been approved by the boards of ABAG and MTC and will be submitted to the state.
The Consolidated Work Program focuses on housing as a problem that is central to keeping the region's quality of life and that affects all other areas of regional planning—transportation and infrastructure, the environment, and the economy. Working on the issue will involve the three agencies on the JPC and also other agencies such as water districts, as well as local government, the private sector and public stakeholder groups. Many of these participants are already addressing some piece of the problem and will continue to do so. The Consolidated Work Program is intended to focus and coordinate existing and new efforts in a regional forum, with the goal of building additional housing units in a manner consistent with the regional Smart Growth Vision developed by five regional agencies in 2003.
A multi-agency approach may be the only way to make a significant impact on the region's housing needs. Although many people bemoan the high cost and short supply of housing, new housing faces a daunting mix of economic and social barriers. Speakers at the ABAG General Assembly at the end of October enumerated many of these. Primary among them is the high cost of land, because relatively few building sites are available due to urban growth boundaries, environmental considerations such as wetlands and slopes, and previous land uses such as industrial facilities. Neighborhood resistance to change often alters or reduces the type of units that are acceptable. Local jurisdictions may feel that housing is less desirable than commercial tax-generating uses, but when fees are imposed for roads, schools or parks so that housing "pays its way" the units become less affordable.
Unaffordable housing throughout the region sends residents far from their jobs in a search for a home they can afford, either renting or buying. Their less expensive housing may be affordable because it is built on newly developed land far from jobs and services, which forces residents onto streets and roads and adds to congestion and air pollution. Next to their new homes, the open areas they found attractive may already be targeted for more development. Transportation, air quality, open space and other services such as water are all stressed by meeting these housing needs. Still, among those purchasing for the first time, only 12 percent of Bay Area households have enough income to buy a median-priced home .
Preserving the region's current stock of affordable housing is a concern. Judith Christensen, a Daly City councilmember, worries about proposals for luxury homes in her city, where even housing considered affordable under federal guidelines is too expensive for most current residents.
At the bottom end of affordability, residents become chronically homeless, "couchsurfing" or living in transitional housing if they are lucky, on the streets and in shelters if they are not. Oakland councilmember Nancy Nadel listed a multitude of reasons for the current homeless situation, many directly related to housing affordability: a drop in federal housing funds, expiration of Section 8 housing vouchers, and infill driving squatters out of rundown neighborhoods as they "gentrify". Even if homeless programs provide services that enable people to get health care and jobs, lack of housing continues to be a problem.
And affordability is not the only consideration for buyers. Joanne Sanders, Sonoma City Council, commented that many young people see housing equity as an investment for financial security later in life. This means they are reluctant to buy subsidized units which don't help them to build equity and move up to market-rate housing.
Allocation and production of new housing units are therefore central tasks in the Consolidated Work Program developed by the regional agencies. ABAG already operates under a state mandate to allocate the region's need for housing units among cities and counties. The jurisdictions then incorporate these figures into the housing elements of their general plans. The next round of housing allocations, which will probably be synchronized with the next Regional Transportation Plan, will be based on the Smart Growth Vision. The Vision directs growth toward a compact network of neighborhoods, most of them in existing communities close to the Bay and along transit corridors.
In the Consolidated Work Program, housing allocation is part of the first stream of Core Tasks. Housing production is the second stream, because "the work also needs to assist in getting housing actually built", according to the staff report. Tasks include establishing priority areas for local specific-planning assistance, funding those specific plans, doing corridor planning, and convening a multi-sector task force on housing production to address barriers to creating actual units. The plan also envisions a corps of "extension agents" who would act as facilitators to assist local jurisdictions to accomplish the program. Some funding is already available from existing agency programs, and additional funding may be found through new state legislation.
Other elements of the work program are presented as complementary to the main housing tasks:
Monitoring and evaluating are also seen as important tasks.
As part of a report to the state legislature on how regional agencies can more effectively coordinate their resources, the Consolidated Work Program will probably be rated a success. Ultimately, its real success will be judged by how effectively it transforms the Smart Growth Vision into housing allocations, specific plans and new housing units that are consistent with the region's planning goals.
Leslie Stewart
For more information:
ABAG housing needs - http://www.abag.ca.gov/planning/housingneeds/
Consolidated Work Program - http://www.abag.ca.gov/jointpolicy/Consolidated Regional Planning Work Program.pdf