More than 300 new affordable homes must await the pleasure of a
new city council
The fate of hundreds of new affordable homes for South Valley
residents is hanging in limbo awaiting a ruling later this month by
the Gilroy City Council.
In a tangled set of rulings last month, the council split a vote
that effectively approved a 303-unit South County Housing project,
while by virtue of a 3-3-1 tie (Mayor Al Pinhiero abstaining), shot
down a key amendment to the city’s affordable housing law that
would have been necessary to allow the Rancho del Sol project to
move forward.
More than 300 new affordable homes must await the pleasure of a new city council
The fate of hundreds of new affordable homes for South Valley residents is hanging in limbo awaiting a ruling later this month by the Gilroy City Council.
In a tangled set of rulings last month, the council split a vote that effectively approved a 303-unit South County Housing project, while by virtue of a 3-3-1 tie (Mayor Al Pinhiero abstaining), shot down a key amendment to the city’s affordable housing law that would have been necessary to allow the Rancho del Sol project to move forward.
At present, city law requires affordable projects to cap the number of units at 225. So either South County Housing will need to scale back the project or the council will need to take another look at language amending the law to allow for more than 225 units.
The latter is a longer shot, considering another twist in the debate: the new makeup of the city council. Since the Dec. 19 meeting, two newly elected councilmen have taken their seats on the dais – Dion Bracco, a conservative, and Peter Arellano, a liberal.
On paper, the November election replaced a liberal with a liberal and a conservative with a conservative, a zero-sum gain. But during the Dec. 19 decision, Bob Dillon, a conservative who lost his reelection bid, voted for the project but against the amendment, citing concerns that the language of the amendment was tantamount to writing “specific legislation for individuals,” he said.
“I trust South County Housing,” Dillon said. “It’s who comes behind them I’m worried about.”
Still, Dillon voted for the project, and consequently kept it alive. But he was effectively replaced in the November election by Bracco, a fellow conservative who as a planning commissioner voted against the project when it originally came before the commissioners.
Both South County Housing and individual council members confirmed that SCH executive director Dennis Lalor is negotiating this week with council members to determine what they will, or will not, accept.
SCH project manager Karen Saunders noted that “everyone understands that the current ordinance is really, really old and doesn’t reflect the reality today. We need new language that reflects current thinking.”
Indeed, if the council were to approve the project, 303 units would chew up all but six affordable housing allotments designed to last until 2013. Some affordable housing proponents argue that with a mere 18 percent of Santa Clara County residents able to afford a median priced home – as of November pegged at $745,000 – a cap on additional affordable units is not a sound policy.
The language South County Housing proposed would have changed the 225-unit cap on individual projects, not the citywide allotment – the affordable housing component of the Residential Development Ordinance, which determines the number of houses that can be built within the city limits.
The project itself is comprised of layers of so-called affordable homes (See accompanying graph). In its present form, Rancho del Sol would incorporate 76 market-rate homes, 148 “affordable” homes and 79 apartments.
The affordable component is based on percentages of the county’s median household income. For example, 25 percent of the homes would be sold to people who earn between $74,335 (the SCC median income) and $118,936 (160 percent of the median). Another 19 percent would be targeted toward those households that earn between $63,928 and $79,538 per year. On the other end of the spectrum, 26 percent would target households that earn between $22,300 and $44,601, which was a sticking point for Dillon.
“I’d like to see more affordable houses in the project,” he said.
City Planner Melissa Durkin wrote in a November report to City Administrator Jay Baksa, which the Planning Commission approved, that the project was consistent with all the criteria for affordable housing units in Gilroy, with one exception that was earmarked as “marginally” consistent because of an existing concentration of affordable homes in the project area.
Slated to be built north and south of the future extension of Cohansey Avenue in north Gilroy, the immediate area is already home to 280 existing affordable housing units and the new Sobrato Transitional Center a half-mile away.
But Durkin notes that among the elements of the Rancho del Sol project that would offset that concentration are the mixes of affordability, as well as the 76 market-rate homes. Many of the nearby affordable homes have already transitioned to market-rate house through change of ownership.
“Because these projects are affordable to a mixture of incomes, people of various incomes and backgrounds are living together,” Durkin wrote. “In the long term, this creates more sustainable neighborhoods, and better planned communities.”
