Fred Allebach
9/17/22
City of Sonoma Housing Element and historic patterns racial, ethnic, and class segregation.
I was dismayed to read in the 8/22 draft City of Sonoma 6th Cycle Housing Element (HE) that, “the City finds that there are no known historic patterns of segregation by race and ethnicity, persons with disabilities, familial status, age or income.”
The City HE calls for no rezoning of predominantly white, wealthy, single family-zoned (SFZ) neighborhoods on the east side and puts 88% of Very Low (VL) and Low (L) income RHNA site inventory in three locations on Hwy 12. The City’s concentration of low-income housing along a highway recaps the worst aspects of 1970s urban renewal relocation programs. ADUs with no fixed price and which are likely to go at market rate are the principal housing type proposed by the City to address AFFH and integrate neighborhoods of racially concentrated affluence.
By denying patterns of segregation, City HE plans for Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) are consequently weak. Meaningful action is avoided through denial of a segregation problem.
I believe this HE denial of segregation is demonstrably wrong, and therefore much stronger AFFH programs and rezonings are needed to mix the site inventory up and bring Sonoma to a County and Bay Area racial and ethnic demographic average.
To start, the City can admit the actual; apologize, and the undertake a program of restorative justice for the BIPOC (Black Indigenous People of Color) community by facilitating integration and inclusion in all City neighborhoods including single-family zoned through meaningful actions and assertive HE policy, Municipal Code changes, SFZ zoning reform, and much stronger AFFH programs.
The no segregation assertion is the linchpin upon which other critical City HE pieces are contingent. If the no segregation assertion is retracted by the City, other HE components will need to be reworked as well. A few examples:
Ø Site inventory: leaving white/ wealthy east side with no meaningful AFFH/ TCAC policies and programs and putting 88% of low-income units on three sites on Hwy 12.
Ø Not addressing tacit redlining land use and Code constraints such as Armstrong Estates single family zoned 20,000 sf lot minimum; Central-East Side Planning Areas arbitrary SFZ limits; no HE rezoning; no TCAC AFFH plans; intentional UGB, historic designation, and SB-9 poison pills that serve to maintain segregation; other intentional Code limitations that serve to tacitly maintain segregation.
Ø Programs and policies aligned to a higher-profile AFFH aggressiveness so as to rise to the level of meaningful actions to address an admitted segregation issue.
Ø In depth, Block Group-level, regional jurisdiction comparisons, esp. with Census Tract 1503.05 in the Springs that show Valley-level segregation and Sonoma externalizing low-income Latinos to the adjacent unincorporated area, as per the AFFH SEGREGATION REPORT: SONOMA made by UC Merced Urban Policy Lab and ABAG/MTC Staff, Version of Record: March 06, 16:02:57
What follows meets a reasonable burden of proof that there is indeed a historical pattern of racial segregation in Sonoma. This pattern holds through to today, particularly in east side neighborhoods where restrictive covenants remain on property deeds.
Recent Census data
One way of identifying a pattern of segregation is by looking at past Census data; here is a small sample from the mid-20th century until almost present.
1950 87.4% White, 0.4% Negro
1960 97.8% White, 0.6% Negro
1970 96.6% White, 1% Negro
1980 93.1% White, 1.2% Black
1990 90.7% White, 1.4% Black
2000 81.6% White, 1.4% Black
2010 76.8% White, 1.6% Black
1950 86.9% White, 0% Negro
1960 99.4% White, 0.1% Negro
1970 98.9% White, 0% Negro
1980 97.3% White, 0% Black
1990 96.4% White, 0.3% Black
2000 93.8% White, 0.4% Black
2010 86.8% White, 0.5% Black
Local institutional knowledge corroboration of Census data
Bill Lynch, now a senior citizen and former owner and editor of local paper of record, the Sonoma Index-Tribune, corroborates Census facts of segregation.
https://www.sonomanews.com/article/opinion/the-incredible-whiteness-of-sonoma/
Sonoma County-level segregation
The City of Sonoma has never been in a vacuum away from regional trends of segregation. At the County level, Generation Housing Director Jenni Klose says that segregation was/ is not an accident but rather the result of “exclusionary zoning, redlining, discriminatory federal housing programs, and more — that directly resulted in persistent and significant segregation and gaps in homeownership and wealth between Black and white communities which continue to this day.”
“As a community we have an obligation to remedy this structural inequity which must be addressed through systemic change, particularly in inclusive housing policy.”
https://sonomasun.com/2022/02/27/sonoma-countys-legacy-of-segregation/
2020 Census
“Three counties were more segregated in 2020 than they were in 2010: Marin, Napa, and Sonoma, with Marin being the most segregated county in the region by far.”
https://belonging.berkeley.edu/most-segregated-cities-bay-area-2020
Example of Sonoma County segregation
A Petaluma Argus Courier: “In 1960, a federal commission on civil rights found Petaluma had only one home owned by a Black family—that of Henry and Bessie Chenault at 32 West Street.24
“The commission determined Petaluma’s lack of Black residents was due to exclusionary housing practices. They pointed to a cabal of Sonoma County bankers, real estate agents, developers and neighborhood groups who blackballed and financially threatened anyone attempting to sell or rent property to Blacks.26
“In Petaluma, the suburban tract housing boom on the city’s east side following World War II was accompanied by restrictive covenants that preventing the sale or resale of homes to Blacks.
https://petalumahistorian.com/tag/petaluma-exclusionary-housing/
Example of a Sonoma deed-restrictive covenant
Research by the Sonoma Valley Collaborative: “Here's an example from 4th Street East. The house, built in 1968, is within the "Frugoli tract”, which covers 25 or more parcels across almost 10 acres. The tract was established in 1948. The restrictive provisions still appeared in the deed when the current owner bought the property in 2018.” This indicates that 25 parcels at least, have restrictive covenants.
Example of modern North Bay-level segregation and redlining
From a 2013 Bohemian story, “Redlining—the practice of refusing and/or discouraging mortgage loan applications based on an applicant’s race—should be a sad relic of the 20th century. But it’s not, according to a new investigation by Fair Housing of Marin (FHOM), a nonprofit that fights housing discrimination, which finds race and gender discrimination in mortgage lending practices alive and well in Marin, Sonoma and Napa counties in 2013. According to a Nov. 27 news release, FHOM uncovered instances where ‘several lending institutions offered more favorable treatment or better loan terms to white individuals, as compared to black or Latino individuals.’ “
“After analyzing the interactions for evidence of discriminatory policies, the investigation uncovered several concerning actions, including detailed written estimates of loan terms for white testers but not black or Latino testers…”
https://bohemian.com/redlined-1/
Redlining and restrictive covenants as nationwide, government-backed housing policy
Richard Rothstein’s book, The Color of Law, A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, is a must-read to understand the national, government-backed scope of residential housing segregation in the US. Take home point? The segregation we see in Sonoma was not an accident.
ABAG points to UC Berkeley Othering and Belonging Institute (OBI) for SFZ and segregation research
“We find that cities with high levels of single-family zoning have greater resources (even relative to the generally wealthy and expensive Bay Area) in virtually every statistic we are able to measure. These cities have higher incomes, higher home values, better-performing schools, and our evidence indicates they are high opportunity in the broadest sense: children who were raised in these cities 30 years ago have better outcomes in their adulthoods. However, this is also consistent with a troubling pattern of social, economic, and racial exclusion in cities with high levels of single-family zoning.”
https://abag.ca.gov/technical-assistance/racial-segregation-bay-area
https://belonging.berkeley.edu/single-family-zoning-san-francisco-bay-area
Segregated suburbs
“If your intuition about segregation is that “white flight” never ended—wealthier white families left cities to form a “white noose” of smaller, affluent suburbs with exclusive school districts—your intuition is correct. Indeed, Menendian (Stephen Menendian, principal author of UC Berkeley OBI report on segregation) and Gambhir find that white people in the Bay Area are the most “segregated” demographic in the region. While that may sound odd at first, the data bears it out: “Although whites are just under 40 percent of the population of the Bay Area, 184 census tracts (of 1582) are more than 75 percent white, 359 tracts are more than 66 percent white, and 663 tracts are more than 50 percent white.”
“Oh, and about those suburbs? It turns out that white-concentrated neighborhoods are more prevalent in smaller municipalities, which strongly correlates with the persistent segregation of public schools. As the researchers note, “although a majority of the most highly segregated neighborhoods for people of color are found in the largest cities in the region, the most segregated white neighborhoods are in small or mid-sized cities.”
https://cayimby.org/bay-area-segregated/
SFZ segregation
“Menendian said land use policies, including restrictions on denser housing and apartments, have driven segregation, particularly in the Bay Area. “It’s crystal clear that excessive restrictive zoning plays a significant role.”
https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/06/21/bay-area-has-become-more-segregated-over-decades-report-says/
Roots, Race, Place
A History of Racially Exclusionary Housing in the Bay Area
UC Berkeley Hass Institute
“Incorporated municipalities also turned to exclusionary land use
policies
like large minimum lot sizes, growth boundaries, and caps on new units.
For example, immediately after Atherton was incorporated in 1923, the
town adopted a zoning ordinance imposing a one-acre minimum lot for
housing.136 In the mid-1950s, more suburbs, typically seeking to prevent
annexation, followed suit in adopting stringent land use regulations. Los
Altos Hills, incorporating in 1956, enacted a one-acre minimum lot size
and precluded multifamily housing in their zoning ordinance.137 The 1959
General Plan states the citizens’ intentions were to preserve the town’s
“rural-residential” character and avoid “undue burdens” upon the town’s
resources with population concentration.138”
OBI on long-term effects of segregation
“Our concerns with persistent racial residential segregation in the United States are primarily empirical, not philosophical. They are based upon a careful review of the ever-accumulating and already voluminous social science evidence that racial residential segregation is associated with harmful impacts in terms of health, educational attainment, employment, income and wealth. This evidence supports our view that racial residential segregation is the mechanism that sorts people into advantaged or disadvantaged environments based upon race, and therefore is the taproot of systemic racial inequality.”
https://belonging.berkeley.edu/roots-structural-racism
End SFZ
“The national movement to eliminate exclusionary single-family zoning is picking up steam in the Bay Area as cities explore the benefits of getting rid of a land use policy designed to keep people of color and working class families out of certain neighborhoods.
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