PD Editorial: Homes needed for workers, residents not tourists

When economist Christopher Thornberg spoke at the annual Sonoma County forecast breakfast on Nov. 17, he shocked many when he predicted that the region would need some 6,300 construction workers each year until 2020 to rebuild the homes that were lost in the fires.

That’s a tall order, particularly given that the region just lost 5,100 residences, some 1,000 more than all of the single-family houses built in the county over the past decade.

But the biggest challenge, Thornberg said, is that this need comes at a time when both the region’s labor force and existing housing stock have been on the decline.

“You have fewer people in the work force,” he said, a result of both low unemployment and high housing costs. Meanwhile, the number of occupied single-family rentals in the region has actually dropped by 3,300 over the last couple of years, he said. That’s primarily because of the number of homeowners who have shifted their rental properties to being weekend or week-long vacation rentals. “The housing stock that you do have, which is barely growing at all, is getting shifted into tourism,” Thornberg said. “Right now, unfortunately, tourists are beating the residents for that limited supply.”

This is a competition that Sonoma County can’t afford to lose.

It’s a dilemma that underscores the importance of what the Santa Rosa City Council did last week in encouraging housing development by easing the rules for the construction of detached “granny” units on single-family lots. But almost more important was the action the council took to prevent these units from becoming vacation rentals. Owners will be prohibited from renting them out for less than 30 days.

“We’re doing this to provide housing, not lodging,” Mayor Chris Coursey said.

The mayor is right. Sonoma County can’t afford to lose any more houses to vacationers.

The 30-day restriction is allowed under new legislation that gives cities the ability to streamline rules for “accessory dwelling units” to make them cheaper and easier to build. Granny units are attached or detached independent living units that are no larger than 1,200 square feet in size and include cooking and bathing facilities. They are a relatively easy way for California to bolster its stock of affordable housing.

But as Thornberg emphasized last month, this area is not just in need of low-income housing. It needs housing of all kinds, which places all the more importance on the success of the city’s Housing Action Plan which calls for the construction of 5,000 units and 2,500 affordable units by 2023.

The council made clear on Tuesday that it did not want the discussion about granny units to become a debate about the city’s vacation rental policy. But given the city’s need to preserve its existing housing stock, all while overseeing the construction of new homes and the rebuilding of burned ones, it’s clear these issues have already become inseparable.