Differing views on growth management

At a public forum held on July 28 at the Villa Chanticleer, four community members participated in a panel discussion about possible changes to Healdsburg’s Growth Management Ordinance. Their prepared statements are reprinted below. The Tribune welcomes letters to the editor on this important topic, which will be on the Nov. 8 ballot.
Tom Chambers
The issue that is in front of us is that of the lack of housing that is affordable to our working families and the widening gap between those that can and those that cannot afford to live in Healdsburg – and not just Healdsburg, but all of Sonoma County and every desirable city in California.
This issue has been festering for a long time and now is spotlighted across the state. Our city cannot single handedly fix this problem, but my fellow council members and I believe we have an obligation to do our share. It is indeed an issue of social equity. Regardless of your views, it is a very complicated issue with no easy fixes.
To have a meaningful conversation, it is essential to understand the various elements of the topic. Here are a few definitions, starting with the current Growth Management Ordinance (GMO): The current GMO limits the number of building permits for construction of new residential units to an average of 30 per year; It limits the number of units to 90 units for any three-year period; If the 90 units are not used in the three year period, those allocations are lost.
Here are some other definitions:
Market rate housing –  Housing provided by the private sector with no government subsidy or price restrictions;
Sonoma County Area Median Income (AMI) for family of four – the number fluctuates from year to year but $82,000 is close. The other affordable categories are defined as a percentage of the AMI;
Affordable categories as defined by the state and federal departments of housing and urban development  are extremely low, very low, low and moderate with moderate topping out at 120 percent of AMI which is approximately $99,000;
All these categories are part of government subsidized affordable housing programs and hence are eligible for state and federal funding when these affordable projects are being planned. Those that have the best chance of receiving funding are those between 30-60 percent of AMI;
These are also the homes that Healdsburg has been very successful in helping to build. Healdsburg has been a leader on a per capita basis in the county in providing for subsidized affordable housing in these categories;
Inclusionary housing. This is affordable subsidized housing that is required to be included when projects of a certain size are built by the private sector. In Healdsburg 15 percent inclusionary housing is required to be constructed for projects of seven or more.
The city council has recognized, as all of you have, that there is also another segment of our community that is being priced out of the market and that is what we call the Missing Middle or the diminishing middle class – for example, families of four in the 121-160 percent of AMI or earning $99,000 to $132,000 for a family of four.
The city has brought them into the affordable housing discussion and people have wondered why. The answer is very simple. They have been priced out of the market. These are households that have typically have two wage earners – each making an average $9,000 to $66,000 per year. Service industry workers, teachers, police and fire, hospital staff – people that make our community what it is.
Why would we leave these people out in the discussion of affordable housing? An income of $132,000 per year will buy a house in the high $500,000s. A yearly income of $96,000 will purchase a home at $420,000. Where do you find that range of houses in Healdsburg? If we are going to confront the housing affordability problem, it is only fair to include all segments that cannot afford housing in town. Why should we indiscriminately cut a vital part of our community out of this opportunity?
The current GMO was adopted in 2000 by a margin of 5.2 percent. My understanding is that this was put in place in response to the Parkland Farms development. No new market rate rental units have been constructed since the GMO was put into place. The Parkland Farms development is comprised of 276 market rate and 109 affordable units.
I believe we are very fortunate to have these homes. Parkland Farms is filled with a diverse segment of the community, many young families and a large proportion of the school age population. This development has helped to keep us a vital town and slow the rate of gentrification. I bet there might actually be some residents here this evening and I bet everyone here knows someone who lives there. We would be a completely different town without this development and yet this was the impetus for the GMO.
One unintended consequence of the GMO is that, due to uncertainties in the allocation process, builders are unable to obtain financing for multi-unit projects that require economies of scale. As the data shows, no market rate multi-unit complexes have been built since.
I think it is important to give a bit of historical background and to highlight the complexity of the problem and the amount of effort put in to date.
In 2009, a committee was formed to study the Central Healdsburg Avenue area, basically the area from the five-way south to the 101 entrance to the freeway. I was the chairman of the committee and it was a very public and well attended process. This went on for over two years and one main conclusion of the study was that the Central Healdsburg Avenue area had to have a housing component similar to other Healdsburg neighborhoods if we were to keep the character of Healdsburg. Another conclusion was that the GMO was a deterrent to this goal. Many of you here tonight were involved in this process.
Consequently an offshoot of this process in the 2013–2014 time frame was to form a subcommittee to recommend amendments to the GMO. I was chair of that committee and after about six more months and nine more meetings, a recommendation was brought to the city and approved. However, as the housing crisis deepened, it was later concluded it would not solve the problem and was not put forth on the ballot.
When the Housing Element was updated as required by the state in 2014, to assess current and future housing needs, the GMO was identified as an obstacle to the construction of market rate, multi family housing units and alternative product types.
In July of 2015 the Community Housing Committee was formed to further study the housing issue and draft language for a GMO amendment to incentivize the types of housing that are clearly needed in Healdsburg. I have sat on this committee as well. Just since January there have been 16 meetings, all public as they are required to be and all well attended. Many of you here tonight attended those meetings as well. This is a long forming problem and clearly has been discussed for many years by many people who want to provide a meaningful solution
So why change the GMO? Housing needs and priorities have changed over the last 16 years. Housing prices continue to escalate and the number of jobs has grown. For a large portion of the last 16 years, the allowable allocations were not used due to the downturn in the economy. Now that the economy has turned and there is clear demand, we are unable to meet this demand with the current regulation. For the last two years, there have been over 30 community meetings and two main themes continue to resurface: the need for more housing that is affordable and diverse, available to the working families of Healdsburg. A large segment of our working families are being priced out of the market and middle income workers are unable to buy houses.
What do we propose? The housing committee and the council have come up with a three pronged approach. All three of these work in conjunction along with the other measures already in place. We propose an amended GMO, a Housing Action Plan (HAP) that was recently created by the housing committee and approved by the council, and a council generated growth regulation tool.
 The proposed growth management ordinance simply states: Shall Healdsburg voters amend the existing growth management ordinance to increase inclusionary housing requirements to 30 percent, remove existing restrictions on the number of new residential units allowed per year, adopt and periodically amend new growth management measures in conjunction with updating the Housing Element, and periodically update a Housing Action Plan to provide a greater variety of housing?
Second, the housing committee, over seven months and 16 meetings created and the council recently approved a Housing Action Plan. This document serves as a strategic plan to direct and shape housing for the 2017-2022 housing cycle. It integrates existing legislative tools currently used to manage growth: the general plan that controls amount and type of growth allowed, the Housing Element that plans for existing and projected housing needs, the Urban Growth Boundary that was extended by voters in 2012 until 2030, which limits future growth of the city’s boundary, and finally the land use code which controls the type of use allowed and how it is developed.
The five objectives of the plan are: create more affordable housing; facilitate development of secondary dwelling units; develop middle income housing; encourage rental units; encourage mixed product types and creative design. The nine priority recommendations are: Update the current GMO; Implement a council passed growth regulation tool; Create a long term funding source for affordable housing – the council has already agreed to put a 2 percent increase to the TOT tax on the ballot that will be dedicated to affordable housing; Expand the definition of affordable housing to include middle income subsidized housing; Revise the city’s inclusionary housing ordinance by increasing it from 15 to 30 percent; Expand affordable housing incentives; Update fee structure and encourage deed restricted secondary dwelling units; Update parking regulations; Update the design guidelines.
The third action is for the council to pass a growth regulation tool. The measure will be approved prior to the November election but will only be implemented upon successful passage of the GMO amendment. This allows the amount and pace of growth to be managed and adapted to ensure community housing needs are met.
Currently we have identified the need for housing for the missing middle as well as the lower income levels, higher density housing types and multi family rentals.
And something that I think we all agree needs to happen, it directs growth away from conventional single family units toward multi family units, small lots and higher density product types. The details of the proposed ordinance are the following: It establishes an annual growth cap on market rate houses at 1.5 percent with an average of 70 units per year for a total of 420 units over the remaining six years in the current housing cycle; 180 single family and 240 multi family – limiting the number of single family units we are seeing built today and driving builders toward higher density housing that the community has said it desperately needs; A new category of inclusionary housing will be implemented for the missing middle 121-160 percent AMI – this will be half of the 30 percent inclusionary requirement of the new GMO amendment; Growth cap is reset with the state mandated Housing Element update cycle which runs for eight years.
So those are the details, now we get to the crux of the matter. How will this help and won’t this lead to runaway growth? Clearly requiring 30 percent inclusionary housing will help address the affordability issue and will target houses to the missing middle. It will provide much needed multi family units, more secondary dwelling units and allow additional deed restricted units.
The proposed TOT increase for affordable housing will also provide funds to incentivize what we want. This plan steers development away from large single family conventional units that currently are being built.
A crucial point is that the HAP gives a clear template to developers showing them what the citizens of Healdsburg find as acceptable housing types. The growth regulator gives it teeth to ensure we get what we want.
Given the structure, there clearly is the mathematical possibility that there could be some significant construction, although it’s unlikely. Those opposed focus on this as a certainty. However, the number one issue is that there are not many developable sites remaining in Healdsburg.
There is something important to point out. Under the current GMO, significant numbers of houses can also be built, affordable units up to the moderate income level. However all that gets built are the low and very low and not in large numbers. The missing middle is left out. And there is no mechanism to get projects built.
The measure proposed by the city council provides incentives for more affordable and diverse housing types to be built. Even still, the probability of large numbers of housing being built is miniscule. But at least what does get built, starts to solve the problem at hand and aid our citizens that need it most.
Since 2009, when the city began outreach on the Central Healdsburg Avenue Plan, in 2013 during the Housing Element Update process and in 2015 through the Housing Our Community workshop series, residents have repeatedly identified the need to modify the current GMO to allow for greater housing diversity in our community. And if we leave things as they are, we are guaranteed these lots will fill up in the way that we do not want.
This applies to two remaining large sites, NuForest and Quaker Hill. We will have more ability to shape the outcome of these and other projects if we have more tools at our disposal. The current GMO encourages high end homes and leaves the rest as potential sites for hotels and tourist related activities. If you do not believe that, look at what has been built over the last 16 years.
Healdsburg is a desirable location and people have the right to develop their property as the zoning and land use ordinances allow. We have a very glaring data point; one of no housing that is affordable and more and more tourists. Keep doing what we are doing and we will get more of the same. If people do not like the trend we currently have, we can change that dynamic by making it very clear what is acceptable. We can’t solve a housing crisis without building houses and we won’t get what we want without incentives that drive the market in the direction we would like.
Tom Chambers is the mayor of Healdsburg.
Gail Jonas
Who decides on Healdsburg’s future growth – the residents or the city council? In my 50 years in Healdsburg, there have been “three crossroads” that have affected Healdsburg as we know it today, and we are now at the fourth crossroad.
The first crossroad was 1971 to 1973. The city planned to annex 560 acres on the west side of Highway 101 and allow construction of five houses per acre on 560 acres. Known as “The Healdsburg Peninsula,” this area at the south end of the Dry Creek Valley is bounded by the Russian River, Dry Creek and Mill Street. An April 15, 1971 article in the Healdsburg Tribune announced that the 6,500 people expected to live in these homes, which would more than double Healdsburg’s population at that time.
I was involved in the effort to stop the city, working with residents and those who lived outside the city but consider Healdsburg our town. We formed a “Committee to Save the Healdsburg Peninsula” and despite unanimous support from the city council for subdividing in the Dry Creek Valley, we helped convince the county, which had to approve the annexation, that this was the wrong thing to do. Hardly anyone today thinks we should have built subdivisions there.
The second crossroads was the 1982 community-wide project known as the Regional/Urban Design Assistance Team, R/UDAT; 128 residents and businesses worked with experts to come up with a plan for Healdsburg’s future. The choices were a bedroom community, high tech (think Silicon Valley) or tourism. It’s obvious which option the residents chose. However, as tourism became our target, the caution in the report on page 28 wasn’t heeded, “The more attractive the community becomes, the tougher it will be to hold the line. Pressures on lower and moderate income families will become even worse than they are now.”(1982).
The third crossroad was in the late 90s to 2000. The city was rapidly growing and there was a concern that it would continue expanding into the adjacent agricultural land. In 1996, the voters approved an Urban Growth Boundary (UGB), establishing the limits on growth to 2016. In 2012, the voters approved extending it to 2030. In order to avoid undue premature pressure on the UGB, in 2000 the voters approved the current Growth Management Ordinance (GMO). It limited market rate homes to 30 per year (or 90 in three years), but there are no limits on affordable housing, secondary dwelling units (SDUS) and other low income residential facilities.
At all three crossroads, the voters made good decisions. The issue on the ballot in November, misleadingly titled the “Growth Management Ordinance Amendment,” is asking us to agree to stripping ourselves of our right to make decisions about the growth of market rate housing in the future.
We support keeping the GMO as a placeholder, to save our limited land within the UGB for the housing we need. We do not believe the city’s proposal on the ballot in November is going to meet the need for moderately priced housing. Remember, affordable housing and secondary dwelling units are exempt from the GMO.
Also, the GMO allows a project, through a Development Agreement, to avoid the requirement that a large project be built in three years or less. Think Saggio Hills. Its Development Agreement with the city has given it many more years to build the 70 luxury homes in conjunction with the 130 room luxury resort. If luxury homes are exempted from the time limits of the GMO, why can’t moderately-priced multifamily residences also be given a pass?
The Growth Management Ordinance Amendment is not only misleadingly named, there is a significant problem with the wording that will appear on the ballot: It asks the voters if they want to remove the GMO’s “existing restrictions on the number of new residential units allowed per year.”
Wait. Only market rate residential units are restricted. If voters are misled as a result of this wording they could easily decide to vote yes on this measure and get rid of the GMO.
The goal of requiring developers of larger projects to increase inclusionary housing requirements (lower cost homes for middle and lower income families) to 30 percent sounds enticing, but for each lower income residence, we get two market rate homes.
Plus, in my opinion as an attorney, there are problems with the ordinance giving the city council unfettered power to tamper within this 30 percent requirement.
Finally, the elephant in the living room – the continued emphasis on more and more tourism. Tourism has substantially affected the cost of homes in Healdsburg and, more importantly, it is a primary driver of the need for low income housing.
Eighty percent of those who work in our tourist related businesses – hotels, restaurants, and wine tasting rooms – earn less than $40,000 a year. It is widely known that many of these people are commuting from Lake County. More tourist facilities, especially hotels, drive the need for more affordable housing.
Gail Jonas is a retired attorney and longtime community activist.
Jim Brush
When the original Measure M was on the Healdsburg ballot in 2000, the voter’s pamphlet included these statements “Measure M simply doesn’t work for Healdsburg. If it passes, it will drive housing prices even higher, resulting in fewer families being able to live here. The author of Measure M claims it will stop runaway growth, but in fact all it will stop is decent housing for families. The result will be … an exclusive community only for those who can afford it. Measure M will gridlock housing in Healdsburg for the next 16 years.”
Measure M has done exactly that. It is a blunt instrument that does only one thing, restricts housing to a fraction of what has been the historical growth pattern of this community.
Here are some quotes from Jon Worden, a local architect, long time planning commissioner, and tireless advocate for better solutions to housing in Healdsburg.
“Regardless of the outcome of the ballot measure in November, Healdsburg will change over the next six years. The decision we face is not whether to change or not to change, but how we adjust to and manage that change.
“The Housing Action Plan (HAP) provides us with a means to manage as opposed to control growth. It is predicated on a difficult bargain with the future … the risk of greater growth in exchange for the ability to shape that growth to be more in keeping with our community’s character. The risk of greater trust in our planning and regulatory process in exchange for a higher level of citizen input and oversight in that process. The HAP requires the citizens of Healdsburg to face the challenges of the future in an engaged and proactive manner confident in our collective ability to govern ourselves for greater common good.”
I have great respect for my friend on this panel, Gail Jonas. We share many of the same values, yet we both are able to read the same proposals and review the facts and come out with very different opinions. I believe advocates against changing the old GMO come from a position of fear of what might happen, the supporters of the housing action plan a position of trust that we can do a lot better job. The two approaches, a strict GMO and an action plan as proposed, cannot coexist. Growth limitations can only achieve one purpose and that is to raise the cost of housing, both new and existing, above what most working families can afford.
I am for more housing in the future years to catch up with the deficit from the past 16 years. I believe the process of a housing action plan will be inclusive of many more types of housing that either a free market or a market restricted by a GMO can achieve. The community of Healdsburg needs to have a balance of new housing in order to maintain diverse types of housing for all segments of the population.
The majority of new homes to be built in the near future will be in the area south of town from the new roundabout all the way to the bridge, and in the very north area of town. The growth will be directed away from the existing neighborhoods yet within the infrastructure that already exists for the town boundaries. We already have in place and have paid for adequate water, sewer, schools and other services to accommodate this growth, which in turn will be a benefit to those who already live here by spreading the cost out to more residents.
Lifting the restrictions of the GMO will help reduce the spread of gentrification into all of the existing neighborhoods since there will be more opportunities for home seekers which will lessen the pressure to drive up prices and rents for existing housing.
The supporters of the current GMO have a sideways claim that it exempts affordable housing. California state law prohibits growth limits to what it terms as affordable housing in the first place, which means that any GMO that doesn’t have this provision would be void.
The state definition of affordable housing is essentially subsidized low income housing, which is targeted only to a certain segment of our population.
Since the GMO passed in 2000, I am aware of many worthwhile housing proposals, especially apartments and condominiums, that never made it past the initial planning stage due directly to the current stringent GMO. There already exists many controls over the type, the placement and the quantity of housing units that can be built.
The HAP is a well crafted additional control that will target growth with the best interest of our future population in mind and will encourage more diversity. Our opponents claim that we propose an open market free for all capitalist system and this is simply not true; please read the documents, they are extensive and restrictive.
In the 15 years since the GMO has been in place, of the 450 possible permits that could have been issued, approximately 220 have been issued, leaving a surplus of 230 unused. Another 210 could be issued during the next seven years contemplated in the HAP. Therefore, the 420 permit limit that is in the proposal is below the original amount allowed under the existing GMO, and of those, up to 63 units, will be deed restricted for the middle income compared to none under the old GMO. So, not only does the proposed amendment allow less than the current would have allowed, it provides for more targeted use of the allocations.
One thing that perplexes me the most is why we are so against more shelter for our community. Shelter is a basic need. We don’t have similar restrictions on jobs, or cars, or food, or many other basic needs, why have such restrictions on homes?
People who work in Healdsburg but can’t find an apartment to rent have to travel further away to live before they can return here to work in our schools, hospitals, city services and more. Families with children that want to raise them here and attend our schools can’t find affordable places to live. We have the ability to allow more homes to accommodate them, but the GMO severely cuts that ability so that only the limited housing that is built will be directed at the highest income levels that desire to live here.
Is the price of homogeny and high home values worth the support for the old GMO? Is the fear of large developments that would be subject to a long range and dynamic housing action plan worth the slow and steady gentrification of our town?
Do we think that we would rather have nothing at all rather than something that each of us might find something wrong that we don’t agree with? I have trust in the process that the HAP will increase the affordability and diversity of housing in Healdsburg. I believe it is time to find a better way to plan our future. Please vote to amend the old GMO in November.

Jim Brush is a former Healdsburg Planning Commissioner.
Jim Winston
In 2000 after 400 homes were built on the north side of town, Healdsburg Citizens for Responsible Growth, a grassroots group of local citizens was formed to be a way to manage our growth.
I authored the Growth Management Ordinance and with some volunteers gathered enough signatures in front of Safeway and Big John’s to qualify the GMO measure for the November 2000 ballot.
The measure read in part to allow for 30 market rate and above houses not to exceed 90 in any three-year period. By state law the measure exempts all low income and affordable housing.
The measure was passed overwhelmingly by the voters. The GMO has been in place for 16 years. The GMO has worked well to manage our growth; in fact, our growth rate was just under 1 percent.
Other Sonoma county cities rates were significantly higher. After 16 years in place we had 218 unused building allocations. So I ask, what is the problem?
The voter-adopted GMO was crafted in such a way as to be able to grow slowly and orderly over time. Incremental and paced growth is always a better option, keeping Healdsburg the special place that it is. One thing is for sure, we will never be able to build our way out of the housing problem.
Our opponents seem to want to blame all of our housing problems on the GMO. This is where they are wrong. All nine Sonoma County cities are dealing with the same housing problems that we are, and they do not have a GMO. It is not the fault of the GMO. The fact is we are a very desirable city to live in. The demand will always be there, that is why we need to protect our quality of life and small town character by managing our growth in a responsible way.
The problems I see before us today are unrelated to our GMO, to name a few: traffic, parking, wine tasting bars, resort hotels, tipping point tourism and outpacing our ability to provide future domestic water to our residents. We can mitigate these problems with committed elected officials, officials with the vision to protect our very special city. We need to keep the voter-adopted GMO in place as it is written.
The city’s proposed GMO ordinance amendment will eliminate all limits to the number of houses that can be built per year. That is not what the voters said they wanted when the GMO was overwhelmingly passed.
Without real growth measures in place developers and special interest groups will be attracted to our city, bringing with them unlimited projects which will change our small town character forever.
Is this our vision for our city? Our group, Healdsburg Citizens for Responsible Growth, worked with elected officials and the community housing committee for over a year to find some common ground and compromise to our existing GMO.
We were not successful, we got close a couple of times. It became clear to us they did not want a meaningful cap to limit the amount of growth that could take place over time.
Our opponents always fail to mention and what they don’t want you to know is under our voter-adopted GMO all low income and affordable housing is exempt from the GMO.
The city is trying to mislead the public by saying as long as the GMO is in place we cannot have affordable housing. This statement is misleading and disingenuous. If the city wanted to issue 50, 100, or 200 affordable housing permits they could.
The Housing Action Plan is a blueprint of housing goals for our city. The city planners are able to use the Housing Action Plan as they see fit.
The GMO does not regulate how the Housing Action Plan is managed, only the number of expensive market rate homes that require building permits.
There is a direct connection between housing and tourism. Our tipping point tourism requires more lower paying service type jobs, which puts a high demand for low income and affordable housing.
The outcome is the more tourism we have the more demand we have for housing. We cannot build our way out of this scenario, we must manage tourism in a more responsible way.
In closing there are two very important things to remember:
By state law, our existing GMO exempts all low income and affordable housing.
Our existing GMO can only be changed by the voters. The city’s proposed measure can be changed at any time by just three votes of the city council. Who decides Healdsburg’s future growth the voters or unknown city council members?
Jim Winston is the author of the 2000 growth management ordinance.