Hollister
– Apartment-to-condominium conversions might not resume until
the city’s building moratorium ends at the end of 2008.
Hollister – Apartment-to-condominium conversions might not resume until the city’s building moratorium ends at the end of 2008.
The Hollister Planning Commission approved an ordinance Thursday to limit such conversions to 25 percent of new apartment construction in the past two years. With no apartments built since the moratorium began in 2002, the restriction means no conversions would be allowed until apartment construction begins again.
The City Council will likely introduce the ordinance on Aug. 20 and could give final approval in September, Planning Manager Mary Paxton said.
“Part of the logic is that there’s a critical need for (rental housing) and a limited stock,” Paxton said.
The council brought a temporary halt to conversions in February after the Planning Commission approved the conversion of four projects totaling 44 units in less than three months. At the time, councilmembers and staffers said the city needed to protect its small supply of rental housing while formulating a more long-term solution.
Not every commissioner was happy with the decision. Commissioner Raymond Friend said the planning department did a good job of putting the law together, but he argued that the whole concept is misguided.
“I realize … we have to do something about affordable housing,” Friend said. But he said the new ordinance will end up hurting the developers who “helped build Hollister” and is a particularly bad idea because San Benito County doesn’t impose any similar restrictions.
“We’ve taken the right to retire in the sunshine away from (the developers),” Friend said. “Now you’re telling everybody, ‘Move 100 yards down the road into the county.'”
Historically, most multi-family housing has been built within city limits, Paxton said.
Commission Chairman David Huboi took a different tack, saying the ordinance presents a good balance between protecting rights of developers and those of renters.
“I think this ordinance does take (property rights) into consideration,” Huboi said.
Huboi also wondered if some groups – namely, seniors and tenants with children – who are displaced by apartment conversions might need more than the three months of relocation time provided in the ordinance.
City Attorney Stephanie Atigh noted that tenants would actually have much longer than three months because landlords would need to have all conversions approved by the city.
“It’s not like (tenants) didn’t have notice all along the process,” Atigh said.
At that city workshop in May, Assistant Planner Abraham Prado said Hollister’s general plan calls for multi-family housing to make up 20 percent of the overall stock, but the city’s stock is only 17.3 percent multi-family housing. Hollister’s 2.1 percent housing vacancy rate is also far below normal, Prado said.
