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Cities have different answers to common housing questions
By Oakley Brooks
Although Saratoga will ultimately have to fashion its own approach to meet affordable housing needs, it is in good company. Several other small Bay Area cities are also faced with the dilemma of housing its less affluent citizens in a pricey real estate environment.
High turnover in the work force is one key indicator that the regional housing shortage is adversely affecting these smaller communities.
"We have problems holding onto city staff--the same problems as everyone else," said Diane McGrath, Foster City's deputy director of community development who's been active in that city's affordable housing efforts since 1985. "There can never be enough housing."
Bill Newkirk, with Morgan Hill's redevelopment agency, says his city also suffers a high staff-attrition rate and housing is likely one of the prime culprits.
But Morgan Hill, Foster City and a handful of other similar cities in the region have chosen to tackle their housing issues in unique and localized ways. These cities' experiences--many spanning over a decade--may provide a foundation from which Saratoga can develop its own strategy.
As in Saratoga, the biggest stumbling block for other cities in developing new stocks of housing has been land availability.
"The secret to success is having site availability," said Mill Valley City Manager Don Hunter. "Once you've got that, the construction and operation is relatively easy."
Mill Valley adopted affordable housing goals in the late 1980s, set aside $2 million to back the effort and shortly thereafter had two sites open up. In one scenario, a developer gave the city first refusal on one of his parcels; in the other, the city acquired a heating and plumbing factory, after its operations left town. Combined, the two pieces of land yielded 110 housing units..
While Hunter admits the city had some luck on its side in acquiring land, he adds that Mill Valley was very active in looking for lots.
"We put the word out," he said.
In 1997, Foster City began a similar search--for underused commercial land that might be converted for residential purposes.
After identifying a dozen sites, city officials used Foster City's redevelopment agency--primarily focused on building up commercial activity--to attract developers to build housing. Under state redevelopment law, 20 percent of property tax increases and bond money in a redevelopment agency must be used on affordable housing. Redevelopment agencies use their money to buy land within a designated blighted area and then resell it to a developer at a price that is below-market rate.
Using this scenario, Foster City enticed developers to put housing at two shopping centers that had a high rate of turnover and vacancy. Next spring, 280 housing units will be completed at the former Marlin Cove and Port O'Call malls.
Other small cities, such as Morgan Hill, put money into redevelopment areas to boost housing, in addition to commercial activity. Some also have stipulations on all future development within city limits: Morgan Hill is a slow growth city and within its boundaries all housing developments must be 20 percent affordable.
In Los Gatos, a city ordinance requires housing projects under 20 units to be 10 percent affordable and bigger developments to be roughly 20 percent affordable.
Affordability is a slippery word, but, typically, housing is set aside evenly for two groups: low-income, at 80 percent or less of the county average income; and moderate income, at between 80 to 120 percent of the county average.
McGrath says much of the set-aside housing Foster City provides is for public servants, such as entry-level teachers and firefighters. In Los Gatos, Community Service Director Regina Faulkner says affordable housing also allows the adult children of longtime residents to continue to live in the same community as their families.
But both Faulkner and McGrath say the public tends to have its own bad connotations about the term "affordable." Foster City spends time educating the community that low-cost housing won't necessarily bring, as McGrath says, "kids, dogs and pickup trucks.
"You can work up all kinds of profiles, but we're not talking about transients," said McGrath.
To allay other public fears that promoting housing will crowd the town's open hillside space, Faulkner says Los Gatos allows hillside developers to pay money to the city, in lieu of building required affordable units.
But Lydia Tan, vice president of BRIDGE Housing, a nonprofit advocacy organization, says some cities with open-space priorities create extra pressure on their housing situation. These cities have to become even more resourceful to meet their housing needs.
"It's going to be very difficult to balance all the public needs, be it affordable housing or environmental and open space interests," said Tan.
To cope with this dilemma, many cities comparable to Saratoga have measures, on top of federal and state assistance, to keep lower-income people afloat in the existing housing market.
Morgan Hill offers extensive home-repair grants and loans for seniors and mobile home owners, and has a rent-control ordinance that softens any spike in the real estate market. Redwood City recently began a city employee home-loan program that delays payment on a $100,000 loan for six years; and it forgives a portion of the debt every year after that, provided the employee stays with the city.
Saratoga has loaned over $400,000 for homeowner repairs in recent years, and citizens are talking of a loan program for teachers and city employees, similar to Redwood City's.
But city council members know it will take much more than those programs to meet housing goals: they're currently exploring ways to expand the city's housing stock.
Tan, who recently joined the Santa Clara County Planning Commission, says that with increases in the density of living in existing or pending developments, Saratoga could eventually meet its needs.
"It's going to take a lot of ingenuity and the ability to think outside the box," she said.
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Saratoga, California Since 1955
