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Results Elusive as Leaders Seek Answers to Nagging Issue

Results Elusive as Leaders Seek Answers to Nagging Issue

By PAT BRODERICK

San Diego Mayor Dick Murphy thinks his city has made “significant progress” in the area of affordable housing, but not everyone agrees. In fact, one man is downright frustrated.

Former City Manager Jack McGrory, who chaired the city’s Affordable Housing Task Force, wonders whatever happened to the state of emergency declared by the San Diego City Council on Aug. 6, 2002.

That declaration resulted in the creation of the task force, charged with returning to the City Council six months after its first meeting to offer solutions.

“We made 60 recommendations and we still haven’t gotten a full hearing,” McGrory said. “There is a large degree of disappointment.

“The council will spend two days on the cross at Mount Soledad. You’d think they could take up an issue that is so socially and economically important to San Diego right now.”

Murphy doesn’t see it that way, adding that since the report was issued, about 20 recommendations have been adopted, 10 rejected and others are in “various stages of being analyzed and pursued.”

“It’s a little unfair to say we haven’t had a full hearing,” Murphy said. “We did the condo conversion program and the expedite program. We do have other issues going on at City Hall besides affordable housing.”

The accomplishments Murphy cited involve the city’s inclusionary housing ordinance, which requires all new residential development projects to either provide affordable housing units, or pay in-lieu fees. It applies to condo conversions as well. The program speeds the permitting process for those who agree to build affordable housing.

Murphy also cited the council’s approval of relocation assistance, in the case of condo conversions, for households earning 100 percent or less of the average median income.

Otherwise, Murphy said: “The city of San Diego has built 5,000 affordable housing units in the 10-year period between 1992 and 2002. That’s 500 units a year. However, in the last two years, the city has built 3,000 affordable housing units, which is 1,500 per year. We have tripled production of affordable housing in the last two years.”

Murphy added there are 2,000 more units in the pipeline.

“The city issued a $55 million bond issue to fund affordable housing,” Murphy said. “We adopted that before the task force came forward. That was a significant act.

“I think we will probably have an expansion of the NOFA (Notice of Funding Actions) process and see if we can issue additional bonds to provide additional housing development subsidies.”

McGrory isn’t satisfied with the progress. When the task force made its recommendations, he said, some of them financial, “They scared the living hell out of the council.

“They have stonewalled and stonewalled.”

Why?

“Inertia,” McGrory suggested. “Apparently, they think it’s no longer a compelling need. Maybe they don’t have kids who can’t even afford to live here. We can’t be competitive and attract new businesses and let those here grow without doing something about this issue. We have become the least affordable region in the country and the high prices are not coming down.”

Political courage, he said, is needed.

“So far, there has been no desire shown by the mayor or council,” he said. “They’d just as soon see it buried in bureaucracy. It’s not even hitting the radar screen. They haven’t allocated a single nickel toward any of this.”

Murphy again disagreed.

“I am disappointed that Jack McGrory, a former city manager, would not understand the role of the mayor and council to allocate resources. While the housing need is great, our first priority is making sure police and fire departments are adequately staffed and equipped, and secondly, to be sure the city operates on a sound financial basis. We simply cannot afford to do everything he would like us to do.”

McGrory agreed some of the task force’s recommendations were acted upon.

“There’s been some low-hanging fruit they’ve picked up,” he said, “but the really tough issues , how much parking with affordable housing, infrastructure, financial issues , there are a lot of issues out there they need to focus on. Our recommendations lay this out very clearly for them and they haven’t done anything.”

City Councilman Scott Peters, who chairs the city’s Land Use and Housing Committee, called McGrory’s charges unfair.

“If there was low-hanging fruit, it was still on the tree before we got here and no one plucked it. We plucked it and we deserve some credit for plucking it.

“If you look at the record of this City Council on housing, it’s been substantial, better than the City Council before us. The inclusionary housing program is a totally new program. We issued a $55 million housing bond. We are not down-zoning areas as previous councils did.”

Not that Peters sees inclusionary housing as a panacea.

“My approach is to try to make San Diego attractive for housing investment in general,” he said. “We can’t expect the inclusionary housing program to solve all of our problems.”

One task force recommendation called for a 40 percent increase to the allocation of Community Development Block Grant funds.

In June 1996, that program was amended to establish a 20 percent target of an annual CDBG grant to be used for affordable housing.

But, according to the city’s Community and Economic Development Department, in a review of the most recent eight-year period, only 11 percent to 15 percent of the total grant money was allocated to affordable housing.

The city’s Land Use and Housing Committee has asked the city manager to analyze what the impact of a 20 percent housing allocation would have on the CDBG program.

“I would support increasing the Community Development Block Grant,” Peters said, “but not necessarily to 40 percent.”

City Councilwoman Toni Atkins, who considers affordable housing her “top issue,” said a possible increase of the CDBG allocation is “something to consider.” But, Atkins added, it’s important to look at the big picture.

“Some of those CDBG dollars go to pay for infrastructure to support density , lights, sidewalks, things that make the community livable,” Atkins said. “If we don’t start dealing with some of those priorities, people aren’t going to support density that, in turn, supports housing. It’s a chicken-and-egg situation.

“We need to prepare to do an infrastructure bond measure to fix all of those deferred maintenance projects so people have infrastructure to support housing.”

McGrory acknowledged many programs compete for the scarce resources. But, in a recent memo to the mayor and City Council, he pointed to the need to retain and recruit businesses and employees to the city and region.

Many other California cities, he wrote, have increased the allocations from CDBG and tax increment to provide more affordable housing: San Francisco averages 51 percent for housing from tax increment; Oakland, 25 percent; and Santa Ana, 30 percent.

Meanwhile, City Councilwoman Donna Frye, who also has taken on affordable housing as a pet project, worries about so-called solutions that “cut off your nose to spite your face.”

“The issue of converting employment land for housing has concerned me a lot,” she said. “I think we need to be very, very careful not to overreact on one side, saying, ‘Let’s take industrial lands and rezone them for housing.’ ”

For instance, she said, “If you have land zoned industrial in Kearny Mesa, you declare a housing emergency then all of a sudden you say, ‘Let’s turn those lands into housing.’ What happens to the people already here in industrial areas? They think they could stay there another 20 years, because of room to expand. That is eliminating land for existing companies.”

Further complicating the issue, she said, is what happens to existing industry on those lands and new ones.

“When you put in housing, there are laws about what you can do in business according to how close you are to residents,” Frye said. “There are zoning issues that come up when you are attracting new business. Maybe they make a lot of noise, have a lot of trucks, maybe they pollute a little bit. Where do we put them?

“If we’re serious about living close to where we work, if we eliminate employment land, how does that work? Creating jobs is the very thing that helps people get affordable housing.”

And, Frye added, there is the issue of competition between commercial/industrial builders vs. residential builders.

The commercial/industrial developers, said Frye, “will be competing against people who will pay more, rather than on a level playing field with someone else in their industry.

“It really bothers me. You have to look at the jobs issue, transportation, parks, environment, infrastructure. You just can’t plop down a bunch of housing and say the problem has gone away. Where do you get the services, fire, police, parks to take your kids to play? Where are the schools, water, sewer, streets and sidewalks? How are we going to pay for that? These are things you need to provide.”

The problem, she said, is the tendency to isolate issues.

“We’ve tried to separate things from each other,” Frye said. “But they are inseparable , to make sure there are schools, libraries, adequate sewers and water. There is a capacity issue, a quality of life issue. You have to address those. What’s the point of building housing that diminishes the quality of life? I don’t think that is the goal.

“There is no easy solution,” she said. “It’s life. I’m trying to be a realist. The problem is not going to get solved overnight, even with a large influx of money, until the city has an overall change of the way it does the budget, financial management, addresses the environmental issues, deals with the pension. It’s all tied together. Maybe that’s too harsh, but it’s the way I see it.”

But Frye sees resistance.

“With people who are building housing, you say, ‘We need impact fees,’ and they scream bloody murder. ‘It’s too expensive, we can’t afford it.’ We go in a circle.”

Mitch Mitchell, the vice president of public policy and communications for the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce, said, “Mrs. Frye and I agree there is a crisis.”

One of the problems, said Mitchell, is the NIMBY syndrome , Not in My Back Yard.

“We sit in amazement and hear people say, ‘You can’t build because we don’t want that kind of housing in our neighborhood,'” Mitchell said. “A $200,000 house? Is that a bad product in your neighborhood? Is a schoolteacher a bad thing for the neighborhood? A family with working adults and a couple of children who buy a $350,000 town home? Why is that bad? You see this attitude now more than ever.”

Murphy believes more and more communities are recognizing the need for affordable housing, but added, “I think we must be careful that we have community support for these things. It’s important how the housing looks physically , not cardboard boxes on the corner, but attractive buildings, well-appointed landscaping, seen as an aesthetic improvement to the neighborhood.”

Solutions Through Partnerships

Measuring the progress of affordable housing development can come down to perceptions, said Atkins, whose 3rd District includes Burlingame, City Heights, Hillcrest, Kensington, Mid-City, Normal Heights, North Park, South Park, Talmadge, University Heights and Uptown, all of Balboa Park and the northernmost portion of Golden Hill.

“There are hundreds and hundreds of units being built in my district right now that are affordable, but they’re not open today,” she said. “Housing is not going to be felt today because it’s not ready today.”

As the housing is completed, said Atkins, the word should go out.

“We probably need a lot more grand openings to projects, so people can see where the money went. We’re not telling our story very well.”

But, Frye said, at least the issue is being raised.

“The positive thing that has happened is we are having a discussion, taking the issue seriously. Things don’t always move as quickly as we would like,” Frye said. “They don’t always result in immediate change. It’s not that simple. You just don’t build more housing. You have to look at what other things come into the picture. You can’t focus on housing in a vacuum. There are other things that influence the timing of things.”

While solutions are possible to some degree, said Frye, there are limits to what can be accomplished.

“When people say, ‘Golly, you haven’t solved the housing crisis. What are you guys doing?’ I don’t think anybody is going to be able to solve the housing crisis,” she said. “There always are going to be situations where people can’t afford homes.”

Elizabeth C. Morris, the president and chief executive officer of the San Diego Housing Commission, sees collaboration as the key.

“Most of us are on the same page on most of the issues,” she said. “Solutions will come through partnerships, the city working with business and the building industry, advocacy groups. The more we collaborate, the more we can get done.”

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