Statistics find only small amount of residents can buy median priced homes
The Healdsburg Sustainable Design Assessment Team (SDAT) and Healdsburg 2040 released their key findings report this past year and among a plethora of pages and facts, the housing section of the report stood out, reiterating the need for more sustainable solutions to affordable housing.
The other main finding of the housing report focused on statistics, which found that a small amount of residents can purchase median-priced homes.
As an introduction to the housing section, the report offered a warning, saying trends will continue to worsen as families become priced out of the area. Currently only 11.5 percent of Healdsburg residents have income that allow them to purchase a median-priced home in town.
According to the report, this means only 562 households earn over $175,000 and can afford a median-priced home – realtor.com statistics show that the median price of sold homes in Healdsburg is at $977,500. A total of 4,309 households cannot afford median-priced homes.
“This leaves out a vast majority of the population in a city that is dominated by owner-occupied single family homes. With the (average) number of people living in each housing unit dropping, the city needs more housing simply to house the same size population,” the report states. “With Healdsburg having the highest median-priced homes and median price home sales in Sonoma County, all of these trends will continue for the foreseeable future.”
Consequently, as home prices increase, there too is an increase in limited market-rate rentals, further displacing residents.
“The other piece in the report that I found fascinating was the demographic bomb in our community,” said Ariel Kelley, a member of the housing section group.
Kelley said the report found that there is a miniscule number of homeowners under the age of 55. “That told me two things: young families cannot afford homes in our community and in the next 20 years when we see those demographic shifts, we are going to see a huge change where you have a single older person living in a four-bedroom home.”
And while there isn’t a blanket answer to the housing crisis, the report did find a number of solutions that could work toward creating more affordable housing. However, it emphasized that in order to accomplish these solutions, both the public and private sector have to be willing to work together.
Deborah Kravitz, a member of the housing section group, said of the key takeaway, “I think one of the key recommendations is that we have to get serious about creating public/private partnership and a housing trust fund. If you have that mechanism in place and a way to accumulate funds, then I think some of the more ambitious recommendations could come to fruition.”
Some of the report’s more ambitious ideas include micro-housing (one building that includes multiple units and a shared yard space, similar to the garden cottage senior apartments in Healdsburg by Burbank Housing), small-lot subdivisions and accessory dwelling unit incentives.
According to the report, cities like Los Angeles, Santa Cruz and Vancouver, Wash. have implemented ADU programs for homeowners interested in creating an ADU and have even created city and hardware store packets for an easy how-to guide from permitting to building.
Other ideas for tackling the problem include creating land zoning changes, incentivizing affordable housing, using transient occupancy tax (TOT) revenue towards affordable housing and using city-owned properties to develop housing. Kravitz added there are three city-owned properties that could be developed for low-income housing.
“It may take a while to accumulate, but at least that is one more mechanism,” Kravitz said of TOT tax funds. “We also have some new hotels coming online and that will be fairly substantial revenue flow.”
Kravitz added there are also some city recommendations from the community housing committee that have not yet been addressed. These include an increase in in-lieu of fees for inclusionary housing.
In terms of what solutions are most sustainable, the report noted a path of adding exemption from growth management limits for projects, which would help create 20 percent each of affordable and middle-income housing. It would also allow the market to respond to demand “while creating stronger cross subsidies and more affordable units,” the report states.
The report also recognized the city for taking steps to reduce growth management. One example was the Measure P ordinance that was presented to voters in November and passed. The measure amends the city’s old growth ordinance to allow for the construction of 50 income-restricted, multi-family rental units per year.
Some housing developments coming online, like the Oaks at Foss Creek development, also have dedicated inclusionary housing.
In a November city council meeting, councilmembers voted 5-0 to create a requirement of the developer to have 15 percent of its units be dedicated to low- to moderate-income families.
“There were definitely good props given to the city of Healdsburg for some of the work that we’ve already done, like our housing action plan and convening the community housing committee and making new recommendations around administering the growth management ordinance,” Kelley said.
Despite these strides, Kelley, Kravitz and the report all pointed out that more collaborative and serious work still has to be done in order to make Healdsburg a more affordable place for all.
Driving home the point for the need to increase livability, Kelley mentioned a fact from the report, “More people with six-figure incomes are still in the rental market.”
