Local Government Housing Action

The City of Goleta is currently in the process of creating its General Plan. Part of this General Plan is the City’s Housing Element. A Housing Element is a state-required document that assesses housing needs and outlines strategies to meet those needs.

 Join with other Coastal Housing participants in standing up for local housing for local workers. The following are points that need to be addressed as part of Goleta’s Housing Element.

The following are a few points you may wish to include in correspondence to the City of Goleta.

Address your letter to:

Mayor Jean Blois and Council Members
City of Goleta
130 Cremona Drive, Suite B
Goleta, Ca 93117

• According to Santa Barbara County Association of Governments reports, the South Coast (includes incorporated and unincorporated Goleta) has experienced a chronic and growing shortage of housing built compared to jobs created over the past 20 years. The growing commute rush congestion in both directions on Highway 101 reflects the housing deficit of workforce and affordable residences in Goleta, and the new City has a responsibility to repair this deficit to the best of its abilities.

• The shortage of South Coast workforce and affordable housing is resulting in the loss of middle income workers as local residents and leading to South Coast communities increasingly composed of “haves” and “haves-not.” Healthy communities make room for people at all rungs of the economic ladder.

• The lack of workforce and affordable housing has already caused some large employers to relocate, leading to loss of good-paying jobs. Unless we begin providing needed housing, this disturbing trend will continue with negative effects on our local economy.

• For those jobs that can’t move (public safety like police and fire, education, health care, local government, nonprofits), the workforce and affordable housing shortage has already created employee recruitment and retention problems with real impacts on South Coast quality of life and personal security. The question about “where’s a policeman when you need one?” will be applicable to teachers, heart surgeons and nurses, as well as to plumbers, mechanics and electricians, unless we start doing something about the shortage of housing for local workers.

• For those who say “we have to stop growing” or that “our community doesn’t have any responsibility for housing California’s projected growth,” we need to remind them that 80% of the state’s growth will be through a net gain in births over deaths, and only 20% will be through immigration or migration. Until population growth stabilizes, all communities in California have legal and moral reasons to provide housing for their ‘fair share’ of the expanding population.

• The City of Goleta has so far refused to consider use of currently zoned agricultural lands within its borders for other purposes – such as residential development. While economically viable agriculture should be preserved, some of Goleta’s ag zoned lands have not been productive for years, and their owners should be allowed to apply for rezoning and subsequent development. The City of Goleta, as part of its General Plan and Housing Element process, should conduct a survey of agriculturally zoned land within its boundaries to determine historic and current productivity and intentions of the owners to stay in agriculture.

• New housing in Goleta, if it is to be affordable to local workers, must be built more efficiently that in the past. Not only should the City encourage more “compact development” to reduce the per-unit costs, but the planning processes must be streamlined for projects consistent with the zoning of their locations. Housing density should be greatest in proximity to major transportation corridors and transit centers to encourage less use of private vehicles.

1. The City should respond to the concerns outlined in the HCD and OPR letters.

• In particular, the City needs to demonstrate that our Regional Housing Needs Allocation production goals can be met on the land identified in the Land Inventory.

• Inconsistencies between the Housing Element production goals and policies in the Transportation Element, Conservation Element, Historic and Visual Resources and Land Use Element that have been previously identified need to be resolved. Otherwise, the City’s housing production goals cannot be met.

2. Inclusionary Housing Policy ~ we need changes to this and a broader program strategy to produce a range of needed workforce housing.

• The interim Inclusionary Housing Requirement is not flexible and will result in ‘bifurcated’ housing projects with the production of only a few low-income units and the rest at market rate prices that are beyond the purchasing ability of the local workforce.

• Inclusionary requirements for homeownership housing should focus on the moderate to middle income workforce range. This will provide homeownership housing for the next generation of workers in Goleta’s R&D industry and critical workforce categories such as healthcare workers, firefighters, sheriffs, and middle management staff. This is also better public policy in terms of bridging the affordability gap (the financial resources needed bridge the gap for low-income homeownership housing is too wide and does not result in the production of very many units.)

• Lower income housing needs can be better served through a focused or targeted rental housing development program. The City can use its resources---from the Redevelopment Agency set-aside funds and from CDBG and the HOME consortium to provide financial incentives to non-profit and private developers to develop tax credit affordable rental projects for retail and service workers in the community and persons with special needs.

• Other planning policies ---such as higher density, ‘fast-track’ processing, allowing developers to set-aside land for affordable housing as an alternative to inclusionary requirements, etc.---can also provide effective incentives to produce needed affordable housing for lower wage workers and persons with special needs.

3. Bonus Density

The City needs to develop a workable bonus density ordinance with effective incentives for developers. Alternatively, the City should adopt the State standards directly.

4. Development Standards:

We need to carefully examine the interaction between the following development standards and parameters so that we achieve maximum development capacity on our remaining vacant sites in Goleta. Otherwise we will unnecessarily shrink the development envelope of properties and not reach our community housing production goals:

• Building height
• Lot coverage – 30% standard is too limited
• On-site open space requirements – should be flexible, depending upon the development type and on-site amenities.
• Floor Area Ratios. and densities – should be flexible;
• Variable density should be adopted to provide a range of unit sizes for different populations
• Noise standards – 60 vs. 65 DB—the 65 DB standard should be adopted.
• View corridors—developers should be allowed options for how to maintain important views rather than have arbitrary or mandated requirements.

5. Development Processing - what can we recommend?

• Streamlining—concurrent processing; ‘fast-track’ and/or priority for affordable and workforce priced projects, etc.
• Master EIRs ---to facilitate project development.
• Special considerations for development of infill properties

6. Environmental Standards

• The definitions and policies in the draft Conservation Element concerning wetlands, ESHAs and special species areas are overly conservative and will work to significantly limit the development capacity of infill sites where the bulk of the City’s RHNA housing production must occur.
• The City’s policies do not distinguish between remnant or marginal ESHA areas and areas where resources can realistically be protected and enhanced.
• The City policies call for no development at all in identified ESHA areas, irregardless is the ESHA is a small remnant or seriously degraded area. Additional ESHAs can also be established but the standards for this are not clearly laid out.
• The City is imposing the Coastal Zone standards throughout the entire City. This will make it more difficult for residential development.

This opens up the door to environmental groups to claim that ESHAs exist on infill sites and special species should be protected even if they are foraging on vacant infill lots. We note that the EDC has already submitted input to the City of Goleta to this effect.