'Close to Home' column - Don't Sell Chanate Short:

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/opinion/5362617-181/close-to-home-dont-sell?artslide=1

Housing advocates welcome the initial steps taken last week by Sonoma County supervisors to increase the availability of affordable housing.

But we’re concerned by the request for proposals issued last month by the county for its 100-plus-acre site on Chanate Road in Santa Rosa. If the supervisors select the proposal submitted by the highest bidder, we’ll likely see dozens more million-dollar homes there. Will the supervisors walk their talk and come up with a development plan that helps address this unprecedented housing shortage?

For a century, the county land at Chanate has been devoted to serving the health and housing needs of economically disadvantaged residents. There are many perfectly usable buildings on the site. Most, like the mental health facilities, the Wellness Center and the well-designed shelter for women and children, are currently in use. County officials claim the two former Sutter hospital buildings are not earthquake safe and want them demolished. But earthquake standards for hospitals are much stricter than they are for residential uses. Repurposing older buildings is normally vastly less expensive than tearing them down and starting from scratch. (More)

New Award

Very honored to have just received the 2015 "Careers of Distinction Award" from the Sonoma County Bar Association, and to share the award with Chris Costin, Esq, of Byers, Costin and Simon in Santa Rosa. Here's a link to my bio in the Program for the event. Thank you! - David Grabill

From the May 7, 2013 Santa Rosa Press Democrat: http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20130506/OPINION/130509688

Housing and what ABAG doesn't get

By DAVID GRABILL

Published: Monday, May 6, 2013 at 4:55 p.m.

Last Modified: Monday, May 6, 2013 at 4:55 p.m.

The Association of Bay Area Governments is in the process of setting regional housing allocations for the next eight years in our nine-county Bay Area. Each city and county in the region must zone adequate sites to meet its ABAG-assigned allocation for housing affordable to families of all income levels.

The new allocations are supposed to balance housing development with employment in each community. And state law, SB 375, mandates that cities and counties reduce greenhouse gas emissions by coordinating housing needs with transportation and land-use planning so people can ride public transit, walk or bike to work. But ABAG's new numbers do just the opposite for many jurisdictions.

Your April 30 editorial (“Plan Bay Area and the benefit of regionalism”) praised the president of ABAG, Mark Luce, for saying that planning for growth “is not going to be addressed by forcing zoning where it's not wanted.” Zoning is supposed to address the housing needs of the whole community, rich and poor alike. People who work in a city should have the opportunity to live there in housing they can afford. Some people in wealthier cities and counties don't want more people, especially if they're lower income or of a different ethnic background.

ABAG's new One Bay Area Plan,” emphasizes regional planning and environmental preservation. But more than 30,000 people commute long distances to worksites each day in Napa County from Sonoma, Lake and other counties. Most of these commuters would prefer to live closer to where they work, but housing is scarce and very costly in Napa. Ignoring this huge imbalance, ABAG proposes to reduce Napa County's housing allocations from the current 3,705 units to only 1,407. ABAG proposes to cut allocations to Marin County jurisdictions by more than half, from 4,882 to 2,436 units.

Marin is the wealthiest county in the state and racially one of the least diverse. More than 60 percent of the people who work in Marin County commute to work from Sonoma, Contra Costa and other counties. About 80 percent of the county population is white, compared to less than 50 percent for the Bay Area in general.

There's no shortage of land suitable for housing in Marin and Napa. So why is ABAG proposing these reductions? Is it because Luce, a Napa County supervisor for 16 years, and his constituents in Napa don't want more housing there for for the people who work there, and they don't want ABAG to force them to address the housing needs of the farmworkers who help make the county so wealthy?

The Napa County Board of Supervisors is unique in the Bay Area for never having approved a single unit of housing for lower-income families. Luce recently won re-election claiming that as president of ABAG he could get that county's housing allocations reduced. In both Napa and Marin, proposals for affordable housing developments face fierce opposition from residents who don't want more low- and moderate-income families living in their communities.

While ABAG proposes steep reductions in housing allocations for Marin and Napa counties and some other wealthy jurisdictions, allocations for Oakland, San Jose, Richmond and San Francisco have been adjusted upwards. This will inevitably worsen traffic delays in many areas and harm air quality.

Additionally, the federal Department of Housing and Community Development warned ABAG recently that the proposed housing allocations may violate laws prohibiting housing discrimination. Lower-income families tend to be non-white. By concentrating new affordable housing allocations in areas which already have high concentrations of non-white residents, and reducing allocations to wealthier jurisdictions that are mostly white, ABAG is helping to increase racial and economic segregation.

Regional planning for housing, transportation and environmental preservation should be a high priority, but that means balancing jobs and housing availability for the people who work in those jobs, rich and poor, urban and rural, non-white and white. That's also a goal of fair housing laws, and of SB 375, the landmark environmental protection law adopted in 2008.

Sadly, ABAG doesn't seem to get the message. Housing allocations should be based on meeting the needs of each community's economy and minimizing pollution. That's good for business, for the environment and for the families that have the choice of living close to where they work. And it's just plain common sense.

David Grabill is a Santa Rosa attorney and a member of the Sonoma County Housing Advocacy Group.

April 3rd, 2013 By Kevin McCallum
THE SANTA ROSA PRESS DEMOCRAT

City leaders rejected a developer’s plan to build 73 homes in the largest subdivision under construction in Santa Rosa, calling the proposal a “bait-and-switch” that would leave the city without the low-income housing it was promised. Meritage Homes of California wants to start building the second phase of 138 single-family homes approved for a former Christopherson Homes subdivision off Aston Avenue in the southeast section of the city. But because of the way the original subdivision was broken up in foreclosure, the current developer doesn’t own the piece of property that was set aside for the 24 units of affordable housing associated with the project. Instead, Meritage is proposing to restrict some of its smaller 1,400-square-foot homes for moderate-income families.

A family of four in Santa Rosa is considered moderate income if it makes 120 percent of the median income, or $99,100. But that didn’t sound very affordable to Councilman Jake Ours. “In this particular case, I think there’s a bit of a bait-and-switch going on,” Ours said. “We’re not getting affordable units, and until we can get that, I don’t’ think I’ll vote for this.”

City staff had come up with a compromise they hoped would make the best of a bad situation. The city had approved Christopherson Homes’ 162-unit Daunhauer Ranch subdivision at 1600 Aston Avenue in 2003. Because the project was more than 15 acres, the city required 24 of the units be built on-site as a low-income apartment complex. A separate entity, Alderbrook Properties, was established to develop the affordable units. But when home values plummeted, Christopherson Homes, once the largest homebuilder in the county, defaulted on the main portion of the property. In 2010, Meritage Homes bought the property where single-family homes were planned from Wells Fargo Bank, but it did not purchase the parcel approved for the affordable units. A previous council in 2012 signed off on a deal allowing nine of the 65 housing units in phase one to be set aside for moderate-income families. But this time the deal faced greater scrutiny.

“I feel like I’m getting backed into a corner and I don’t like it,” Councilman Gary Wysocky said. Council members expressed a preference for the original plan. But City Attorney Caroline Fowler pointed out that city staff was trying to find a way to keep a project that creates jobs and builds affordable homes moving forward. She also stressed that Meritage Homes didn’t own the property where the affordable units were planned. “We can’t force them to build low-income housing on a site that they don’t own,” Fowler said.

Keith Christopherson, former owner of the now-defunct Christopherson Homes, said he still hopes to build the affordable units, but needs some help. He said he hopes Meritage will help him finance the deal. But Wysocky said he doubted the separate apartment parcel would be developed anytime soon. “That’s going to stand alone for a long time, I fear,” he said.

Housing advocate David Grabill noted that the need for moderate-income housing has lessened since housing prices have tumbled, stressing that low-income housing is where the real unmet need is. “You’ve got to hold their feet to the fire,” Grabill said. Ultimately, the council instructed Meritage to sit down with Christopherson to see if the two groups could find a way to get the low-income units built. They requested an update in 30 days.

“I think we could easily pull it together in a month,” Christopherson said.