Managing Growth

The March 24 commentary “Housing Solutions” by Healdsburg Mayor Tom Chambers provided an incomplete picture of the City of Healdsburg’s efforts to dramatically change the Growth Management Ordinance (GMO) that voters passed in 2000.
I have found Mayor Chambers and the rest of the City Council to be dedicated, hard-working public servants – but I fear he’s taking Healdsburg in the direction of much more growth, and that’s not the solution voters have said they wanted.
In 2000, there were two Growth Management Ordinances on the ballot. The voters chose the one they felt would best allow Healdsburg to develop in an orderly, rational way. There is nothing to suggest that goal has changed in the last 16 years. This includes the recent taxpayer-funded poll which asked voters about housing, but not the growth that would need to accompany it.
There’s no question that affordable housing is not easy to create or maintain. However, when critics of the current GMO claim it needs to be overturned to create more affordable housing, they fail to mention that (1) the GMO has no limits on the number of affordable homes that can be built, and (2) every other city in Sonoma County is struggling with the same issue without a GMO in place.
Here are the real impacts that the city’s proposed changes would have (but they haven’t been upfront about):
• It would increase by 50 percent our allowed residential growth rate.
• It would allow the construction of 630 expensive homes (market rate or above) in the next seven years, with no guarantee of how many affordable units would be created.
• The city housing element identifies 650 vacant parcels within city limits available for development. If these are used up in seven years, where does future development go?
• The city has already spent over $130,000 on communications consultants to work on a problem we already know about. Might it not be a better use to spend those funds on actual affordable housing projects?
• If the GMO is an impediment to creating housing, why do we currently have 218 unused building allocations?
Regional demand for housing, more than supply, is what has caused rising rents and home prices. If our GMO was the root of this problem, Healdsburg would be the only town facing this crisis, but it’s not.
You can’t simply build your way out of this problem. While the mayor says these new housing subdivision projects would be for local working families, currently 30 percent of property tax bills are mailed to owners who live outside the city. The preponderance of second and vacation homes helps to drive up prices, and reduces the supply of available housing for residents, making it harder for those who work in Healdsburg to live here. Adding more homes for out-of-city buyers will not solve this problem.
We may no longer have a redevelopment agency, but what about emphasis on job creation? Not just service jobs, but good-paying jobs that will allow people to live and work here? What about incentives for new businesses and support for existing ones? Effective economic development provides benefits in many areas. Also, will future water resources be too scarce to allow this level of growth?
Let’s not kid ourselves; gutting or removing our existing GMO will not get us any closer to our goal of providing affordable housing, What it will do is allow for development which will dramatically change the character of the town. Do we really want to risk that?
— Jim Winston is the author of the 2000 Growth Management Ordinance