Do urban growth boundaries have an effect on social equity

September 17, 2019 by Fred Allebach

Do urban growth boundaries (UGBs) have an effect on social equity? Is a UGB basically exclusionary zoning at the level of the whole town? Or is it good planning the protects nature and open space? Maybe UGBs are many things at once, and one thing they do is constrain space, limit housing supply, drive up prices, and exclude low income people. 

What’s the plan?

If endless sprawl is not the local housing answer, which no one wants in Sonoma valley anyway, the remedy is conscious, planned infill. In Sonoma this means, to some, concentrating infill into limited spaces that make for more rats in the cage. High density infill is a de rigueur idea in planning and environmental circles, however in reality, it faces significant push-back from NIMBYs (1), and from people sick of traffic congestion.

A remedy of high density infill calls for actual projects to meet salient Affordable Housing and diversity needs. So far, no prospective projects have surfaced, meaning that any housing cure for Sonoma is many, many years in the future for this particular aspiration. Where’s the beef?

Roots of segregation

By now we all know the story about loss of state Redevelopment money in 2011. Eight years is a long time to wait, to finally have gotten the Housing Our Community series and the hope of a Housing Action Plan. Where was the leadership for those eight years? (2) Sonoma valley in that time was mostly content to let a segregated status quo drift in even more heavily.

In the liberal, and physically pleasant Bay Area citizens are concerned about environmental issues. California is known as being in the vanguard of environmental issues. The Bay Area is known for its great climate, geography, and green spaces and parks. Unfortunately, and in spite of nominal liberalism, the Bay Area is also known for being about tops in the nation in segregation and over-priced housing. The effect has been to drive the working class and racial minorities out of the towns and cities where they work. 

Green checkmate

One dynamic for spatial segregation can be explained as follows. The simultaneous impulse for preservation of green spaces and also of small town/ rural character adds up to what I call the green checkmate. No movement allowed in or out, too many checks, not enough balances. This green checkmate stands on the back of historic racial segregation, of which Sonoma and the Springs are a classic spatial and zoning examples. A UGB can be seen as part of the overall historical zoning checkmate that keeps up the current segregated stasis. (3) 

Muddy river country vs. purity and loyalty

This is not to say that green advocates don’t care about housing, or that I and my colleagues don’t care about the environment. There are nuances; there’s muddy river country here. In muddy river country, all may have valid points and the world is not black and white.

The way the UGB issue has unfolded, no public hearings have been held, but the issue has been hot. UGB info has trickled out in gossip, social, and print media, purists have put out their black and white line, and UGB open-minders have questioned and analyzed the fixed UGB position. The tendency is for alternate universes off facts to collide and go to war.

The dynamic has turned somewhat antagonistic, but only between certain actors. It’s interesting how relationships can suffer as political content pushes the edge of loyalty and purity. 

Zoning to unify with the other side of the tracks? 

What about a UGB as it pertains to housing equity and more apt regional planning, for a unified Sonoma/ unincorporated county urban service area, by having one government body to representing all local residents, from 8th East to Agua Caliente?  

No powerful status quo actors have any interest in integrating Sonoma the Springs, and typically money is cited as the main reason why not. “We don’t have the money…” This leaves less powerful Springs Latinos to remain disenfranchised and unable vote on common land use issues that affect them, like a UGB. 

Why not?

How did this all happen here in Sonoma and the Springs? Real estate redlining has occurred, as well as tract development covenants have consciously excluded people of color. This is how we have the differences between the east and west sides of town, and between Sonoma and the Springs as a whole; this is a fractal of the whole Bay Area. It was not an accident or that some people just didn’t get up early enough in the morning; the Sonoma valley pattern represents what is called structural discrimination.

The whole thing rests on territorially, control of resources, and protecting ownership of said territory from invasion. Mainstream actors, throughout history, protect their interests.     

Homo territorialis

Any nice place that people colonize or that is attractive for lifestyle, weather and/or economic considerations, faces the conundrum of becoming too popular. (4) People may flock to such a place after it is hyped, advertised and noted by various media and by word of mouth. Things change. After a while, the once attractive qualities start to degrade because too many have come. Character qualities become a commodity and a façade, and/ or a spatial arrangement to try and protect. Controls are then sought to preserve the qualities that the original colonizers feel is part of their unwritten social contract of colonizer dominance.  

What we have in Sonoma is a battle between traditional endless growth, boom and bust economic development, and civically engaged property owners who lean to environmental and quality of life arguments. Blue collar renters are the collateral damage. The city and council is about equally beholden to developers and homeowners. An economy is needed and poltiicians need to get votes. Renters have less king-making power, but more moral high ground.

Sprawl? 

With no controls on growth, the end result is rampant western-city sprawl, like Tucson, Phoenix, Denver, La Vegas, and San Jose. No one, however, is proposing anything like that here in Sonoma valley, and small additions to our livable space like the proposed Habitat for Humanity project on 285 Napa Rd. ought to be able to be in the discussion mix, and allowed for in UGB language.

If more than 240 high-density, market rate units are set to go in the exact same area as the possible Habitat project, how can anyone object to 62 more units that will serve teachers and firefighters? Where is the land to put those 62 units in town?  What about the vehicle miles traveled from those 240 market rate units? Do rich people get a pass, and get to have some green open space around them, and poor people not?    

Supply and demand as cover for segregation?

In places like Sonoma, with a unique historical setting, an urban growth boundary, and city-hyped tourism, prices start to heat up. Progressive inflation of prices occurs. People who can afford in gradually replace the people who used to live here. The population gets sorted by wealth. Wealth is the top indicator of unsustainability. That the Bay Area is nice, and generally liberal, makes it an attractive place to live, but the whole place now suffers from fractals of the territorial impulse, to include the similar and exclude the dissimilar. Sonoma and Sebastopol stand out in Sonoma County as the whitest two cities. The Springs, in contrast, is 50% Latino. Here we have privilege and poverty side by side.     

Alternatives? 

There are really well-spoken and socially conscious UGB advocates, like Bill Willers and Carol Marcus here in Sonoma who have persuasive arguments for integration through UGB and infill planning. Willers told me that UGBs are not what causes social inequity. He’s very sharp and worth hearing out. (5) I know I don’t have the end-all take on this UGB topic; I do also have a sense that my narrative can’t be all wrong and that UGBs can’t just be set aside from all the other factors that create regional inequity.

Tell it UC Berkeley

Here is the UC Berkeley Hass Institute conclusion on Bay Area segregation. “Whether seen from the regional perspective, the county level or the metropolitan level, the San Francisco Bay Area is simultaneously diverse but also notably and starkly segregated. The diversity of the region masks considerable levels of racial isolation and historical, persistent segregation. The measure of segregation we have employed here, the Divergence Index, helps us identify areas that are segregated despite a high degree of overall diversity. It also helps us see which communities are particularly segregated as a way of beginning to understand the problem we must confront and address.”

“More than half a century after the enactment national Fair Housing Act and nearly six decades since California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act, the state remains racially segregated, with the Bay Area as a vivid case study. These segregated residential patterns shape the life chances of its residents, who not only reside in racially segregated neighborhoods, but attend racially segregated schools and have racially differentiated access to a plethora of public and private resources as well. Racial segregation, as we will show in more detail in part three, shapes life chances and is the main instrument of racial inequality.”

Reasonable conclusion 

If the UGB purist plan is to offset UGB-generated and exclusionary zoning price inflation with high density infill, the public will need to see how the needed Affordable housing numbers will be gained, where, and when. Will UGB purists commit long-term to fight NIMBYs to get this density? Will Affordable Housing in these plans only come in as part of the inclusionary ordinance?    

A reasonable course of action would be to have the council put up a ballot to extend the exact same UGB for two years while the General Plan process works to create a comprehensive housing plan. In this time, language in a UGB ordinance can be made friendlier to deed-restricted projects on the edges, like the possible Habitat project. The Habitat project has revealed weaknesses in current UGB language.

If we see this Habitat project fought by UGB purists on technical, language grounds, on the letter vs. the sense of the law, even while 240 high density, market rate, units are seen as OK right next door, then we’ll know that the current UGB is not really as Affordable Housing friendly as it purports to be. We’ll see that with the possible loss of 62 Affordable, ownership units for an arbitrary line in the sand, social equity would indeed be impacted by a UGB.  

Footnotes

1. When the Springs Specific Plan comes out, we’re going to see a big fight over planned high density infill and integration, specifically from the Donald Street neighbors who feel they are being “down-zoned” and losing out on an unspoken social contract that their property values will automatically increase. A drive through the neighborhood shows that many have fixed their places up nice. The neighbors there also draw the line between us and them right at the trailer park at the bottom of the hill. 
2. In Sonoma, it has not been until the current HHH council came in that any action for a more liberal housing focus became possible. Previous councils were split and hung, and no action, like the Housing Our Community public series could happen because three votes couldn’t be mustered for government action. This was the free market checkmate.  HHH may turn to HH on UGB flexibility, which may reflect the difference in interests between property owners and renters. Cook and/or Agrimonti may get the opportunity to swing any UGB council votes.  
3. Part of the rationale for high density infill is the current existential threat of man-caused global warming. Pulling together and planning for a clean and energy conserving future will require sacrifice from all. Serious changes need to be made on how our human systems impact environmental systems common to all of life. As power relations stand currently, landed stakeholders are seeking to define how newcomers and workers will have to sacrifice by being rats packed into a high-density cage along mass transit routes, while the landed continue to live in high-resource-use, low density paradise? In order for high density infill and common sacrifice to work, a plan needs to be hatched for how the wealthy will substantially dial down their disproportionately high energy and natural resource use. With no wealth dial-down and sharing back of sequestered wage labor value, the lack of sacrifice equity will be a fatal flaw in all being able to work together for the good. If endless growth needs revision, that applies to high-end consumers more than any.   

4. In the US, where people are free to move around, there is tension between “locals” and outsiders. In Vermont for example, all non-locals are called “flatlanders” or “people from Massachusetts.”  Locals, however, are nothing but previous outsiders who live in past housing developments and now don’t want any more people to come. No one can put up a moat and deny freedom of movement in the US, but control and exclusion can be exercised in other ways. One UGB advocate suggested that newcomers just “start another town.”  A look at Sonoma maps over the last 150 years shows an incremental growth and expansion. If we are not talking about becoming San Jose here, why should those who are now “haves” deny further incremental inclusion? 

5. As I understand it, Willers’ plan revolves around rezoning and incentives that may give property owners a push to do a mixed-use project that will have an affordable housing component. Willers and Vic Conforti, local architects and Development Code experts, submitted maps to the council of the lands they see as available for housing, on West Napa Street, @ 300 I believe. One trouble here is that no deed-restricted project would fit this pattern, and only inclusionary housing would be built for workers. This means less Affordable units overall to start addressing the serious racial and social imbalances here in Sonoma. Part of UGB advocate’s line is that there is lots of housing in the pipeline now, yet this is nearly all market rate housing, exactly what there is a glut of and that we don’t need any more of until the equity scales get balanced.