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Most people are (painfully) aware that we are in the midst of a serious housing crisis. I’m concerned that passage of Measure A on the San Benito County ballot will put decent, affordable housing further out of reach for all members of our community. The housing crisis is on the national, state and local levels. It is impacting families at all income levels. We see it in increasing homelessness, not just mentally disabled single people, but also in working families. Low income families who aren’t fortunate enough to obtain scarce housing subsidies are paying more than half their income in rent, leaving them essentially in poverty when buying food and other necessities of life. Some families are doubling or tripling up on rentals, or living in other substandard housing situations. Even middle income families in San Benito County find it almost impossible to find local homes at a price that is affordable. Market rate housing developers are not building homes to meet our local needs.
There are many factors that have led to this increasingly dire housing crisis. A big one is supply. The state of California is many millions of units behind in meeting the housing needs of those who live in the state. This lack of an adequate housing supply has grown worse every year, as the state continues to fall short on needed housing production. When supply doesn’t keep up with demand, prices go up.
A big reason for the housing supply shortage is the long history of California cities and counties erecting financial and regulatory barriers that stifle housing production in their jurisdictions. This is particularly the case in higher priced coastal parts of the state, such as San Benito County. These barriers to the development of new housing have been driven by no growth and slow growth forces, who don’t want to see change in their communities. Most people recognize the housing shortage, and say build it, but “Not in my backyard,” or NIMBY. These actions in hundreds of individual communities up and down the state have led to the growing shortfall in housing units.
The limitations that local governments put on new housing construction may seem to make sense in the local context, but when overlaid over many communities across the state, the result is the under production of new housing. The state legislature has recognized this, and has passed a number of bills over the last several years that are aimed at requiring cities and counties to allow more housing construction. This is reflected in the Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) numbers, where the state requires each jurisdiction to build their fair share of new housing, and puts new limitations on the ability of local government to use zoning to prevent new home construction. They’re taking these actions to overcome the cumulative effect of NIMBY-driven growth control across the state.
I’ve lived in San Benito County for fifty-four years, and I’m not a big fan of all that has come with population growth. I don’t think that the solution to our housing crisis is to just blindly build, build, build everywhere. My career was with a nonprofit developing affordable housing. I worked on the creation of hundreds of low income apartments and mutual self help homes in San Benito and neighboring counties. I know what a complex, intractable problem this is, that won’t be resolved with simplistic solutions. It’s easy to jump on the slow growth bandwagon and put up more barriers to housing. But what about all of the people who live and work in San Benito County, and are priced out of the market. Slow housing growth means increased housing costs.
I’m concerned that if the Empower Voters initiative is passed by San Benito Voters in November, it will effectively stop all housing development in the county. What home builder would invest in a project in San Benito County with the prospect of PORC campaigning to defeat them at the ballot box? I understand the motivation, with traffic on Highway 25 and other strains on our infrastructure. It doesn’t make sense for us to continue to build large numbers of high priced homes for Silicon Valley commuters. But we do need to find a way to create housing that is affordable to our children and to people who work here in the county. The Stop All New Housing advocates appeal to our frustration with crowded roads, but offer a solution that will cause our residents to continue to be under-housed. I recommend a no vote on Measure A. We need a grassroots effort to find consensus on creating zoning that will shift our housing production from high priced commuter homes to smaller units affordable to locals, and zoning that will protect high quality ag lands from being developed. Please vote No on Measure A.