San Benito County’s requirements for low-income housing in new
developments have driven off developers for nearly six years.
Supervisors should respond by relaxing the mandates
– including a halt to one that 30 percent of new units must be
designated as affordable – and examining what kind of partnership
they can form with the city to ensure the balance of low-income and
market-rate housing makes sense for the entire county.
San Benito County’s requirements for low-income housing in new developments have driven off developers for nearly six years. Supervisors should respond by relaxing the mandates – including a halt to one that 30 percent of new units must be designated as affordable – and examining what kind of partnership they can form with the city to ensure the balance of low-income and market-rate housing makes sense for the entire county.
There are an array of areas in which county and city leaders should end their isolationist approaches to serving the same public. Perhaps none is more glaring than their respective independence when it comes to affordable housing, most of which belongs in the city where residents are close to essential services and public transportation as opposed to being scattered throughout the vast geographic areas of unincorporated San Benito County.
County planning commissioners took a bold yet refreshing tack recently when they broadened the planning staff’s initial recommendation – to lower the low-income requirement from 30 percent to 20 percent – and urged supervisors to instead drop the minimum affordable mandate altogether. They reasoned, appropriately, that the far-reaching law has flat-lined development in county limits, that the only way to potentially reverse this disturbing trend is to rewrite the ordinance and attempt to spark a healthier, more sustainable level of development.
There always will be residents who oppose any level of growth. But it’s proven that development activity is necessary in a civilized culture to sustain services and improve infrastructure. It’s needed to recruit new business to the area, to keep the local economy rolling and, we hope, spur progress.
San Benito County’s growth-related laws for years have discouraged builders from even considering this area. Aside from the relatively inflated affordable requirement – many other counties do not have a similar ordinances, and most that do have far more relaxed mandates – the county’s 1 percent annual growth cap all but tells big builders they’re not welcome unless they’re willing to lose money or invest a lot of time toward making a little.
With the housing market’s tumble, builders’ profit margins have fallen. When they’re considering how to get the most with their investments, such businesspeople likely will look and walk the other way at a time like this because luxury homes have potential to make money, after all, and low-income units lose money.
Rapidly declining market values in San Benito County have underscored the need to make a drastic change now and focus on finding the right formula – ideally a flexible one – for the long term. In the short term, there is an abundance of affordable housing available right now due to the vast devaluation of property here over the past several years. There is no need to require a minimum allocation, for social means, at this point.
The ordinance, when changed, should include an emphasis on providing flexibility to coincide with the cyclical nature of the market, and provisions that would make San Benito County more competitive for developers’ business.
Above all, it should involve a partnership with the City of Hollister that pinpoints the most appropriate locations for affordable housing and works to ensure both governments are doing their parts to provide it, when needed.
Until that point when the market gets rolling again, any sort of affordable requirement merely stands to continue pushing away builders and it is certain to drag down the local economy as long as it does.
