Rebuild forum report and analysis
I have wanted to keep tabs on the rebuild effort, and who the actors are, and so I went to the Impact Project: Rebuild forum at the Hyatt in Santa Rosa. A video of the forum is posted on YouTube. The forum had central actors from Rebuild North Bay (RNB) group present. RNB has raised $20 million dollars to date and has been described as a “nonprofit organization formed to coordinate wildfire recovery in the region.” The main cohort of RNB appears to be high-level business community actors.
One critical actor in RNB is former FEMA director James Lee Witt, whose job will be to help more easily access channels of federal funding.
An alternate group not present at the forum is called SOCO Rises. This group came out of the post-fire recovery gates as well. Their mission statement: “We are an action network of people with the common goal to rebuild Sonoma County with full community involvement (emphasis mine) as decisions are made.”
Two trains running
These two groups represent different county cohorts, one is more top down, behind the scenes, with high-level power players as core members; the other is more grass roots and community oriented. Values and interest differences are implied here. These values differences represent pre-existing tensions in the county community. These well-known tensions, between cohorts with a primarily economic focus and advocates of full cost accounting sustainability, lie directly underneath current sentiments of all coming together.
At this juncture, there is an opportunity for conceptual and pragmatic changes to be made by interest cohorts, to get on the same page and become more cooperative, maybe change the channel towards more systemic frames for county health overall. Or, cohorts can devolve back into their usual, business-as-usual silos.
A real crisis with a focus on rebuilding
The forum ended up being a government-in-general, post-fire update, rather than specifically about RNB. The governmental actors, Napa County Supervisor Belia Ramos, State Senators McGuire and Dodd, and Sonoma County Supervisor Shirlee Zane, all showed a solid awareness of the breadth of issues at stake.
North Bay Business Journal publisher Brad Bollinger was the event’s master of ceremonies. He started out by saying that a lot of building has been done here before in the county, and it can be done again, “stronger and safer” than before.
Zane
Supervisor Zane articulated some of the points: there is an urgent need to rebuild housing “better, faster, and to blow up some of the ways we do business, redefine business…” Long term housing is just as important as short term housing she said. Zane called for the debris clean-up stage to be finished ASAP, with sites infrastructure-ready, ready to rebuild, and contractors staged, permitted and ready to go by Spring. She wants fast and streamlined permit approval, in two months, “not business as usual.” She wants administrative approval of minor subdivisions, where builders don’t have to jump through all the hoops.
The panel brought up staffing needs, to get more engineering, architectural technical expertise on line and ready to expedite the process.
Apparently not only have regular people undergone transformations and broken down the inertia of regular life as a result of the fires, so have government entities. Zane called for keeping the unity of different levels of government working well together, “no more competition”, she said.
Cutting red tape is a red flag
One theme surfaced repeatedly, the need to cut red tape, hurry up, and rebuild. This is based on a number of legitimate housing needs. A primary short term need is to restore homeowner’s place in the community. A primary short and long term need is to provide housing for renters, preferably affordable housing. One good thing here, a belated acknowledgment that renters, i.e. the workforce, are an integral and necessary part of the fabric of the county. If renters and workers are squeezed out by too high prices, then the health of the whole system suffers.
The loss of transparency standards, in a public/private rush to rebuild sets the stage for big money to come in and steamroller many processes in place that are set up to be community safeguards and public benefits. Quality of life issues may be swept under the rug in the name of public/private expediency. “Red tape” may be a hassle for some, and for others it represents necessary societal controls on free market excesses.
Shock and awe
This rush can reasonably be suspected to be part of the shock and awe tactics Naomi Klein describes in her book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. “This centers on the exploitation of national crises to push through controversial policies while citizens are too emotionally and physically distracted by disasters or upheavals to mount an effective resistance.”
Market rate, capital-frame limitations
One obvious conclusion here is that tremendous county housing cost inflation has got to be dealt with in a systematic way. Unfortunately, market rate actors, like RNB, are not known for supporting Area Median Income (AMI) affordable housing other than at minimum required levels. The only entities that can build actual affordable housing are non-profit developers, and unfortunately, current federal housing policy proposes to and already has taken away incentives to invest in this type of housing.
If there is a federal-level war on the poor, and if local big money is all focused on market rate housing, and market rate actors, where is the housing going to come from that will serve the AMI workers? Other avenues to address affordability have to do with AMI residents living in very small one room accessory units, in rental rooms, in RVs or in FEMA trailers.
Loss of standards and oversight?
The rush to cut red tape and rebuild ASAP comes on top of Santa Rosa and the county already waiving CEQA and competitive bidding regulations. This is unsettling as it minimizes community oversight and leaves an impression that in a rush to rebuild, foresight and preexisting social equity and environmental responsibility values will be lost.
Keep in mind that “rebuilding” has two components, one is short term and mostly in Santa Rosa, for homeowners and their homes that were burned down; two is long term building to address a chronic dearth of housing now exacerbated by losses of both buildings and AMI renters after the fires.
The rush to rebuild and cut red tape may be good for market rate builders and market rate homeowners, but it is a red flag for sustainability advocates. Possible consequences of rushing: Efforts to put in place codes that limit fossil fuel energy footprint in buildings could be delayed. Urban-core, transit centered non-profit affordable housing projects could be back-burnered or ignored. Market rate developers will push free market building models with no limits or regulations. UGBs could be pushed bringing up old conflicts around growth and sprawl. Hillside ordinances could be waived. Fire-resistant building materials may not be required, setting the stage for a repeat fire disaster.
The cutting red tape meme was associated at the forum with a lot of additional buzzwords and phrases such as to “rebuild resiliency”, have it “done right”, “smart”, and to break out of the damage and repair cycle. Yet, common sense says that doing it right and hurrying do not match up.
Potential for constructive change
In a rush, mistakes will be made, certain community sustainability values will be glossed over while certain free market values and profiteering will likely take precedence. The rush to cut red tape, and lack of transparent public hearings to vet the rebuilding/ building process, does not inspire confidence. How will a system that spawned a housing and social equity crisis somehow transform itself to deal with those same root issues, and then make things better in the midst of a current housing catastrophe? A real transformation is possible; this is possibly a game changing moment; I hope so.
Maybe now that top actors are voicing concern for the working class and AMI residents, a more just system can emerge from the ashes? Systemically, wages must rise to meet the cost of living, and rents be stabilized at 30% of annual income, otherwise Sonoma County is going to lose workers, and lose economic health. Now that the economic actors feel some pain, they see the light of what labor and sustainability advocates have been saying all along. To re-establish real economic health, i.e. a sustainable Sonoma County, a triple bottom line policy frame with full cost accounting needs to be adopted by all actors going forward. This is exactly how to bridge the gaps.
Already, near 6000 service sector jobs have been lost, and municipalities, the county and Santa Rosa, will lose millions in property tax revenue. Based on past catastrophes, only 30-50% of homes can be expected to be rebuilt anyway. The fires have put a big hit on Sonoma County, from individuals, to business, to government. If, as Barbara Tuchman said, people don’t change until the sewage is coming in the front door, now is that game changing time.
Policy tensions and the way forward
This whole post-fire rebuilding/ building ball of wax is a public policy conundrum worth examining. If housing is not generated quickly, which is what was needed anyway, then the county stands lose both workforce and economic health. Yet if market rate actors are at the center of the rebuild, then unsustainable housing costs, and other unsustainable practices will likely continue to be the end result. The only logical way forward is to adopt a more sustainable, full cost accounting framework overall. Government actors seem get this, the SOCO Rises community-based cohort gets this, all that remains is to get the market rate actors on board. That’s how it looks from Fred Central.
The disconnects between great wealth and the rest of the county, that characterized the pre-fire economy and society need to be bridged and reduced. Government, non-profits, the business community, labor, environmental and climate actors, all need to be at the long-term policy table working together to remake a just and sustainable society.
If we are going to get an atmospheric river of money coming at us, let’s use it for the overall good, and make sure the benefits go where they are most needed, and not to people who already have more than enough.
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