Want To Solve the Affordable Housing Crisis? Stop Approving More Office Buildings!

It is clear from last Monday's Redwood City City Council session that neither Mayor Seybert, Vice Mayor Bain or any other council member is up to listening, discussing, or considering any of the tools municipalities have to solve the affordable housing crisis we are in, namely rent control. Forget the fact that they set Affordable Housing as one of their yearly issues. Forget the fact that they know they can count on their friends at the San Mateo Realtors Association (SAMCAR) and the California Apartment Association (CAA) to show up in mass to protest and argue that their personal property rights trump basic human rights to housing. Council members won't empathize with those being impacted, nor will they make any efforts to solve the problem.

Some people think affordable housing is a simple function of supply and demand. More demand for housing means higher rents. Well if it is that simple then fixing the problem should also be relatively simple: stop approving more office complexes until such a time as the price of housing allows those who already live here to remain here. However clearly this isn't the goal.

The goal instead is to gentrify the area. Build massive luxury building complexes that only newcomers can afford. Out with the old and in with the new. Let's get rid of all those people who have been here for a long time and worked in a variety of industries from service, to automotive, to nurses, to teachers who don't earn starting salaries of $100,000. Let's replace them all, each and every one of them, with people who start at $100,000, average $300,000 or even make it to millionaires. No I am not taking about being worth a million, I am taking about earning a million year in and year out.

As you can well imagine those earning $300,000 can easily afford paying $100,000 in rents. In fact that amount wouldn't be considered as being out of line namely paying 30% of their income in housing. Unfortunately the reality is that only a couple of industries pay those kind of salaries: high tech, finance and top specialty medical doctors like surgeons.

However when local governments forget about the tools they once employed to control the situation such as implementing and enforcing realistic zoning maps that allowed for the necessary diversity in the marketplace or enact rent control measures they show themselves to be tools of those industries. Unfortunately it is the public that pays. Having trouble staffing schools because only teachers married to someone in high tech can afford to stay locally? That is your problem. Having trouble staffing hospitals because of the same reasons? Ditto.

Nurses and teachers are constantly being recruited from outside of our area. The ones who don't do their homework think they just got lucky or are special because they received salary offers that are substantially higher than what they earn where they are. They think they are coming for a short contract but that they are going to stay, buy a house and make a life here. Only once they get here they realize that their income although higher here in the SF Bay Area doesn't go as far. The situation is so out of control that it is now reaching the very industry that created the problem namely high tech.

Recently both Microsoft and Google announced that they were planning major expansions in the area. Whether or not you intrinsically believe in rent control, the question is quickly becoming what is worse no rent control or rent control. It would be nice to see government officials wake up and realize that instead of solving the problem they are making it worse!