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Council tackles housing issues for teachers
Council members, city staff, attempt to hammer out a plan
By Gretchen Knaup
The city of Sunnyvale is working to provide affordable housing for teachers, as well as public employees. The city council recently voted unanimously on a motion for housing assistance after heavy mitigation and making many amendments.
At the June 19 city council meeting details of a plan were discussed among teachers, council members, city staff and school district board members. "Who qualifies for what programs is the most important issue," said Dan Rich, assistant to the city manager.
The motion was divided into three categories: education related to home ownership, rental assistance and also homebuyer assistance. According to case studies done by city officials, help in these subjects was most in need. "We need a real program for real people in real need," Rich said.
Some issues went over smoothly, such as opening the program to qualified child care providers, as well as to all city employees. However, there were lengthy discussions in many areas, including geographic limitations, the need for home buying education and the different qualifications for different occupations and divisions within them.
The final geographic decision made by council was to allow participants to live outside of Sunnyvale, but within a city served by a school district that serves the city. Staff recommended the housing assistance be extended beyond the city, and cover the entire county.
Some members of council had difficulty with the decision either because they wanted a different type of border system, or they thought the entire county of Santa Clara was enabling people to live too far away.
"Living outside of Sunnyvale, with transportation costs and things like that, it goes against other policies," Councilman Jim Roberts said.
Rich replied, "That is their choice if living there makes them a happy employee of Sunnyvale, recruitment and retention is the school district's goal."
City manager Robert La Sala added, "It's about availability and affordability. We are trying to create a competitive advantage other districts."
As for education, the council followed staff's recommendations to create a web site on housing, to explore partnering with the housing trust fund, and work with real estate agents to train them to become mentors, in order to establish a preferred list. However, the decision came with some disagreement among council members, such as whether classes should come with a fee or not. "Services should pay for themselves. Isn't that the way it works now?" Councilwoman Julia Miller asked.
Rich responded that they didn't want to charge a fee, but that they would charge an upfront fee to make sure people showed up, which they would later return after completion of the course.
Priority was at stake when it came to qualifying for the programs. After finding itself unable to settle on a final amount for a grant, nor to whom exactly to give it, council voted for the continuance of discussion between staff and school districts.
Bob Roberts, a member of the Sunnyvale School District, addressed the council, saying that the Sunnyvale School District should receive priority, since it boasts more than 6,000 students. Roberts suggested a point system that gave the most points to employees of the Sunnyvale district, and additionally asked for $1 million to get the plan rolling.
"I appreciate what you are trying to do, but its just not enough for them," Roberts said. "We need to do more to help the renter. With a $1 million contribution from the city we can leverage your funds up to $15 million from other companies."
Roberts said he thought rental assistance was a more important issue than the rest. He found the staff's recommendations for rental assistance a little on the light side. "I think there's more of a need for it," he said. "A first-year teacher making $40,000, who can't afford a $1500 rent, can't even think about buying a house."
Roberts lobbied for the $1 million grant to enact the point system. Other city council members didn't feel comfortable with the amount, because they were not confident that particular point system was the best way to go. Roberts ultimately compromised with the revised motion simply stating the city would continue to work with the school districts in order to come up with other plans.
"I feel confident we will do that now, that we will be able to work with the school district," he said. "Once we clarify everything, in the 10-year plan we will have $10 million in housing mitigation funds, and to fully use those funds is important. So I think, in a couple of months, we will have a really great program in place."
"I think it was a good debate. The report laid out a lot of policy issues, but we were pleased with the actions they will take," Rich said. "The actions they took were clear steps to move forward."
Santa Clara is serving as a model for Sunnyvale in that it has successfully provided low rent housing for its entry-level teachers.
On June 21, the lottery took place for the district of Santa Clara, in the efforts to provide actual housing to actual teachers.
The Santa Clara Teacher Housing Foundation allowed 40 teachers to be randomly selected, to move into brand new luxury apartments, as soon as the building is completed in early spring 2002. The district worked with the property management and the foundation to make this a reality. The apartments will be rented at a fixed lower rate that has not been decided upon yet. "The quality of these apartments is really high," Santa Clara School District Superintendent Paul Perotti said. "It will be the finest looking place in the valley."
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Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
