Housing crisis needs solutions

“… Provide a balance of rental and ownership housing, ensure long-term affordability … and preserve our existing affordable housing stock.”

- Housing element, Petaluma General Plan 2025

Gov. Brown’s mandate that Californians do more to conserve water in response to the state’s unprecedented drought sparked a prompt response by city officials who immediately promised to adopt more aggressive policies aimed at curtailing water use by local residents and businesses. Make no mistake, the city will soon deal more effectively to address the water shortage that shows no sign of letting up.

But what about the city’s other major shortage: housing? Petaluma’s housing crisis has reached epic proportions. As described in this week’s article by Argus-Courier reporter William Rohrs, young families, even those with moderate incomes, are losing their rental housing and may soon be forced to leave town because there aren’t enough rental homes to meet current demand. The existing vacancy rate for rental housing is hovering at an all-time-low of around one-half of one percent.

Of the 485 rental units managed by Petaluma’s Mahoney Davison property management firm in Petaluma, only one unit is currently available to be leased. Just one. Says owner Kerry Mahoney-Davison: “It scares me to death the number of people in Petaluma looking for a home. I have friends, kids, relatives and their families all asking me, begging me, for a place to stay. And they can all pay rent, but there’s simply no room available.”

Stories abound of Petalumans suddenly without a place to live. On Tuesday, Press Democrat columnist Chris Smith wrote about the plight of disabled Petaluma mom Barbara Lager who, with her 82 year-old mother and 13 year-old daughter, have spent months searching for a rental home after their previous rental house was sold. Despite a willingness to pay $2,000 a month, they have found nothing. The family is staying temporarily with a friend, but are terrified of becoming homeless.

Sadly, such situations are increasingly common in Petaluma.

The main source of the housing problem is that new home building in Petaluma has not kept pace with demand over the last eight years. Even after the recession ended several years ago, new housing starts in Petaluma are still at records lows.

Despite adoption of an urban growth boundary many years ago with promises to “grow up, not out,” Petaluma has not done much to prioritize affordable housing development over the last several years. Traditionally, Petaluma officials had always made construction of low-income housing a high priority. But today, there is a huge gap between the very limited supply for low- and moderate-income housing and the burgeoning demand for it.

That’s partly because local funding for low income housing projects dried up when the state dissolved redevelopment agencies in 2012. Petaluma’s redevelopment agency had been funneling about $3 million a year into affordable housing projects, which non-profits like Burbank Housing and Petaluma Ecumenical Properties then leveraged to get federal grants to fund new housing developments. That’s now a thing of the past.

But lamenting the loss of redevelopment agencies won’t solve the problem, and solutions are needed now. So what are city officials doing to ensure that more affordable housing units are constructed so that low and middle-income people, including seniors and young families, can continue living in Petaluma?

Mayor David Glass and City Councilwoman Teresa Barrett have suggested a building moratorium. That’s right. Citing the water shortage, the two want to stop any and all building which would, of course, only make matters worse.

The argument that the city should ban all new housing due to a water shortage is nonsensical. People do, after all, have to live someplace. With existing technology, and proper policies, new homes can be constructed that are the most water efficient on the planet.

Thankfully, it does not appear that a lack of empathy and imagination extends to the majority of city council members who now have the opportunity to call a meeting on the housing crisis and discuss incentives to get builders to construct new homes for people who need a place to live in Petaluma.

The sooner the better.