Affordable Housing — but where?

July 31, 2020 by Fred Allebach

Some say there is plenty of land in the city of Sonoma for Affordable Housing (AH). Yet Habitat for Humanity could find nothing for a 50+ unit AH project.

For there to be any AH projects, first they must be conceived of; and there must be political will. Appropriate zonings, incentives, and funding follow. What land is legitimately developable for AH here? Why or why not? What are the real chances? Where’s the money? Herein lies the rub. There are differing Valley opinions on what is preferable and desirable for AH land use.

These differing opinions have morphed to intractable public policy conflicts (UGB, Donald Street high density upzoning, etc.), that have already torpedoed consensus on forward movement for AH. The propensity for Sonoma zero-sum games does not bode well for the chances of this community to effectively address the great issues of our time.

Intractable public policy conflicts start with a paradigmatic choice of yes or no. Given that the world is not black and white, how do we escape the typical Sonoma no-nuance, zero-sum game loop? Maybe we must wait for the blockading actors to lose power, or move away. To have some movement on planning for AH, the public needs flexibility, cooperation, accountability, political will, and bold vision, and/or we need the state to be the adult in the room and force the local hand.

Values choices have already been made by local players and powers that be, and these values, like much of white American suburbia, have centered on ways to protect the status quo. The state is taking an increasingly dim view of this kind of protectionism.

The City of Sonoma has no current comparable process to the Springs Specific Plan, to upzone land to higher density or mixed use. The city Housing Element is set to be updated in 2022. The results of this update, for augmenting city Affordable Housing (AH) will depend in some measure on state and regional guidelines, with potentially stricter RHNA (Regional Housing Needs Assessment) criteria for AH. These stricter criteria represent a tightening of the social justice screws for places like Sonoma, where despite professed good will and desire, AH has just not been created to the level necessary.

The City had a Housing Our Community series where the public called for 50% of new Sonoma housing in the next 10 years to be deed-restricted AH. Deed-restricted means rents are pegged to a range of the area median income, not market rate. This series has not resulted in a Housing Action Plan, and time keeps on going by with no action, nor more AH. This is a Sonoma pattern, lack of decisive action on AH. The can keeps on being kicked down the road.   

With the Springs, as with the city, there is lots of jockeying for power and control over land use decisions. What’s at stake is the clear need to gain more housing equity by adding more non-profit-built, deed-restricted AH. Preferences to keep a hard city boundary and to maintain neighborhood status quos work against and limit the creation of this AH. To put it nicely, the city and parts of the Springs are inequitable islands of privilege and this needs fixing.

The equitable fix for AH is not to stuff all the poor downtown in hypothetical adaptive re-use scenarios, while low density and rural character areas remain unchanged and segregated. The Donald Street example shows that integration through zoning changes faces tremendous pushback. Similar concerted pushback, CEQA appeals, and lawsuits against increased traffic, parking, and density for downtown AH is foretold.

The overall effect of our current governmental system, with a split valley government for one unified society, is demonstrably inequitable. For Sonoma Valley to get this all straightened out is a difficult task that will demand significant vision, will, resources, and sacrifice. When West Germany decided to bring in East Germany (as Sonoma needs to bring in the Springs), this was bold and called for a long-term commitment and for serious perseverance.

Business as usual and zero-sum game gridlock over where to put AH locally is not going to help and will only make things worse.