Editorial: Grass Valley should rescind its housing policy
Housing starts have tumbled nationwide since 2007, according to calculatedriskblog.com
Since the policy was implemented in 2004, it has done little if anything to create affordable housing. If fact, the policy may be a deterrent to the construction of affordable housing, especially in today’s stagnant housing market.
Update:
The Grass Valley City Council voted 4-1 Tuesday night to rescind the affordable housing policy.
While it may sound harsh, the Grass Valley City Council should vote Tuesday evening to rescind its affordable housing policy.
Since the policy was implemented in 2004, it has done little if anything to create affordable housing. If fact, the policy may be a deterrent to the construction of affordable housing, especially in today’s stagnant housing market.
The city’s policy requires that 20 percent of the homes in new housing projects be affordable for low-to-moderate income people. To date, the city says the policy has resulted in the approval or construction of 92 units that are deemed affordable, which averages around 15 units a year.
In that same period of time, the city has approved plans to build 481 residential units.
The policy was approved as housing prices were skyrocketing in Nevada County. All of a sudden, a starter home was costing $300,000 unless it was a serious fixer upper.
Now, however, the housing market is stuck in the financial muck of our current economic crisis, leaving few opportunities for homebuilders. At the same time, home prices have fallen across the region.
Consequently, there’s no need for a policy that is generating dubious results at best and probably stretches the resources of City Hall. By rescinding the policy, the City Council reduces the red tape for housing projects and gives builders’ projects a better chance of penciling out.
More building activity would generate jobs and pump badly needed money into our local economy. It also would increase the overall housing stock, which will do more to keep housing prices at a somewhat reasonable level than any city policy.
The meeting starts at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 26, at Grass Valley City Hall at 125 E. Main Street. It will be broadcast live on NCTV-17 and streamed live on nevadacountytv.org.
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Simple homes are the future of a healthy communities. If government leaders recognizes this they will need to encourage them by addressing the costs that prevent feasibility rather than requiring them for large developments.
In this case it’s not the facts and it’s not the Brown Act, commonly called the open meeting law, which states:
“The Legislature finds and declares that the public commissions, boards and councils and the other public agencies in this State exist to aid in the conduct of the people's business. It is the intent of the law that their actions be taken openly and that their deliberations be conducted openly.”
Grass Valley City Council established their “Affordable Housing Subcommittee” in April 2007. I have claimed and the subsequent District Attorney investigation and determination agreed this Subcommittee is subject to the open meeting laws of the Brown Act, a position sadly denied by the City.
Meetings of this Subcommittee over years have been in direct violation of the Brown Act, not just an “innocuous mistake at one meeting” as Pat claimed. Pat also claimed the “third city councilor at the (January 7th) meeting reported the violation to the Grass Valley city attorney when she learned of it”.
Fact, it wasn’t an “innocuous mistake at one meeting”. Fact, I was the one that notified the City after the Subcommittee meeting where three Council members attended and participated in yet another violation of the Brown Act.
Over years the “invitations” to the Subcommittee meetings have been to a hand selected group of developers, the very same developers of approved projects that now want their affordable housing requirements canceled.
Pat wrote, “the source of the complaint is a longstanding and well-known opponent of growth”. I’m not an "opponent of growth", I’m an anti-sprawl, "smart growth", walkable-sustainable communities, mixed use land use planner.
The only project I have been against in Grass Valley is opening a cyanide leach mine in town. In all other cases I worked for better design that respects our great community.
The Brown Act states:
“The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may retain control over the instruments they have created”.
Government must be transparent, inclusive and responsive to the public. Trust between our elected representatives and the citizens to conduct the people's business openly, with public notice and not behind closed doors with hand-selected special interests is the foundation of our democratic system of representative government.
This trust is sacred and must be respected and protected with the highest level of consideration. It was very sad to read that Pat Butler and the Advocate don’t support this cause.
Steven B. Enos
Former Grass Valley City Council member, professional land use planner and advocate for sustainable, smart-growth development and the Brown Act. Steve can be reached at senos@localnet.com
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