Last week the first rebuilt home was completed and occupied following the October 2017 wildfires. A happy ribbon-cutting ceremony was held at Santa Rosa’s Coffey Park neighborhood, the epicenter of the greatest housing losses.
According to county housing goals we only need 29,999 more houses to be built in the next five years to fulfill a vision of “housing for all.”
It’s been well documented that Sonoma County had a housing crisis long before the fires struck on Oct. 8, 2017. Housing prices were steadily climbing to record highs following the recession of 2008. Only one-fourth (26 percent) of all working families could afford a median-priced home.
Typical rentals, when you could find one, were $1,860 a month. The county’s homeless population was counted as 2,835 during January 2017, before another 13,000 people lost their homes in the fires.
To say Sonoma County, and its nine incorporated cities, has a housing problem is like the astronauts on Apollo 13 telling their Houston command base in April 1970, “we might have a small glitch.” The stranded astronauts made it back to Earth; Sonoma County’s success at building “housing for all” might be the taller challenge.
Over the past eight years, an average of 722 houses have been built in the cities and unincorporated county. The goal now is to build 6,000 a year. That’s with plenty of obstacles, such as a severe labor shortage and unpredictable construction, infrastructure and social costs. Not to mention a supreme test of our public will to radically change almost all housing laws.
Yes, Sonoma County, we have a problem. But it’s not just about housing and it’s not just because the historical wildfires did so much destruction. Building 30,000 houses in 60 months may yet be possible if the cohesive can-do spirit of #SonomaStrong converts to action, work and innovation.
But how does that solve the pre-existing problems of job shortages, a collective denial to pay living wages and a harsh trend of economic inequality?
Check those numbers once again. Before the wildfires, only one in every four families could afford to buy a home to call their own. Next week, some 6,000 students will be graduating from the county’s 19 high schools. How many of these young people has a chance of living the rest of his or her life here? Add them to the exodus of thousands of wildfire victims who have listed their vacant lots for sale and are moving on to places with more jobs and better housing choices.
Maybe it’s unkind to suggest the jolt of the wildfires delivered a wake-up call to those who grew up or settled here and call Sonoma County home. But is it still called home when you have to fly halfway across the country to visit your grandchildren?
Seven million visitors come here every year to enjoy our wine, cheese and scenery. But it’s no longer home to many of the workers who serve those visitors or who labor in our vineyards, factories and schools.
If we don’t build 30,000 new houses — or even the 17,000 that were needed before the fires — we will be denying a home to many more years of graduating high school seniors, essential workforce members and others.
Those new houses must include thousands of new rentals and what used to be called starter homes. Public-private pilot projects must be considered. The impact of vacation rentals, restrictive urban growth boundaries, growth management ordinances, use of surplus public lands and greatly relaxed building fees all must be put on the table.
The county is proposing a $300 million, 26-year housing bond on the November 2018 ballot to subsidize new rental and affordable units. The Sonoma County Farm Bureau is opposing it.
Maybe many of us think that 30,000 new housing units is an unreasonable goal. That doesn’t negate the urgent need for reasonable talk about what’s been happening to our home.
NOTE: The original version of this article suggested that the Sonoma County Tax Association opposed the housing bond, but they have not yet taken a position.
