Tweaks, but No Big Changes in Interim Affordable Housing Ordinance Update

One of the bigger issues that has emerged in the city of Davis is the Affordable Housing Ordinance.  With the rise of new apartment proposals that are structured more as student housing complexes, some of which are rent-by-bed configurations, the council has asked a consultant to review the current affordable housing requirement.

Of particular note has been the requirement that “a developer of rental housing developments containing twenty or more units to provide, to the maximum extent feasible, at least twenty-five percent of the units as affordable housing for low-income households and at least ten percent of the units as affordable housing for very-low income households.”

The conundrum from the city’s standpoint has been that no recent developments have accommodated or even approached that 35 percent mark.

Back in October at the Affordable Housing workshop, Councilmember Rochelle Swanson commented, “Thirty-five percent of zero is still zero.”  Referring to the fact that if the units are not built because of the requirements, we get no affordable housing, her view was: “It should probably be lower than (35 percent) so that we do see it being built.”

Robb Davis asked that staff find out “what has changed.” In particular, why 15 years ago was the city getting projects that had 35 percent affordable housing, but in the last 15 years we have not?

He said, “[I]f our affordable 35 percent (requirement) is meaning that people are not going to build them, then it is time to review that.”

The Social Services Commission gets first crack at that on Monday.  At least in their first cut, we don’t get an answer to those questions and, instead of lowering the standard, the proposed ordinance simply gives council more flexibility.

It appears that the 25-10 threshold will continue.

However, they have added language for “alternative” rental housing requirements: “The City Council may, at its discretion, approve alternative affordable housing requirements on a project specific basis that provide for a lesser percentage of the total units to be provided as affordable housing, or provide for affordable housing in an alternative manner, including but not limited to providing affordable housing by bedroom or individual bed, in an amount as deemed appropriate by the City Council.”

The council will consider the following factors:

  • Whether the market rate component and/or the affordable component of the proposed development is anticipated to meet a specific housing need as identified in the City’s housing element or general plan policies;
  • Whether the market rate units are anticipated to provide housing to low or moderate income households through the incorporation of design components that will encourage greater affordability including reduced units sizes and reduced utility costs;
  • The extent to which the proposed development furthers other land use goals of the City, including but not limited to reductions in the need for private vehicles and the encouragement of development consistent with the Metropolitan Transportation Plan/Sustainable Communities Strategy adopted for the Sacramento Region by the Sacramento Area Council of Governments;
  • Whether the proposed market rate development includes unusually high infrastructure costs or other cost burdens as conditions to the development of the project;
  • Whether the proposed affordable housing component may be partially funded by public subsidy or other public financing from a source other than the City;
  • Whether the affordable component is provided on a bed or bedroom basis, that encourages greater integration of the affordable and market rate components of the project;
  • Whether any or all of the affordable housing is provided at a deeper level of affordability (such as Extremely Low Income housing, as defined in California Health & Safety Code Section 50106); and
  • Whether the application for the proposed development was submitted to the City for consideration prior to the adoption of AB 1505.

The criteria for on-site construction: “Affordable housing units constructed on-site shall include a mix of unit sizes, dispersed throughout the entire development, as approved by the director of the department of community development, based on the local housing needs of unit sizes. Affordable housing units shall not be clustered together in any building, complex or area of the development. Affordable housing units constructed on-site shall be constructed using the same building materials and including equivalent amenities as the market rate units.”

However, they do have an option for land dedication: “A developer may, as an alternative to constructing the affordable rental units on-site, make an irrevocable offer of dedication to the city of sufficient land to meet the total affordable rental housing units required pursuant to this section.”

The ordinance requires: “Housing built on land dedicated for affordable housing shall be permanently affordable.”

Clearly this gives the council some additional flexibility without eliminating the 35 percent baseline requirement.  However, the question I would have is why go to a half-way measure at this point when the half-way measure seems to be the current rule?  None of the current projects have come close to meeting the 35 percent requirement.

The council back in October “recognized that the existing inclusionary ordinance requirements should be studied to see if revisions are warranted. The City Council also expressed interest in providing for greater flexibility in how to provide inclusionary housing in various development prototypes…”

What has not been presented here is the consultant report on a financial analysis to inform the decision to determine “what may be an appropriate level of inclusionary housing to be placed on different projects.”

It appears that staff is planning this as an interim ordinance.  Writes staff: “The proposed ordinance amendment will effectively serve as a transition to allow Council to act on a project specific affordable program for certain projects that have been in process while Palmer was in effect should they desire to do so on an interim basis prior to potentially adopting a comprehensively revised inclusionary ordinance.”

—David M. Greenwald reporting



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About The Author

David Greenwald is the founder, editor, and executive director of the Davis Vanguard. He founded the Vanguard in 2006. David Greenwald moved to Davis in 1996 to attend Graduate School at UC Davis in Political Science. He lives in South Davis with his wife Cecilia Escamilla Greenwald and three children.

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21 Comments

  1. Ron

    From article:  “What has not been presented here is the consultant report on a financial analysis to inform the decision to determine “what may be an appropriate level of inclusionary housing to be placed on different projects.”

    It appears that staff is planning this as an interim ordinance.  Writes staff: “The proposed ordinance amendment will effectively serve as a transition to allow Council to act on a project specific affordable program for certain projects that have been in process while Palmer was in effect should they desire to do so on an interim basis prior to potentially adopting a comprehensively revised inclusionary ordinance.”

    So, rather than referring to the consultant report, it appears that staff is proposing that council simply act upon what they think is “about right”, in order to ram through current proposals. 

    Ignore current policy, and simply accept what developers propose. (In other words, make the policy “fit” the proposals.)

          1. David Greenwald

            I’m aware that there is an existing policy. Now they have a policy that would allow them to use their discretion on the number of affordable units.

        1. Eric Gelber

          It appears to be a staff proposal to allow the council to continue current practices until they come up with a more permanent solution.

          But there is no commitment to coming up with a more permanent solution. There’s a vague reference in one of the WHEREAS’s (“until such time that the City Council has the opportunity to review and consider proposed revisions to the Affordable Housing Ordinance…”), but no commitment or timeframe to do that.

          I’d suggest that the proposed amendments giving the Council discretion to ignore the existing requirements for percentages of affordable units have a sunset date, and the WHEREAS’s more clearly state the expectation and a timeframe for reviewing and considering revisions to the existing requirements.

           

        2. David Greenwald

          Eric: They hired a consultant t do a report.  I’m not sure, but reading between the lines, they were supposed to be done in January and it seems like that didn’t happen, so they clearly want to have this in place before other projects go forward.

  2. Mark West

    The Affordable Housing Ordinance is just one of the many financial demands that the City places on developers of new housing. Each of those demands has reasonable-sounding justifications, but when the total demand becomes too great, projects are no longer feasible and won’t be proposed or built. When it comes to apartments, that has been the case in Davis for more than a decade. The City could choose to reduce any of those different exactions, but with the 35% total in the Affordable Housing Ordinance being significantly greater than what is found in neighboring cities, that is the easy one to target. There is nothing special about it though as it is just a cost per square foot issue.

     

    1. David Greenwald

      “The City could choose to reduce any of those different exactions, but with the 35% total in the Affordable Housing Ordinance being significantly greater than what is found in neighboring cities, that is the easy one to target”

      Interesting

  3. Eileen Samitz

    The title of this article is completely disingenuous. “Tweaks”? Seriously? Striking out the entire section requiring 35% affordable housing for multi-family housing is not a “tweak”.

    See page 3 (of 9) in the Staff report where the most significant part of the ordinance is removed by strike outs. This is by no means a “tweak”.

    http://documents.cityofdavis.org/Media/Default/Documents/PDF/CityCouncil/Social-Services-Commission/Packet-Items/2018-01-22/06B-Affordable-Housing-Ord-Proposed-Amendment.pdf

    Plus, the new language basically says that anything can be considered, including if is it a count by bed or apartment “unit”. So that is hardly a “tweak”.

    So this affordable housing”amendment” is a way to fast-track these mega-dorms before adequate analysis is done. So this is the City’s way to race the Lincoln40 project to Council before the consultants work is done on the recommendations for the multi-family affordable housing which is hard to believe.

    The obvious question is, why is the City not doing what is in the best interests of the community which is waiting until the consultants report for recommendations are done for multi-family affordable housing?

    Another obvious question is, how much is this study costing the Davis taxpayers to have done that the City Staff is trying to hard to outrun by fast-tracking these mega-dorms before we have a recommendation from the analysis?

    Also, why isn’t the City waiting to revise the out dates 2008 developer impact schedule that is short-changing the City particularly on these enormous mega-dorms being fast-tracked?

    Also, what about a cumulative impact study first on environmental (traffic, circulation, City services) and fiscal impacts (infrastructure, City Services) of adding 5,000 more students beds bringing out City population for 68,000 to 73,000 within a few years? Yet, none of these mega-dorms provide housing for our families and local workers, but will bring costs.

    None of this is good planning, but instead a “build anything” regardless of the environmental and fiscal impacts on the City.

    Hopefully, the Social Services Commission will see through this attempt to facilitate mega-dorms being fast-tracked and which will undercut our City’s affordable housing and oppose this ordinance “amendment”. The City needs to wait for the City hired consultants recommendations first. That is the only logical course of action rather then railroading through Lincoln40 and the other mega-dorms that Staff is trying to race through the planning “process” before getting the needed consultant recommendations.

    The City is supposed to be prioritizing the best interests of the community, not the developers.  Both the lower 1.68 multiplier developer impact fee that Staff recommended for Lincoln40 (verses the 2.52 multiplier) short-changes the City by over $546,000 so the developers got a great deal there from the City at our expense. Also, this affordable housing ordinance “amendment” should be denied or else the City gets short-changed as well on affordable housing.

    If the City continues to ram these mega-dorms down the community’s throat, which the community will wind up paying more costs for, the City cannot expect the community to support new taxes.

    Again this is not a good planning process in action whatsoever, by the City.

    .

     

    1. Mark West

      “The obvious question is, why is the City not doing what is in the best interests of the community”

      The majority of the community are renters, and given our 0.2% apartment vacancy rate, approving more apartments in an efficient manner is in the ‘best interests’ of the community.

      1. Eileen Samitz

         

        Mark,

        Building apartments like 1-,2- and 3- bedroom traditional apartments that families and local workers can live in as well as students is what is in the best interests of he City, not a deluge of mega-dorms at more than $1,000 per market rate bed and $800 for a double occupancy low-income “affordable” beds and $670 for a very-low income “affordable” beds like at Lincoln40. None of this luxury, unaffordable and exclusionary mega-dorm housing helps students or non-students.

        The students want, and need, truly affordable housing and these mega-dorms are certainly not affordable, neither the market-rate beds, nor the capital “A” affordable (double occupancy) beds for students who qualify for that.

         

         

  4. Eileen Samitz

    David,

    I am not sure what you are taking about. Those are options, not requirements, as they are “feasible”.  So that language is not of any help.

    1. David Greenwald

      The language is “shall” not “may”:

      3 – a “A number equivalent to twenty-five percent of the total units being developed, after the inclusion of the density bonus for the project, shall be developed and made affordable to low income households, households with gross incomes at or below eighty percent of area median income for Yolo County.”

      3 – b “A number equivalent to ten percent of the total units being developed, after the inclusion of the density bonus for the project, shall be developed and made affordable to very low income households, households with gross incomes at or below fifty percent of area median income for Yolo County.”

      So the 35% is not touched, it’s just they added in a section later that gives the council discretion…

      “Alternative rental housing requirements. The City Council may, at its discretion…”

  5. Eileen Samitz

    David,

    The preceding language before it on page 3 says “To the maximum extent feasible…”, so the second “shall” is not enforceable. I did explain this in my first post on this. So 35% is an option but, it has most definitely been “touched”.

    1. David Greenwald

      Fair point. They clearly watered down the language to give them flexibility. We’ll have to see what comes from the consultant report which will inform the final ordinance.

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