PD Editorial: Advancing the conversation about housing

California has a housing affordability crisis, and neither the marketplace nor government can fix it alone. This is a multifaceted challenge that needs public-private coordination and buy-in from all Californians. A $3 billion bond measure proposed in Sacramento could jump-start that conversation.

Healthy communities offer diverse housing options for people up and down the economic ladder. Business owners, well-to-do retirees, shopkeepers, farm laborers and restaurant servers all need a place to live. When they cannot find one, negative effects ripple out. For example, if workers must live far away from their place of employment, they wind up driving farther, which increases emissions and traffic volume, or demand greater access to public transit in a widening service area, which costs taxpayers.

Last year, the median home price in Sonoma County hit $600,000, nearly a 10 percent increase from the previous year. That sort of valuation landed the county as the 10th least-affordable place to live in the entire country.

Lawmakers in Sacramento have many ideas about what to do. They’ve introduced more than 130 bills to tackle different aspects of the housing challenge. Some of them are good, and some not so much. One that caught our eye immediately is one that we are still not sure about.

Legislators, including state Sen. Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg, and state Sen. Bill Dodd, D-Napa, want to ask voters to approve a $3 billion bond measure to help fund affordable housing projects and low-income housing programs around the state. State tax revenue would pay off the bonds over decades.

That is a hefty price tag, to be sure. The legislation identifies broad categories including multifamily housing and transit-oriented and infill development, but Californians would need to know a lot more about the projects it would fund and what the measures of success would be before endorsing it. Placing a bond measure on the ballot is one way to ensure that conversation takes place.

It’s often too easy to look away from families and individuals who struggle to find housing they can afford. A $3 billion bond measure makes looking away a lot harder.

Voters approved a similar measure for $2.85 billion in 2006 with 58 percent support. That measure paid for a lot of projects, and it is a fair question why another bond is appropriate little more than a decade later. It certainly seems as if things have gotten worse, not better. Certainly the intervening recession deserves some of the blame.

Supporters of the bond measure need to make a strong case to voters. The anti-tax crowd will make the case on the other side.

The housing crisis will not solve itself, and Californians need to have a frank conversation about how much they are willing to pay and how much they are willing to tolerate. A bond might be one part of the solution. Let’s talk about it.