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The Right to Live Here
by Natasha Dalton

The political is always personal. I wonder if the lack of interest evident in our local authorities’ attitude toward affordable housing stems from the perception that the problem will eventually get resolved on its own. Or from the fact that they personally happened to buy their first homes when housing was indeed affordable.

Now, with a median home price of $605,700, only 7% of us can afford to buy a house in our county. Even with a whopping $150,000 as a down payment, you’ll still need an annual income of $120,000 or more to be able to enter the market. Considering the fact that the county median income is only $61,700 for a family of four, it’s clear that the county authorities’ policies consistently choose the money influx from LA and SF over taking care of our own residents’ needs.

“Affordability hasn’t slowed down home sales,” said realtor Ed Steinbeck in his recent interview for the Tribune. But who is selling, and, more importantly, who exactly is buying all those five-bedroom; 4,000-sq.-ft. homes popping up everywhere you turn? In the midst of the talk about our county’s booming economy, the people who have lived and worked here for years are packing up and moving, pushed out by the rocket-high cost of housing. And local politicians don’t seem to have much of a problem with that.

Of course, talking about the housing problem in our area is like being at a banquet thrown to celebrate our victory over world hunger. “The well-fed cannot hear the hungry,’’ a Chinese proverb says. In a culture that is used to treating the roof over your head as a major investment, many still perceive the idea of “affordable” housing as an inevitable threat to that investment.

Yet, besides being utterly unfair, this “staying-the-market-course” is extremely short-sighted. Haven’t our city and county leaders heard about once-thriving communities in Colorado now turning into ghost towns due to the lack of a workforce? Or about upstate New York forced to bring thousands of refugees from abroad as a way to revitalize their aging communities?

What can we do to help the city councils and the county supervisors realize it’s not “just” a small number of low-income fellows that have a ‘housing problem.” With 2/3 of the population having to commute to work in other towns, the problem is real and is screaming for attention. When will the time come for our local governments to recognize the right of those who live and work here to decent affordable housing?

In a recent round-table discussion, County Supervisor Jim Patterson, former realtor Cindy Dixon, SLO City Councilman John Ewan and architect Ken Haggard had this to say:

Dixon: Part of the housing problem does relate to the lack of good-paying jobs in the area and the fact that home prices aren’t far from those in Los Angeles. Bringing high-paying jobs into the county is not easy — the costs of doing business in our area is no lower than the Bay Area or Los Angeles; the highest-paying job sectors tend to be in technology, especially biotech/information, advertising/marketing, those kinds of fields. Employers either stay in the Bay Area or LA, where they know they can draw from existing, trained labor pools, or move out of the state altogether to operate where overall costs are lower. This does pose a problem for long-term financial stability in this area — it can’t be all retirees and semi-retirees from the north and south. At the same time, even a job that pays $40,000 per year would not be adequate for someone to purchase a home that costs over $500,000. The people who have been able to afford the homes in our area of late are those who come from other areas with large sums of equity from the sale of their homes: they have $300,000-400,000 to put down, so a $600,000 home is approachable for them.

Patterson: This problem wasn’t created overnight, and it will take us some time to get the balance back in place. We need to remind our community that housing, public safety, education and economy are all intertwined. Our challenge is not to become LA and not to just cater to the wealthy, but to be able to house seniors, young families and professionals such as teachers, nurses and police officers.

Haggard: Jim is right. The roots of this problem go back to 1948, to the postwar construction boom. The American dream of a modern house in a country setting and Cheap Oil promoted suburban developments that seemed like Utopia at the time, but 60 years later brought us to the dead end with Peak Oil, traffic gridlocks and this lack of affordability.

It’s nobody’s fault, and it’s everybody’s fault.

The key word here, as everywhere, is diversity. We need more diversity in housing. For the last 60 years we’ve been doing the opposite, in essence creating a housing monoculture. Whether we are talking about biology or sociology, it’s a known fact that monocultures are not viable in the long run.

Patterson: It is clear that we cannot ignore this situation anymore. Last year the County Board of Supervisors held its first Strategic Planning Workshop in years. Implementing the County’s Housing Element was one of the suggestions that hasn’t gotten enough priority, and adoption of selected programs that will bring more affordable housing is still months away.

Ewan: Over the last 25 years we tried hard to halt urban sprawl and hold a tight line around SLO. While we held the line fairly well, we didn’t make the needed accommodations within the city for denser housing. But now the city has begun the process of change to accommodate denser “affordable by design” housing where appropriate.

Patterson: One thing we need to talk about here is critical: people protest higher density, and that is showing us that we have a bigger problem than just lack of houses. For the last 5-6 decades we in our country have been building urban sprawl, without realizing that this type of housing arrangement creates multiple problems: long commutes, a lost sense of community, pollution, health problems. We’ve got kids who have no place or time to play. The unhealthy design of our communities contributes to the tremendous obesity problem that we’re only beginning to face now.

Ewan: It’s apparent that in order to preserve the character of our county, the urban areas must accommodate the housing needs of our citizens. This must happen with sensitive design and some risk-taking on the part of our leaders and community. Providing appropriate amenities for denser new housing and existing neighborhoods will be critical. This change to our urban fabric needs to happen in a way that is attractive to our new residents while not causing conflict with existing neighborhoods. Not an easy task.

Dixon: We need the creation of housing projects which are affordable and sustainable. Currently, builders face many challenges from local communities when they want to build such projects. Existing neighborhoods loathe multiple-unit housing in their areas and fight these projects tooth and nail; city planners face increased congestion, the need to expand water/sewer hook ups, etc.

Patterson: My Housing Mantra is: Up Not Out; Small Is Beautiful; Close Is Cool.

We won’t build our way out of it: the demand is too great. We have to be strategic about what type of housing we build and where we build it lest we become another LA. We don’t want to become what the people moving here are fleeing from. And if we don’t change the way we’re growing, we will become what we don’t want to be. There are no tourists on the beaches in Orange County any more, there are no more orange groves or vegetable fields — they don’t have any open spaces left. Is that our vision for San Luis Obispo County? Housing alone is not enough; we need to build healthy communities.

Ewan: Creating the balance of workforce housing and livable communities means that our current urbanized areas must be responsible for new housing options. The sustainable model that we’re trying to achieve doesn’t happen by spreading our housing into the rural lands vital to our future for crops and open space. It is the county’s responsibility to protect the rural areas while stressing new housing in currently developed areas.

Haggard: I absolutely agree with Jim that the healthy communities should be the emphasis. I don’t think anybody has really looked at this problem afresh in that context for some time. For example, in a study we did for a sustainable Los Osos, we identified 12 different types of housing that should be provided there. Recent ideas like New Urbanism, EcoVillages, co-housing and the City Repair movement — all that has to be looked at. If we don’t take a broader and more comprehensive look, things will only get worse.

Ewan: The County needs to embrace programs that have been initiated by cities here and throughout the state. While our programs are not a cure-all, at least some incremental change is happening.

Dixon: There’s a great tendency for those who have already achieved homeownership to take on the NIMBYism (not in my backyard) philosophy. Affordable housing developments have been shot down multiple times for these kinds of reasons. So builders decide not to build them, putting their money into single-family homes built with all the bells and whistles that the market demands today.

Haggard: There should be a reasonable discussion within the community about its future, and your publication could give it a jump start.

Patterson: Developers might say: we cannot do it. But it is not so. We cannot do it, until we do it. We heard for years from our automakers that electric cars are not viable. ‘Toyota’ made a hybrid, and now they cannot keep up with the demand.

Haggard: You are right. It can be done, but we need to broaden our viewpoint and include healthy community and “green” thinking. The technical aspect of it is only one part. A great deal of the housing cost lies in the infrastructure needed. The co-housing that Polly Cooper and I designed seven years ago was the first of this kind south of the Bay Area. The cost came to only $59/sq. ft, so the cost of a basic unit was just about $100,000. It is the infrastructure that doubles the cost; however there are many ways to reduce it. Yet as a community, we’re still so frozen in our outdated mode of thinking, we keep copying what has been done before. Look at Los Osos: they wasted 15 years fighting over their sewer project, whereas there is a better and cheaper way to handle this whole issue. In the end, it’s the social relationships that we need to be more creative with.

Our whole economy is propped by up by this housing monoculture. It is unhealthy and it is not stable. Check out the co-housing that we helped to create in Oceano – it even feels different: people talk to each other; kids are out and playing, it’s a true caring community, and it’s so much more viable than your typical suburban thing. It’s a real example of the healthy community we’re talking about. It’s not for everybody, but it’s a part of the diversity in housing we need to develop.

Ewan: Our officials must bring leadership to the community, take the time to evaluate programs and projects and then bring them to completion. Simply saying that you’re for affordable housing and then not championing the cause through real “on the ground” projects will not work. We must be bold, progressive thinkers, doing what it takes to change the direction and destiny of our community.

Patterson: We as a community shouldn’t put greed above the needs of the next generation. It’s our responsibility to help the people of our county.


BIOS

Ken Haggard:
Kenneth Haggard is a registered architect in the states of California and Florida with 32 years of experience in urban design and architecture. For the past 26 years, he has been a principal in San Luis Sustainability Group (SLSG), a firm that specializes in passive- solar green architecture, sustainable planning and design. (http://www.slosustainability.com)

Cindy Dixon:
Cindy has worked in the high tech industry in executive sales. She most recently worked as a Real Estate Agent at Remax in Paso Robles. Cindy has made some major changes in her life due to her understanding of Peak Oil, i.e., downscaling consumer-related aspects of her lifestyle. She is also interested in working with a small group of people to expand the dialogue about Peak Oil. See her article in HopeDance at http://www.hopedance.org/new/docs/peakoilprimer.pdf.

Jim Patterson:
Currently Jim is the 5th District SLO County Board of Supervisor. He represents the Economic Opportunity Commission, Student Community Liaison Committee, Carrizo Plain Advisory Committee and Resource Conservation and Development Council. He graduated from Cal Poly in 1974 w/ a Bachleor of Science degree in Natural Resource Management. Professionally, he has farmed, owned a landscaping business and retail nursery and served as water conservation manager for the Atascadero Mutual Water Company.

John Ewan:
SLO City Council Member since 1998. As the President and Owner of the Pacific Energy Co, Jim designs and sells Solar Electric Systems, and has worked as Title 24 Energy Analyst and in sales for Efficient Wood and Gas Fireplace and Stove. John is a member of California Solar Industry Association; California PV Alliance; Hearth Products Association; SLO Chamber of Commerce; Environmental Center of SLO; League of California Cities and Sustainable Building Council.


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