In the City of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI, Les Miserables plays out Both on the Stage and on the Street

This past Tuesday, March 17th, San Mateo County Supervisors held a meeting to discuss affordable housing solutions. The county estimated that 39,000 jobs were created in the 2010-2013 period. A total of 3.9 million square feet of commercial development is currently under construction and another 13.3 million square feet is in the planning phase. As our local economy keeps adding local jobs without adding the necessary housing inventory not only is buying a home becoming unaffordable but simply renting a home. Too many people chasing too little inventory, means rents are jumping very fast and every day we have more and more stressed and or homeless people. As one of the speakers at Tuesday’s daytime event noted, there are nine people living in the one bedroom she lives in with her parents and her child.

As the staff of the Supervisors pointed out in the white paper they produced for the event (https://housing.smcgov.org/affordable-housing-white-paper) we have two main needs: helping those currently here stay here and helping those who want to come here come here. Options for trying to help those who are already here stay here involved establishing a countywide tenant’s rights education and assistance program, potentially adopting rent stabilization and just cause eviction ordinances and obtaining funding for two more years of the 21 Elements program, a County Department of Housing and the San Mateo City and County Association of Governments (C/CAG) program.

Options for trying to help those who want to come here come here involved allowing more accessory dwelling units (ADU’s), legalizing un-permitted second units, developing small residence prototype programs, adopting a “no net loss” policy for affordable units, creating an affordable housing overlay zone, revising the inclusionary zoning ordinance, developing legally defensible policies for impact fees and collaborating with community partners to promote shared housing programs.

An overflow crowd included over fifty individuals and organizations that spoke in public comment even though as one speaker noted the event was a daytime event that most people who work during the day were unable to attend. On the one hand small landlords spoke against rent control type programs history of perverse effects and highlighted issues with the bureaucracies that these programs create (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/28/magazine/the-perverse-effects-of-rent-regulation.html), on the other hand tenants spoke of conditions so terrible that as one speaker put it had some tenants so unable to control cockroach infestations that they were actually eating them by mistake.

The easy answer seemed to be wherever possible to build and increase density as in permitting un-permitted units and legalizing smaller units and ADU’s. Unfortunately the reality is that as NASA scientist, Jay Famigletti, wrote in an LA Times editorial last week (http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-famiglietti-drought-california-20150313-story.html), California water reservoirs only have about a year’s supply of water left. In the Los Angeles area residents that water lawns end up using over one hundred gallons per day. In the San Francisco Bay Area in December when it rained residents ended up using about 56 gallons per day which has been compared to Australia a country with approximately the same culture and climate. However it is feasible to do better but it necessitates a change in how we consume water. At the other extreme in some countries in the third world residents only use three gallons per day; however their lifestyle doesn‘t include multiple daily toilet flushes, dish washers, clothes washers and daily showers. As our weather, including rainfall and snow, becomes less and less predictable; water availability and usage customs more than land become the constraint we must consider when making decisions regarding density and additional building.

Today, the Redwood City City Council is slated to discuss obligatory community benefit programs and contributions from developers looking to build more and more in the city. The staff report includes the fact that given some recent lawsuits community benefits programs must clearly have a nexus to the project or they end up being voided by the courts. (http://agendas.redwoodcity.org/sirepub/cache/2/ogqteux4rmnmokwuignlfsqt/15191103232015104918653.PDF ) ”The fee can only be imposed to offset a direct impact of a development and must reasonably relate to the size of the impact.” Nonetheless, staff is trying to make the case that community benefits accrue to the existing residents when in fact as just stated the nexus requirement means that although we may be calling these programs community benefits they are instead impact fees for the benefit of the incoming new residents and not for the benefit of pre-existing residents. When we add the fact that water is a zero sum resource meaning that just because there are more residents the total allocation of water for the area will not increase instead because of the drought it will likely decrease; allowing additional building in the area be it commercial, industrial or residential is simply currently irresponsible.

Unlike in Les Misérables, until the powers that be stop believing and realize that continued growth for the sake of growth is not necessarily good; we are likely damned if we do and damned if we don’t.

Photo credit: Les Misérables www.broadwaybythebay.org