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Home My WebLink About7/11/2017 Item 1, Harris Purrington, Teresa From:Johnson, Derek Sent:Wednesday, July 12, 2017 11:21 AM To:Adrienne Harris Cc:Codron, Michael; Wiseman, Jenny; Purrington, Teresa Subject:RE: Further Input for Affordable Housing Forum Hi Adrienne, Thank you for attending and providing some thoughtful comments based on your experience with housing issues. I have copied other staff who will make sure that your thoughtful comments are included in the record and forwarded to the City Council for further consideration. All the best, Derek From: Adrienne Harris \[ ] Sent: Wednesday, July 12, 2017 11:02 AM To: Johnson, Derek <djohnson@slocity.org> Subject: Further Input for Affordable Housing Forum Dear Derek, Thank you for the opportunity to provide additional suggesting and comments after last night’s affordable housing forum, since we didn’t have time in our small group to gather all input. I also want to thank the city for holding such a forum for the public. It is helpful to learn more about the legal constraints the city faces and it is nice to have an opportunity to discuss the issues outside of formal public comment. As we mentioned, the presentations on CA state law were very quick, I know I’d appreciate more information on the city website that explains the legal framework simply. Suggested Solutions to Consider (Question 3) – It seems the city has three main avenues it can take on the below ideas – a regulatory one, an incentive-based one, or an advocacy role (aka encouraging dialog at the community, regional, or State level). Since I’m not familiar enough about the legal constraints the city faces or the financial resources available, I will avoid suggesting which avenue to pursue for each solution suggestion.  Pursue more deed restrictions to promote owner-occupied homes.  Pursue programs that promote housing sales to “workforce” by the affordability definition of the county or city. Possibly encourage developer lotteries for people who work in SLO. Require developers to build a large percentage of new housing stock under the “workforce” or “moderate” categories. Bring back private or public down payment assistance. Currently, developers are only promising to build workforce housing “by design”, but there are no guarantees that the final product on the market will be affordable.  Create more well-designed multi-family housing. Integrate this into single-family housing and commercial uses to have multi-use, walkable neighborhoods. Make sure that the multi-family housing is, in fact, an area where families would want to live (i.e. ensure there are useable community spaces incorporated into the development). For many working families, they would prefer to buy a single- 1 family home because it has a yard, which is pretty essential when you have small children. Yet, working families can’t afford the prices for the single-family homes in SLO. Townhomes and condos are more affordable, but lack places for children to play. I suggest looking at the co-housing model for design ideas of how to make multi-family housing more appealing. Homes are more compact, but amenities like playgrounds, community gardens, and community buildings are part of the development, allowing homeowners to live in a smaller space, but have community spaces to access close by.  Address Issues of Childcare Affordability in SLO – Tangentially related to the issue of affordable housing is affordable, quality childcare for working families in SLO. The cost of childcare and early education impacts how much financial resources working families have for housing. They are now estimating that early childhood childcare costs more than a college education. I’d like to see the city promote dialog with the chamber, local businesses, and other groups about this issue and explore public/private partnerships to provide more affordable, quality care options.  HOA fees – I don’t understand all the laws surrounding these, but I know that they add to the large sum required. High fees make it more difficult for buyers to afford townhomes and condos, etc. Not exactly sure what the city can do, but it is an issue that adds to the affordability problem.  ADU – Very excited to hear the city has adopted new regulations as I think this is an important solution to pursue. Please continue to make it easy for these to be added to existing property and future property. Question 1 – How is the situation impacting the public? I want to take this opportunity to talk more about the challenges faced by working families in SLO since we didn’t specifically talk about that sub-group. Working families can’t afford SLO housing, so they are living in surrounding areas, commuting, and adding to traffic. These “trips” aren’t just to work and back, but also to take children to school, daycare, activities, etc., adding additional “trips”, compounding the commute traffic problem. I believe making a concerted effort to create housing opportunities in walkable, mixed use areas for this sub-group will be particularly important to help with regional traffic. Trust me, parents don’t like to drive with little kids if they can help it! We’d much prefer to walk or bike. Given the realities of the CA housing situation, most working families aren’t going to be able to obtain that single-family home (aka white picket fence) ideal. So, let’s create denser housing that still meets the unique needs of this sub-group (i.e. space!) If homes can’t have garages or yards, ensure developments have parks, community gardens, natural areas (trees!), community storage, community multi-use buildings, etc. This may also promote more community connection among residents, a great added bonus! As people are having children later in life, working families have children to raise at the same time that they need to take care of aging parents. Again, having mixed-use, multi-family housing with a variety of size options (include accessible units) in one area will help family members live close to each other if desired. ADU's can also help with this issue. I’m happy to hear the city is working on affordability standards for “workforce” housing. I think this standard is much needed. For families that are close to qualifying for “moderate” or “low” or any other category, they can’t afford the homes here. I am surprised to see that the city takes into account existing retirement accounts in their decision to qualify applicants, as these aren’t resources that can be tapped into to make mortgage payments. Similarly, families with small children have the added major expensive of childcare to contend with. This means less monthly income is available for housing costs. I don’t know how you would fairly take this into account, but it is a major constraint. Thank you for the opportunity to share thoughts and opinions with the city. 2 Kind Regards, Adrienne -- Adrienne Harris Consulting www.adrienne-harris.com 805-316-0746 www.facebook.com/adrienneharrisconsulting/ 3