The City Council’s decision to extend the temporary moratorium
on the conversion of apartments to condominiums goes down like a
spoonful of castor oil. It’s hard to swallow, but it should help
cure what ails us.
The City Council’s decision to extend the temporary moratorium on the conversion of apartments to condominiums goes down like a spoonful of castor oil. It’s hard to swallow, but it should help cure what ails us.
The ailment in question is the current shortage of rental housing in Hollister.
According to a city report, the rental vacancy rate here is 2.1 percent – less than half of what it should be in a healthy housing market. A trend that emerged in recent months, when four apartment complexes containing a total of 44 units were approved for conversion to condominiums between mid-November and mid-January, was threatening to make the rental squeeze even worse.
So, yes, the council did the right thing Monday night in extending for up to 10 months the moratorium on such conversions. The extension, we are told, was granted to allow city staff the time to formulate policies for dealing with the situation.
But what makes it hard to swallow is that the original moratorium on condo conversions was adopted four weeks ago for exactly the same reason – to allow time to come up with policies for dealing with the situation.
At Monday’s council meeting, City Manager Clint Quilter said it should take less than 10 months to develop a long-term plan and the policies to put that plan into play. Quilter also promised a timetable for progress by the council’s April 2 meeting.
It’s imperative that the council push for quick action on the matter and make clear that this temporary moratorium can only be temporary. Just as the city is looking out for the interests of people who need affordable rental housing, so must it be respectful of the rights of the owners of apartment complexes who might wish to sell their units as condominiums.
Beyond that, the availability of more condominiums in the local market could be a key element in the bigger picture of solving Hollister’s affordable housing crisis. With the median price of single-family homes hovering at $600,000, condos offer an attractive alternative to young professionals, empty nesters and others who have been priced out of home ownership here.
That other moratorium – the one imposed five years ago by the state on sewer hookups – has already caused a lot of pain in Hollister. If the City Council makes sure that this moratorium is as short-lived as possible and that there is a good plan in place to allow condominium conversions while preserving an adequate supply of rental housing, we could all be feeling better soon.
