Letters to the Editor 7-9-15

Decision time
Editor: Ms. Webster correctly notes the miseries arising from escalating rents (“Renters squeezed” June 18). But this shortage of housing for those who live and work here is a logical consequences of the no-growth, urban boundary initiatives of a decade ago.
Those campaigns were organized and funded by the San Francisco elites (many of them my friends) who wanted to preserve their bucolic countryside. But the voters of Healdsburg adopted them, ignoring the iron laws of supply and demand.
Yes, new construction would have catered to the better-off, but the houses they vacate move down the housing chain to those in need. Rent controls can alleviate short-term problems, but they further dry up supply while corrupting the marketplace, viz New York where the 1 percent with tenure live in cost-free splendor. In Healdsburg, either we limit the supply of housing, and thus prices rise – much to the delight of those already here.
Or we allow new construction (growth) to accommodate those to whom fate has been unkind and to welcome the younger generation who wish to open the shops, tend to the sick and put out the fires. We cannot have it both ways. Time for hard decisions, Healdsburg.
Tom Reed
Healdsburg
Gentrification
Editor: I attended the City Council meeting of July 6 and am stunned by what is happening in our town regarding housing. My family has been in business here for 70 years. I’m local. The DrakeCorp. wants to turn us into “The Sausalito of Sonoma County.” Guess what? That’s not what I want. Part of the plan is to reposition people from the March/Prentice Apartments.
That means they evicted all those families, Hispanics of course, and left them homeless so they can build something more refined in accord with our town image. Are you ####ing kidding me? That means they evicted working families who could just afford the rent as it was. Those are the people upon whose backs our town depends. They fry your beignets, they chef at BarnDiva, they make princess cakes at Costeaux, not to mention agriculture.
Those are the families whose children I have taught for 30 years in the school district. This year, my last, I had a six-year-old girl who came to me in the mornings to tell me she didn’t know where she and her mama were going to sleep that night. How do you suppose that affected her learning?
What’s happening is a process called gentrification. That is, “systematic changes to maximize profit, serving a higher class of people while alienating the middle class and pushing out lower income individuals and families.” Sounds Donald Trumpish to me. And discriminatory. The slumlords should have maintained those buildings, yes, yet they were home to many workers in Healdsburg. Now we’ll have “refined” buildings? Sorry, folks, nothing is more beautiful or refined in my mind than knowing children have a safe place to sleep and are not out on the streets.
If I want Sausalito, I’ll drive there. Meanwhile, I want Healdsburg and our residents safe from the likes of the Drake Corporation and other greedy landlords. To my tenant: I am not raising your rent.
Judith Sanderson
Healdsburg
Quickly, bravely, urgently
Editor: At Monday night’s city council meeting (7/6) we learned, through dozens of impassioned testimonials, the deeply human cost made to families and to the quality of our community when rents are raised to “what the market can bear.” Devastating rental increases of 50, 65 and 100 percent were reported, often arriving with little or no forewarning – a notice taped to the door in some cases. Families who have worked in Healdsburg and contributed to the town’s growth for generations are suddenly forced to move. It’s an epidemic that is quickly eroding the soul of our town. No exaggeration.
Michelle Schultz clearly detailed, with a review of city government publications from recent years, that the city council has made affordable housing a priority numerous times in the past, and certainly many council people have run with “preserving small town charm” as a slogan. The time for platitudes is over. Now is a!time for urgency and for brave, and likely controversial, action. New housing committee members were announced. In addition to tailoring proposals for a new GMO (Growth Management Ordinance) to reflect these concerns, they need to work hand in hand with the council to quickly evaluate the ideas that have come forth. Here is a sampling:
1) Rent stabilization laws and/or guidelines should be established that would keep increases in line with inflation and general maintenance and not simply increased to what the market can bear.
2) Where evictions or steep increases are unavoidable, much longer notice must be given to the tenants, and justification (to tenants, the public, to the city government) should be made in person by the landlord, not by proxy (rental agencies or lawyers). The human cost of these actions is too severe to happen in secrecy, by surprise or with selfish motivation. Transparency and community go hand in hand.
3) City officials should reach out to other high-dollar tourist towns that have suffered rapid gentrification and rental increases to find solutions that work. I suggest that Mayor McCaffrey is ideally suited to this after recently attending the national mayors gathering.
4) The market solution is to build more affordable housing and certainly this is a priority. However it was suggested that, moving forward, affordable units no longer be seen as an add-on to larger developments (as we see at Saggio, at Parkland farms, the new development on Healdsburg Ave. and elsewhere).
5) Additionally, we should not be afraid to put low income housing downtown, not just at the outskirts which has been the norm. When the time comes for the old hospital on Johnson St. to come down, there is no reason it shouldn’t be replaced with apartments that would make the neighborhood proud.
6) Various restrictions on rental housing have been forwarded and should be considered, as should loosening restrictions on live/work properties and rules restricting the construction of “tiny houses.”
7) Adoption wherever possible of the living wage suggestions recently made by the Sonoma County Supervisors. Though $15 an hour is barely enough to make it in Healdsburg.
8) Finally, tax incentives to keep rents in line was proposed, though I personally believe this would be difficult and cumbersome to achieve.
I am sure there are many more ideas. My hope is that all suggestions are embraced with the sincerity with which they are offered and that they are acted upon quickly, bravely and urgently.
Chris Herrod
Healdsburg
Drake responds to concerns
Editor: I have been returning to the Healdsburg area for some 40 years as a summer resident and a regular visitor. Over the those years I have watched the city’s evolution from a sleepy and dusty bywater with virtually no tourism and certainly no fame to a beautiful and prosperous center of the wine industry known worldwide. Apparently there is a controversy in Healdsburg concerning housing costs and my company’s plans to save the apartment building at 1301 Prentice Drive, near the hospital. Let me provide some context.
Clearly housing costs are a national problem. Even Healdsburg is not immune. The solution is to increase supply and prevent loss of workforce housing stock (as we are doing). Local bond issues to support moderate and low cost housing can provide relief, and we would welcome any moves in that direction.
That said, my company, Drake Property Group, has a reputation for restoring historic structures and recycling/re-using apartment buildings throughout the Bay Area and beyond. One of our projects was the complete reconstruction of the city of Hercules historic district, 20 homes with all public improvements done at the invitation of the City Council and placed on The National Register. We care about people and quality.
Recently we were offered the opportunity to purchase a 21-unit apartment building at 1301 Prentice Drive. It is located near both the school and the hospital, staff of which expressed strong interest in having workforce housing available near their offices. We decided it was an interesting prospect, not least because the city makes such an effort to provide an excellent quality of life for its residents.
Upon inspection we found there were very serious life and safety problems: the balconies were literally falling off, foundations were badly rotted, the roof leaked over a wide area, rugs were patched with tape, none of the 21 dishwashers worked, and the building used shocking amounts of precious water because all its appliances and fixtures dated from its construction in 1974. No steps had been taken to conserve water in either the landscaping or the building. The ceilings contain asbestos.
The prior owners had adopted a policy of draining the building of rents and making absolutely no effort to fix the problems or mitigate risk. This sort of thing leads to the deterioration of the local housing stock, and eventually to the actual loss of whole buildings. It puts the health and well-being of the residents at risk and treats them as second-class citizens. Readers will recall that just weeks ago a Berkeley apartment building balcony collapsed, leading to multiple deaths and injuries.
The city of Healdsburg cannot permit these kinds of conditions to continue, nor should the owner be allowed to. After much hesitation we decided that the future of the city is strong enough to outweigh the very large cost of repairs, that middle income renters would indeed leap at the chance to live near their Healdsburg employment, and that the building was not beyond salvation. Fixing these kind of massive problems requires vacating the entire building and rebuilding it to make it safe and attractive by modern standards.
We have helped the former tenants by paying part of their relocation expense and have given all of them excellent references. The outgoing residents are good tenants and  highly desirable to prospective landlords. The building will be in “new” condition inside and out. This is a multimillion dollar project which will require that we re-rent the apartments at market rates. However, because of the economies from green rehabilitation these will often be below what equivalent  new spaces are renting for in the area and well within the budgets of the Healdsburg workforce.
We have consistently found that prospective tenants of all income groups appreciate an extra aesthetic touch in the design of their homes that can often be provided at no extra cost simply by good design. We will be welcoming all applicants by September.
Peter Supino
Drake Property Group
Pothole remedy
Editor: One of the most common complaints your readers have is the potholed state of our roads and what to do about them. Unfortunately, their state is a part of our culture of “Planned Obsolescence,” whereby  engineers, contractors and union workers get paid to patch and rebuild poorly designed roads, time after time.
I have driven all over France, and almost never did I see a pothole – not even a patched one. When I asked a French engineer why this is so, he replied that if potholes do occur, then the contractor has to repair them at his own cost. So, no potholes. We just have to bring over French engineers, contractors and workers to redo our system of roads and highways.
E.H. Boudreau
Sebastopol
Reconsider short term rental ban
Editor: I agree with many of the points Betsi Lewitter made in her commentary last week. There are positive aspects to short-term lodgings in private homes as through Airbnb. Perhaps it’s time the City Council reconsiders its sweeping ban. My view is shaped by personal experience. My friends in Dry Creek Valley rent a cottage on their property, and it’s clearly a win-win-win situation. Their rental is legal and their tenants pay TOT to the county.
Their cottage is priced well below the rates charged by local hotels, providing an option for less-affluent visitors. They are terrific representatives of our area who help their guests make the most of their stay. They enjoy meeting the people who come to visit, and because they are not wealthy, the extra income has been a real boon. It helps pay their son’s college costs, so he can expect to graduate without the crushing debt so many young people are saddled with. And it’s making their own future retirement look a bit sweeter.
I live in the center of town and understand well the arguments against short-term rentals in residential neighborhoods. Of course, we don’t want to motivate owners to remove homes from long-term rental stock and turn them into vacation rentals. Of course, I want to have permanent neighbors, and not be surrounded by weekend renters who might be noisy and disruptive. But, I believe these issues can be mitigated if the short-term rentals are restricted to rooms or granny units in owner-occupied homes, as Betsi suggested. Enforcement will be an issue, but it needn’t consume too much staff time. If there is a problem with a property owner who is not following the rules, the neighbors will report it, just as they would with a permanent resident who was creating a problem.
I don’t have a personal stake in this issue, just an interest in fairness and keeping Healdsburg available to visitors who haven’t yet made their first million. I don’t have a granny unit and I don’t anticipate renting any rooms in my house – although, if I were to suffer financial reversals and find myself a bit strapped, I hope that I would have the resourcefulness and the legal option to leverage my chief asset in this way. I have rented apartments through Airbnb while traveling, and found it economical, convenient, and less alienating than staying in a hotel.
Leah Gold
Healdsburg