More funding needed for affordable housing

Housing prices in the Bay Area continue to climb while wages remain flat, meaning that many workers are forced to spend a greater portion of their income on housing, or they are becoming priced out of cities like Petaluma.

The median price of homes sold in Petaluma in the month of June was $687,500, and the average rent for a one-bedroom unit was around $2,000.

In Petaluma, like other cities in California, the housing crisis is made all the more acute due to the lack of local funding to build affordable housing. Petaluma has traditionally collected some $3 million for affordable housing through its redevelopment agency. This has led to the construction of 34 affordable housing projects in Petaluma totaling 1,526 units since 1985.

When the state abolished redevelopment in 2012, however, this key funding source went dry.

Subsidized affordable housing projects are important to ensuring that working class families have a place to call home in our community. It is the teachers, firefighters, caregivers, laborers, restaurant servers and others that help make Petaluma a diverse place to live.

Without redevelopment, Petaluma has been able to cobble together around $900,000 annually, mostly through developer fees, for affordable housing. The city needs to do much more in this effort.

The Sonoma County Grand Jury recently found that Petaluma has a $7.7 million annual shortfall to meet its future housing needs. The Grand Jury, in its report, listed some concrete steps the city should take in order to encourage the development of more affordable housing.

Among the recommendations, Petaluma should encourage construction of granny units by reducing permit fees and zoning restrictions, improve regulation and oversight of vacation rentals, which remove long-term rentals units from the market, and donate surplus lands to land trusts or sell these properties at below-market rates to developers in exchange for commitments to include affordable housing.

These are just some of the things the city could do that don’t require new funds. There are also federal grants that Petaluma could pursue for affordable housing construction.

The city also has leverage to encourage the building of affordable units through agreements with developers. As builders come before the city with proposed residential projects, the city should do all it can to ensure that affordable housing is included.

This was the case with the 150-unit Altura apartment project recently approved on Baywood Drive. Rather than pay into the affordable housing fund, the developer in the deal agreed to set aside 15 percent of the units as affordable.

When this project is completed, some two dozen families that qualify for affordable housing subsidies and wouldn’t be able to manage rent otherwise, will have a place to call home.