Gullixson: We don’t want housing?

The shift in dynamics in the Capitol basement rotunda that evening was subtle. Conversations gradually became muted. Smart phones went up, and in the corner, I could see the glow of someone taking video.

In Sacramento, it can mean only one thing. The governor was in the house.

As the indefatigable Jerry?Brown roamed the room talking to sundry journalists gathered at a Feb. 12 reception for the California Newspaper Publishers Association, I went to see if I could get a conversation going.

I had come to Sacramento that day primarily to get feedback on one issue, and I hoped to get the governor’s thoughts.

“I would like to invite you to come to Sonoma County for a glass of wine and some conversation,” I said when we had a moment.

“What’s going on in Sonoma?” he asked.

Housing, I explained. Rather a shortage of it. “Rents have soared 30 percent over the past three years, one of the highest increases in the nation,” I said. “Meanwhile, last year we had the fewest number of housing starts in the past 45 years.” And local officials aren’t sure how to move forward.

The governor’s answer surprised me.

“The problem is you don’t want housing up there,” Brown said.

I started to say that wasn’t true, but he continued.

“Sure it is,” he said. “With all those high fees and land regulations, you really don’t want housing.”

I attempted to let him know how many cities have made housing, particularly affordable housing, a priority and how some were looking at such things as deferring fees. But it was in vain. He had turned to greet some college students. And I was left standing alone, holding an empty hors d’oeuvre plate.

Don’t want housing? How can he say that? Yes, it’s true that this county’s key battles in the decades before and after the turn of the century were about slowing growth. But nobody really wanted to stop it altogether, did they?

Not want housing? Tell that to the 175 people who lined up last week on West College Avenue for a chance to rent one of 42 units at the Tierra Springs Apartments soon to be available. Some were in line for two days for a chance to move into the first below-market-rate complex to open in Santa Rosa in a year.

Tell that to the woman who said that if she and her daughter got an apartment, “it would be the first place we could call home” since they lost their home to foreclosure in 2011.

Even finding a market-rate unit is nigh impossible. At latest count, more than 97 percent of the county’

As Staff Writer Robert Digitale reported, two new “luxury” apartment projects in Santa Rosa and Rohnert Park soon will be complete. But don’t expect those to resolve anything. The rent for three-bedroom units will range from $2,400 to $2,675 a month.

These are the first market-rate units built in the county for about four years.

Not want housing? Tell that to residents of Sonoma, where, according to a recent consultant’s report, nearly one-third of renters spend more than half of their income on housing.

Tell that to city officials in Santa Rosa, Sonoma, Rohnert Park and other communities that are holding workshops, study sessions and brainstorming in search of ways to replace the key tool that cities previously had to create below-market-rate housing - redevelopment.

Which brings us back to the governor, as he was the one who wiped out redevelopment agencies in the first place. Granted, the system had been abused at times, and it returned billions of dollars in tax funds to local school districts and other agencies where the money belonged. But the fact remains that for first time in 30 years, California is making almost no investment in affordable housing. Up to now, the difficulty of losing those funds was masked by the fact that the housing market was comatose. Now the market has awakened, and many are finding themselves in a nightmare.

The odd thing was there wasn’t much daylight between how the governor answered my question and the response I got from a legislative leader - Senate Republican Leader Bob Huff, R-Diamond Bar. When I asked him during the morning session of the CNPA Government Affairs Day whether local officials could expect any help from Sacramento on the issue of affordable housing, his response was a discussion about high fees - as much as $100,000 in some cities - burdensome California Environmental Quality Act requirements and high expectations. He questioned whether the next generation of renters and homebuyers needed as much space as their parents. ““Maybe we don’t need to have all (the house) that we thought we needed,” he said.

Maybe.

He was followed by Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, who was more understanding of the problem and also more willing to confront it. She said she would soon be unveiling an affordable housing package to address the crisis. She noted that, on average a single homeless person in California incurs $2,987 per month in county costs for things such as emergency room visits, arrests and incarceration.

Housing advocates are hoping for a resurrection of SB 391, which calls for a $75 transfer fee on certain real estate transactions to be help pay for affordable housing. The bill, which needs a two-thirds vote of the Legislature, died in committee last year.

Atkins, who was a co-author, acknowledged that the $300 million to $700 million generated by the fee wouldn’t begin to replace the funds lost from redevelopment. But it would be a dedicated source of revenue for affordable housing. And it’s a start. “This is a time for investment,” she said.

But all in all, I came away from Sacramento with little confidence that local officials can expect any help soon.

I also came away with a nagging question as to whether the governor was right, that Sonoma County really doesn’t want more housing.

Yes, over the years, the county and its cities have created urban growth boundaries, community separators and policies that encourage transit-oriented and city-center development. But when a project comes through that meets these criteria, there’s still a fight, particularly when it involves high-density housing.

It appears that the county talks in theory about wanting housing but only approves them if:

It’s not too dense, too tall or too different from surrounding structures.

It doesn’t create traffic.

It doesn’t come with fireplaces, lawns or, God forbid, playground equipment.

It doesn’t hurt tiger salamanders or plants such as Sonoma sunshine, Burke’s goldfields and Sebastopol meadowfoam.

And it’s not built in my neighborhood.

As part of my next column, I plan to pose this question to elected leaders and others in the county and report back on their answers. In the meantime, feel free to email me your thoughts on whether you think the governor is right, that Sonoma County really doesn’t want more housing. He didn’t exactly take me up on my offer to come to Sonoma County - although I heard he was spotted at the Hyatt Vineyard Creek Hotel last weekend - but I’ll find a way to let him know your thoughts as well.

I t seems to me that if he is right, local officials owe it to people like those who lined up on West College last week to be straight with them - that their wait for a place is going to be a lot longer than two days. And that they may need to look someplace else.