Oct 16, 2007

Housing requirement creates schism

City divided over growth guidelines

By Kristina Peterson / Daily News Staff Writer

A split occurred in Palo Alto Monday night over whether the city can support its sizable share of a regional affordable housing plan.

Divided residents and a fractured city council took passionate stances at Monday night's study session over whether the city can build 2,860 more affordable homes by 2015.

Every seven years, the state Department of Housing and Community Development releases a statewide affordable housing goal, which the Association of Bay Area Governments then divvies up among local cities.

Following a process of appeals that ends in June 2008 for the next seven-year period, the city will have one year to develop a housing plan that identifies where the affordable units can be built and create appropriate zoning, in order to be certified by the state and remain eligible for housing grants and tax credits, said the city's Planning and Transportation Director Steve Emslie.

Emslie said the city has little discretion over ABAG's housing allocations.

"They're really not guidelines at all. They legally amount to mandates," Emslie said.

If the city does not meet its requirement, it would be open to lawsuits from public interest groups and could lose state grant money.

Still, the housing numbers provoked strong disagreement among both residents and council members over whether Palo Alto has the physical space to accommodate thousands more homes and whether the city should be actively working to reduce its allocation during the appeals process.

Already, city staff has succeeded in persuading ABAG to transfer 645 units originally assigned to Palo Alto to unincorporated Santa Clara County, where they are currently being built by Stanford University, Emslie said. And city staff is also hoping to persuade ABAG that its "aggressive growth estimates" are erroneous, resulting in a need for fewer homes. Emslie said they expect a reply next month.

But many residents argued that Palo Alto, as an affluent community, must commit to regional housing planning and build its fair share of housing if it intends to live up to its environmental goals.

"The region is trying to house more of its workers, current and future, within the region," said Stephen Levy, director of the Center for the Continuing Study of the California Economy in Palo Alto.

Minimizing the distance between work, home and social activities will help reduce family energy consumption, said Palo Alto resident Steve Raney. "Pro 2,860 (units) means pro-climate," Raney said.

And showing unusual ire, Council Member John Barton said while difficult, embracing the housing guidelines is necessary.

"We can't talk about being green and sustainable and do it with a few LEED-certified buildings," he said, referring to the U.S. Green Building Council's design guidelines.

But other community members countered this statement with equal fervor.

"As much as we want to be green, we have to be realistic," said Council Member Jack Morton, who called the housing situation "an impossible problem."

Resident Bob Moss estimated that building the recommended number of units would require an additional 70 acres of land.

"Let's get real," said an openly frustrated Vice Mayor Larry Klein. "Has anybody from ABAG tried to identify where those 70 acres are?"

And Council Member Judy Kleinberg worried about the lack of public transportation in the area and the impact on local schools of more families flooding the city.

Council Member Bern Beecham said the debate over the allocation is pointless.

"It doesn't matter because this won't happen," he said. "This community will never support these numbers."

But not giving in to regional demands may carry a price, he warned. Palo Alto's unwillingness to build more housing may represent its "signature failure" in the fight against global warming.

"I don't care to see my neighborhood bulldozed, but I'm frustrated by what that means for the future," Beecham said.

The process of refining each city's housing allocation will continue until next June.



E-mail Kristina Peterson at kpeterson@dailynewsgroup.com.