HomeMy WebLinkAbout1/15/2019 Item 9, Schmidt
To the City Council
Re: Appeal of 790 Foothill project
Jan. 12, 2019
Dear Council Members:
I support James Lopes’ appeal on 790 Foothill. In my opinion, as a planner, affordable housing
advocate and citizen, his appeal is spot on.
Rather than be repetitive of other input, I wish to raise somewhat different issues, for the
furtherance of this project is an absolute disaster for affordable housing in SLO.
1. This project’s units are an example of unsustainable housing design. The key to
sustainability is future adaptability. These units are weird: large bedrooms meant to be divided
into multiple rooms; minimal food prep/dining facilities and space; minimal social space; no
outdoor play space so the units would never be suitable for working families. The units are
unadaptable from their “student housing” purpose. So if the use fails, then what?
For a “green city” to permit such an unsustainable design is just plain wrong. This is the sort of
inadaptability that leads to buildings being demolished long before the environmental impact
of building them is offset. That’s a definition of being unsustainable.
2. The “affordable housing” component is an inhumane and indecent gesture. Inclusionary
housing is supposed to be like the market housing to which it is attached, not a diminished
inferior product stigmatized by its placement. This project has multi-bedroom market units and
dinky studio “affordable” units. This contravenes the very concept behind inclusionary housing.
It creates the stigma of readily-distinguishable poor people’s units. Of course, the very concept
of having public affordable housing in a student dorm is itself weird.
3. Are you actually going to get any affordable units offered through HASLO? One has to ask
that because of this developer’s two predecessor projects.
• 22 Chorro was supposed to have a tier of similarly stigmatized affordable studios rented
through HASLO. Four months after occupancy of market units in the project, they remain
vacant. Why if we have such a huge need for such housing? Neighbors who have tried to find
out have been given the royal runaround. They’ve been told: you have to rent through the
apartment manager; you have to rent through HASLO; HASLO has told some they know nothing
about the units; to others they’ve said before they can answer a question like that one must
apply for a unit. And so the units remain VACANT, with nobody providing answers why.
• 71 Palomar, still under construction, is also to have studio units we were told would rent
through HASLO. But studio units are being advertised for rent by the apartment manager for
$1075 monthly (“shared,” whatever that means, which certainly doesn’t sound like an
affordable rate.
Why does this matter? Because the affordable units were the ploy used to get the exceptions
that are at the heart of this appeal.
4. Is the claimed number of bedrooms in the 790 Foothill units, upon which parking
requirements are based, truthful? It is clear the double-door bedrooms are meant to be
divided. Again, look at advertising for 71 Palomar, where the approved units had “2” or “3”
bedrooms.
https://www.theacademypalomar.com/academy-palomar-san-luis-obispo-ca/floorplans
Note how these are presented – 4 or 5 “private” rooms! As in private bedroom. Not shared
bedrooms as plans showed.
The city did not approve any four or five bedroom units! Only two or three bedroom units.
If the city looks the other way when presented such evidence, it’s approving developers not
telling the truth about their intent when they present projects. It’s a matter of integrity and
respect for truth that this misbehavior be factored into your appeal decision.
5. This project’s development in its “student dorm” configuration will only make our
affordable housing problems worse. This is because SLO housing prices are not set within the
generally low-wage economy working people here exist in. Our ability to pay does not enter in
to setting our community’s housing costs. Instead, they are set by two major external forces:
A. First: Student housing costs. This developer’s projects have escalated student housing costs,
exploiting students for maximum profit. (My CPSU students told me four years ago they paid
$500-$700 per person per month, and they scoffed at Icon’s ability to rent “luxury” lodgings for
$1,000 per month. With Palomar, this developer has pushed the top to near $1400 per month.)
So what does this do to housing costs for the rest of us? A 3-bedroom rental house is now
worth at least $4,200 per month (one person per bedroom), even $8,400 per month with
double occupancy. Working families can’t compete! House sale prices escalate similarly: the
mortgage on a million dollar house can be covered by student renters. In our neighborhood,
near these projects, we’ve seen little houses recently sell for nearly a million $$ and students
move in.
Our experience with these projects shows the folly of a “any kind of housing anyplace” housing
policy, unless, of course, the intent is make housing unaffordable for working people.
790 Foothill provides the wrong kind of housing to benefit the working people of SLO, and
makes housing cost more for all of us.
B. Second: Our housing prices aren’t set here. Some years ago I walked into an “open house”
down the street out of curiosity, and was horrified to see a price way above what neighborhood
houses were selling for. I asked the agent who he thought could afford such a price, and he
responded: “People from places where they’re familiar with prices like this.” And so it has been
ever since. Our prices have become tied to those in more costly places.
Today our prices are actually set in places like Moscow, London, Rio, Mumbai and Shanghai
where there’s spare cash looking for places to go. This affects us partly by foreign investments
in cities to our north, south and east, which drive up prices there making our housing look
reasonable by comparison to people who want to get out, but also by direct foreign investment
here in SLO. For example, Indian investors have bought up a large number of single family
houses.
Which brings us full circle to 790 Foothill. With 22 Chorro, this developer, who at approval time
had said he was in it for the long term, flipped the project before completion to a national
“luxury student housing” management company and British investors. These investors speak of
their “San Luis Obispo investments” – note the plural – suggesting they’ve purchased a package
deal. They have no interest in our needs, only in their own bottom lines.
In conclusion, this project needs to go back to the drawing board, to provide the sort of housing
needed by working people who live here permanently, rather than as a high-priced transient
occupancy that hurts the rest of us by driving housing prices skyward.
Richard Schmidt