David Howard has posted yet another “a-ha” revelation for us non-believers that Measure A is the savior of all that is good in Alameda. This time, he contends that because the Housing Element produced by the City of Alameda says that Measure A hasn’t constrained the building of affordable housing in Alameda that it must be so! However, what was written was political sidestepping over the issue.
Take for example this section:
The City’s housing growth rates could be adversely affected because high-density multi-family housing could not be built.
Response: The City of Alameda is currently in a period of considerable growth and anticipates the addition of approximately 3,600 units to the City’s housing stock over the next five years. If this development occurs, as many as 1,300 units will be affordable to very low, low, and moderate income families.
On the surface it seems, oh look, the City is planning on building more housing, clearly Measure A has not restricted housing growth. But remember folks, these aren’t homes that have already been built, this is a projection of what has been identified for the housing element. The state mandates that all cities have an element and that it is in compliance as well as all regions are given (by the state) a number of homes that must be built to meet the growing demand for housing. This means that the city must identify all the housing units that it has been allocated to meet regional housing needs. Would the city actually honestly say, “you know, we really can’t reach the goal of creating 2,162 units of housing under Measure A,” and risk non-compliance?
So, the next question to ask is…so what exactly has Alameda built so far, well, I’m glad you asked. The Bay Area Council has assessed whether Bay Are cities have built according to their Fair Share Allocation, as determined by the Association of Bay Area Governments. They gave the city of Alameda a grade of “F” in building the required fair share for the area. That’s pretty disappointing Alameda.
Because as reported by ABAG in their report, A Place to Call Home:
However, even though most jurisdictions are able to identify and plan sufficient land to satisfy their RHNA targets, the housing production goals set by the State are generally not met. This is largely because, as part of the RHNA process, local communities only plan for housing. The plans they create influence how and where growth occurs, but local governments cannot control the marketforces and decisions that determine if the housing actually gets built.
And of course, the Housing Element only covers housing targets for low, very low, and moderate income households, but, from what I understand, HOMES isn’t just advocating the need to build for these economic groups. They are also calling for multi-family, higher density building in order to provide housing options for middle income families, the group that commonly gets lost in the shuffle when there is new construction projects.
So is the Housing Element an appropriate measure of how Alameda is moving forward with housing production? Hardly.
Instead of using this very cursory evaluation of Measure A’s impacts on non-existant housing production, how about we have the city commission a truly un-biased and neutral report about the past effects of Measure A on housing production and what impacts it will have on future production, rather than stifle the dialogue altogether.
I don’t understand why some Alamedans are willing to take this at face value, yet question the Catellus commissioned study on Retail Impacts. At least Catellus commissioned an outside party to perform the work, and it looks like the firm they used specializes in similar types of projects. It’s surprising because in general, people are so suspicious of government produced works, but not when it fits in with their ideology, I suppose.
Is that like the “affordable” Bayport homes targeted at people with an income of $90,000/year?
Moderators Note: I think I have been really patient with your topic deviations in the comment area. But next time, do not hijack my topics with your own agenda. If I want to post something on a particular topic, I will do so. I am not your researcher, do your own legwork. There is a link to a Bayport Neighbors Homeowner Forum in my Links. Maybe one of the posters there will do your research for you, but you should disclose what you will be using it for.
Comment by keepmeasurea — September 11, 2006 @ 10:07 pm
Bayport, at the build-out will have 490 homes and of those homes 48 homes are for affordable housing. Bayport defines affordable housing as follows. For a 3 person household the income range is 60k – 74k while a 4 person household is 67k – 83k.
Then there is the breakers with 52 rental units(very low to low income) and 10 for sale units(median income).
So for the Bayport community, that brings you to 110 affordable homes and 442 homes. However, through phase 10 of Bayport, the homes were relativily affordable (well below market rae), at least for the Bay Area.
Comment by Ben Kruger — September 12, 2006 @ 6:41 am
It is also important to note that the breakers were able to be built because of a court mandated exemption to Measure A. Independence Plaza, critically needed housing for seniors up at the intersection of Webster and Atlantic was also built because of an exemption built into measure A. So if keepmeasurea is highlighting those as models of measure a compatibility, then what he is really promoting is the effectiveness of exemptions to measure A.
Comment by Doug Biggs — September 12, 2006 @ 12:30 pm
Pertinent to this topic might be the upcoming panel discussion on the transportation impact.
Comment by alameda — September 13, 2006 @ 2:01 pm
I wanted to step in here for a second. I’ve been studying measure A for some time now. As a 29 year old married man making a decent income ( over 100k) the current Bay Area cliche’ of” I can’t afford a home” has been in my vocabulary for several years. This is rather absurd. If I can’t afford a modest home here, then I’ll be damned if any of the school teachers, Police officers, and other public employees can either.
I’ve been living here for 7 years and while Alameda is cute, quaint, and looks like a page torn from a Better Homes and Gardens magazine, circa 1957, I’ve noticed a somewhat fierce anti-development attitude here. I’d almost call it a phobia.
If you look at the historical timeline of the Bay Area and when it was last an area that had an affordability index that coincided with real wages and the cost of living, this timeline abruptly changes in the early to mid 70’s; about the time that SF, SJ, Alameda, and many other BA cities started adopting development control measures, like our very own measure A.
Measure A is what I call a ” pickling law”, a law made to put a stop on future growth. It does indeed preserve the infrastructure of the past, but at the same time assures future generations- aka- my generation the displeasure of having to scramble for decades just to get into a very modest unmodified home with an elevated pricetag.This is totally uneccesary.
Indeed- Alameda looks just about like it did 30 years ago, but with a vastly altered populated strata. To say the least the entire Bay Area is now over stratisfied, with a social composition more akin to a third world country.
Most people my age and income are shaking their heads wondering how in the hell things got so out of touch with economic reality. The average home in Alameda is 600k… or more. Of course this is mostly due in part to the current housing bubble. We are already in what looks like the start of yet another housing bubble implosion, with property values likely heading towards pre-2003 prices. Many would point to the bubble as the cause of the current economic woes of the region. That said, why do bubbles occur in California? This is certainly nothing new. There have been 3 in the last 30 years- one for every decade. All end up the same way- with dramatic crashes, economic sluggishness, and countless families that got in too late being caught in the crossfire.
The reason for these bubbles are pieces of legislation like Measure A. Put quite simple, when you restrict the available homes to a growing population, you artificially manipulate the supply, hence the phsycological effects of ” being priced out forever” aflicts the population with a sense of urgency to buy even if that means taking desperate measures such as the latest proliferation of toxic loans. Measure A and similiar measures are what form the foundation of the chronic issues facing Alameda and indeed the entire Bay Area.
I recently got a letter from actionalameda.org urging me to vote for them, so that they can continue to serve the interests of the “citizens of Alameda” by continuing to support measure A, and somehow create affordable housing at the same time. Hogwash. It will be more of the same. A bunch of good ole’ boys sitting in city hall trying to pretend that Alameda is somehow diffrent from every city in the US, and that healthy growth is bad, keeping current homeowners happy by making sure their own self-centered not in my backyard politics are kept on the books for all eternity, and assuring that there will be another property bubble.
Seriously- if people really cared that much about dear old Alameda, then how come literaly half of the island has “for sale” signs hanging all over it? There my friends is the truth of what’s going on here.
Repeal Measure A.
Comment by Willy — September 14, 2006 @ 7:41 am
Much hay has been made over the issue of “affordable housing.” Unfortunately, the word “affordable” has acquired additional meanings that make it very difficult to carry on a rational discussion without people talking past each other.
Strictly speaking, “affordable housing” just means housing that a given household can afford without spending an inordinate fraction of its income on housing costs. The fraction considered “affordable” varies slightly, but it is generally around 30%. Thus, all housing is “affordable” to someone. I imagine the Taj Mahal would constitute affordable housing for Bill Gates.
However, the term “affordable housing” has also come to be applied to programs and policies that make housing units available for sale or rent below the market rate. The most common affordable housing programs are subsidies, where taxpayer dollars pay some or all of the costs of housing. The most common policy is inclusionary zoning, where developers are required to make units available for sale or rent at below-market rates.
As keepmeasurea and others have pointed out on many occasions, there are already plans in place to provide below-market-rate affordable housing at Alameda Point through inclusionary zoning. However, the vast majority of the units will be market-rate single-family homes that will be far beyond the price range of households that already earn too much to qualify for any of the below-market-rate housing. In other words, the middle rungs of the “ladder of housing” are completely missing.
Many people ask, “Why don’t the developers just build small market-rate starter homes that middle-income families can afford?” The problem here is that the major cost of a home in the Bay Area today is not the house itself, but rather the land upon which it sits. Given the high land values and cleanup costs at Alameda Point, the only hope for providing market-rate starter units is to reduce the land cost per unit. The way to do this is with multi-family housing: apartments, town homes, and condominiums.
By banning the creation of apartments, town homes, and condominiums, whether in renovated historic structures or in new buildings, Measure A forces up the costs of all housing construction. This can be offset to some extent with subsidies and inclusionary zoning, but these effectively shift those higher costs to the taxpayers and the buyers of the market-rate units, respectively.
I don’t think one has to be a rabid free marketeer to agree that providing market-rate housing that is within financial reach of more families is preferable to taxpayer subsidies or shifting costs to other buyers. However, it has been suggested that to do so is to “build ‘affordable housing’ for people that don’t need it.”
This is where the shifting meanings of words are getting in the way of a rational debate. Everyone needs affordable housing, in the sense that everyone needs housing that does not consume an inordinate fraction of household income. However, not everyone needs or qualifies for below-market-rate affordable housing.
Only by twisting the meaning of “affordable” is it possible to suggest that creating more market-rate units on the middle rungs of the housing ladder somehow constitutes an unfair housing giveaway scheme. Especially when one considers the urban design, transportation, and historic preservation advantages of allowing a variety of housing types, it seems perverse to insist on driving already high housing costs even higher by blindly applying Measure A at Alameda Point.
Comment by Michael Krueger — September 14, 2006 @ 4:51 pm
Comments to Michael,
I totally agree with your assessment of the ” affordable housing” situation. Indeed, there is a missing wrung in the ladder, and that wrung takes shape in the form of multi-family dwelling structures.
I’m not sure why Alameda and the BA in general is so entirely opposed to the idea of more compact residential housing. If you look at the ratio of land being used for residential housing per square foot in the BA, it hovers around 5%. That’s amongst the lowest density of any major metropolitan area in the country. The primary reason for this is that areas like Alameda chose to adopt a more traditional approach. That means more large single family homes, yards, and parking areas for each family in the space that could easily be inhabited by several families. In other words, Alameda’s infrastructure is outdated in terms of meeting the demands and needs of a growing population. This is the only reason prices in the area are as high as they are, and as pointed out before, initiated by stop-gap legislation like Measure A.
If you look at countries that are far more advanced in their populations, like Japan, you’ll see cities that build up and in more concentrated numbers and not out and spread out. This is also precisely what NYC had to do simply due to the fact that Manhattan is on a small island ( not much bigger than Alameda) thus they HAD to make more room for their changing environments. Just imagine if laws like measure A had been cooked up circa 1800 in NYC. There wouldn’t be a NYC. While I’m not saying Alameda should become another Manhattan, people that cling to the notion that they can prevent people from building new residential areas are only fooling themselves. Just like NYC, Tokyo, and countless other cities around the globe, Alameda will eventually have to make changes to their legislation to allow for the incorporation of future residents.
I’m not about to say that the island should be bulldozed and replaced with millions of apartments, but I also find it equally ridiculous that there are laws outlawing them entirely. They – just like the huge 5 bedroom house, inhabited by a single retired baby boomer couple with no kids have just as much legitimacy to exist and serve a simple purpose: to house people. There is a balance to be made that would serve both interests, yet this idea is seldom addressed by city officials.
This brings me to a rather ugly cumulating of the above thoughts. If current “residents”- and by virtue of the definition I’ve seen used by Alameda politicians I assume must mean current and longtime Homeowners only- are truly only concerned about their community and the residents that live in it, then I assume that people that rent, make lower, or in my case even somewhat decent wages or otherwise don’t own ( yet) are not instrumental in the decision making when it comes to community planning. I very much get this vibe from any number of articles I’ve read over the years. Thus if that be the case, then in reality, the “residents” involved aren’t really serving the interests of the community, but rather themselves instead. This is politics being used in a totally undemocratic manner, and one that completely goes against the “progressive liberal” element that seems rather strong in the area. It would be truly interesting to sit down with some of these people and ask exactly why they are opposed to having a perfectly fine apartment building being built in a vacant lot where ordinary working people can live.
Lastly, I’ve seen politicians, proponents of Measure A, and other groups claim that by changing current building trends, Alemeda’s quality of life will dip. I find this rather amusing because as someone who came from Asheville, North Carolina, I can honestly say that the quality of life here is not on par with what people think it might be. Indeed, the quality of life that I seek is one that is sustainable, realistically affordable with a decent income, and one that encourages dynamic change and healthy development. I fail to see any of this here in Alameda and indeed most of the state. Of course this is a point of view that many Alameda residents who ” got in” decades ago likely do not share. These same residents are also the same people who are the most vehemently opposed to allowing for changes that would make things easier not only for people like me- the new generation- but their own children as well. I find this only too ironic.
Comment by Willy — September 15, 2006 @ 7:49 am
As a added sidenot since we are on the subject of affordable housing, this link is probably one the most instrumental in providing non-biased housing market assesment. An excellent read ( unless you are a RE investor)
http://thehousingbubbleblog.com/
Comment by Willy — September 15, 2006 @ 9:21 am
Willy – you make well over $140K and can’t afford to buy a home in the Bay area. I’m sure the folks at Doug Bigg’s Alameda Point Collaborative are sympathetic. Maybe the residents there can start up a donation box to fund a down payment for you.
Comment by David Howard — September 15, 2006 @ 10:59 pm
Willy – Perhaps you’ve not got your priorities straight. If your stated income is true, you obviously can afford to buy a home in Alameda. I do, and I earn less than half of what you say you earn. Of course I had to make choices; I don’t waste my money or health on cigarettes, alcohol, clubbing, recreational or self-prescribed drugs. No fancy car, restaurants, or electronic gadgets to stay amused. We found ways to save our money, and after several years had enough for a down payment. Our 1st house was not in Alameda but we continued to look here for several more years and we made it happen with hard work and persistence and perhaps a bit of luck too. We made the choice that Alameda is where we wanted to raise a family because of the kind of community it is, and we sacrificed other alternative spending choices to get our home here. It wasn’t easy and it wasn’t fast.
I certainly understand the desire to own a mortgage instead of a lease. If you want to buy a high rise condo, Emeryville has a lot of them, and there are plenty in Oakland too, – just look at Jack London Square’s new high rises, plenty there not selling. But if you want to buy a home in Alameda, first ask yourself why. Why is it Alameda appeals to you? What is different about Alameda? Alameda is not for everyone, not a lot of good restaurants, or quality clothes for men, too many hair and nail shops, but we liked what we saw when we were dreaming and planning to one day get married and have a family. Quality schools were important, safe streets and safe neighborhoods, the whole neighborliness of the community. Almost 8 years later we moved into our house here. At first we co-owned with another couple until we bought them out. You seem to think the most imporant purchase of you life should be fast and easy. My wife, the social leader of our family worked here for over half a decade before we found a house we could afford. We participated in Alameda. We still do. With our children we learned the value of the PTA for the schools. We volunteer for service in the schools, in the classrooms and improving the facilities. In many ways, to the best of our abilities, we improve Alameda, and we want the best for our community. I also spend a lot of time working on our house as it was in serious disrepair (affordable condition) when we bought it. Not the new-development empty-promise affordable, but rather, affordable in the traditional sense. And this style of affordable home is sprinkled throughout the island, but they are not always available. I understand that. But if you want to live and own a house in Alameda instead of all the other available options around the Bay or elsewhere, you should respect the idea that you like Alameda because of the way Alameda is, or you should continue your search elsewhere. Alameda is what it is, an island. You can’t keep adding large numbers of people to an island without changing the population density.
Now be realistic – what gives you the right to tell 80,000 residents of a community that they should surrender the qualities of their life that they enjoy, the same qualities that attracted you, the residential qualities they have developed, nurtured and protected. If City staff gives developers approval for the kind of density the developers want to build, Alameda will no longer be the kind of community that we all sought. Our streets can’t take that kind of traffic growth. Road rage used to end at the estuary, but already traffic frustrations have increased tremendously. Perhaps this is partially due to the high housing costs – keeping grown, employed kids at home with parents or just requiring more workers per household. The traffic increase is clearly evident without all the proposed development. But it’s not just traffic, density affects all of life. Every study on animal behavior demonstrates that increasing density in a confined space breeds violence. Even a tree knows when to stop growing based on the limits of its confinement. Sadly our community was fooled into electing self-centered representatives who cared more about dollars and people who could help them politically than the people of the community that elected them. That is the reason for the new slate of grassroots candidates; deHann, Bail and Thomson. You see the signs, Alamedans are convinced we’ve had enough (Too Much) of the present development-based City Council. Throughout the island neighbors are talking and taking a stand to protect what we have, why we are here.
I hope you find the kind of home you want, in a place you like. I have one suggestion, if you want to live in a good neighborhood, find good neighbors and be one of them, don’t find them and try to change them.
Comment by D.Kirwin — September 17, 2006 @ 2:13 am
Comments to Kirwin,
First of all, anyone that tells me that they bought 5, 10, 15 years ago doesn’t really have any kind of symbiance or perspective on exactly how difficult it is for anyone who doesn’t own to buy a home here at this point. Simply put, ALL homes in Alameda are now heavily overpriced and way out of line with basic fundemental economics.
I am originally from North Carolina. A person working as a teacher, police officer, or even social worker can easily afford a home that here in Alameda would be over a million dollars. Some say that ” well- it’s in North Carolina”… But in reality, what’s ironic about this is that Alameda is in many ways just like the myriad smaller mountain communities that dot the mountains of NC. I can see why there is a draw to Alameda- because the rest of the BA is overpopulated, overpriced, and in many ways not terribly attractive.
I’ve looked over my finances many times and know that if I wanted to spend upwards of 75%-80% of my income just on housing, then I could buy something here. Then again, coming from another part of the country where people aren’t conditioned to think that spending asanine amounts of money on housing and sacrificing their well-being just to have what we back home considered a given gives me the perspective that there is way better things that I can do with my money than waste it on overpriced housing.I simply have a very diffrent value structure to my life that is not inline with the extremes I see Californians, who are seemingly all too happy to blow tons of money on substandard housing.
I moved here to California 10 years ago. I started making $8 an hour, and slowly worked my way up to where I am now. I came from a poor family and the idea of saving, not wasting money was a virtue. I still drive a 12 year old dillapidated truck. I rarely eat out. I change my own oil, fix both me and my wife’s cars, and shop at the flea market for clothes. So despite what I think Kiriwn was implicating above, I am by no means a spendthrift.I value money and know what $20 will buy. I also know what $100,000 will buy elsewhere, and how little it buys you in California.
It still astounds me that to this day, there are STILL people buying houses here. I know for a fact that many of these people are making half of what I make, yet loan agencies, RE companies, banks, and the rest of the industry are giving money to people that have no business borowing money they cannot possibly pay back unless they take a gamble that their property values will only go up.This is starting to and will continue to damage the local and perhaps national economy. having a population of bankrupt or heavily overextended “homeowners” will place us in a 90’s era Japanese recession. Again- all preventable had there not been anti-development laws that caused things to be so terribly overvalued.
As mentioned before, putting the brakes on positive growth in an area only causes Real Estate bubbles. These bubbles have ill-effects themselves. Investors buy up houses left and right, further erroding availability. Homes are fixed up using slap-dash methods for a desperate quick sell. Home prices skyrocket keeping them out of reach for future middle income residents and cause entire neighborhoods to become generified and gentrified. I moved here 7 years ago and have noticed the amount of bimmers in town has escalated tremendously. Anyone notice that? So we’ve kept measure A. Great. Now see the above results.
The last thing I want to mention that I am terribly surprised to never hear from many residents is what do they expect their children to do once they reach the age of having their own family? Of course many will move away, but given the way patterns of bubble and bursts occur here, even if they wanted to stay, there would be no way in hell they could ever afford it. You who wanted to prevent future growth can thank yourselves for that. So My advice for those of you who want your kids to stay in the same state as you is to start saving up a few hundred thousand dollars in the case your kids will have a down payment.
I have no doubt that Measure A will be heavily amended, if not repealed entirely in the coming years. History is a lesson of what the future brings. It’s all too often that people forget what history has taught us. During the turn of the last century, there were heavy protests against new immigrants coming from Europe to the US. laws were passed and measures enacted to prevent these new arrivals from coming. The residents of the Northeast felt threatened by these ” new arrivals” even though they themselves were “residents” that displaced the native American populations. Luckily, those laws were changed and the flood of immigrants launched the US as a major economic superpower. Many of you would probably not be here had it not been for a loosening of these laws.
A city is an organism. It breathes and functions just like a person, and given the ability to grow, it will adapt, change, and serve as an example as a healthy city full of vibrance and life. Alameda is not well. Our out of control housing prices hurts everyone- even those that now own. it dampens new business prospects. it discourages young couples from settling here, and it only deteriorates the standard of living over time. I’ve said and I’ll say it again: Amend or repeal meaure A. Let’s make Alameda a great place to live for EVERYONE- not just those that got in before things got out of hand.
Comment by Willy — September 18, 2006 @ 7:53 am
Willy- can we deviate for a second from the multi-paragraph personal accounts to admit that there IS affordable housing in the Bay Area? You can buy a lot of house for comparatively little money in Richmond or parts of Oakland. You can buy a reasonably priced condo in Hayward and even San Leandro. I doubt however that you can buy one in San Francisco, despite the fact that “putting brakes on positive growth” is not even part or planning vocabulary there. Ditto for Emeryville. Also, if you are priced out of Alameda, you are also priced out of Berkeley—with no constraining measures to speak of there. Why? If your theory of constraint is true, how do you explain this?
Hint: It has something to do with amenities, used as a general term for what else people find desirable except square footage.
Comment by NIMBY — September 18, 2006 @ 9:45 am
NIMBY,
I lived in Berkeley for 3 years. You can bet your boots that they have loads and loads of anti-development laws that are every bit as much as stunting as those that are here in Alameda.Indeed, there are “affordable” properties in parts of Richmond, West oakland,Hunter’s point and other gun-riddled parts of the area. They are cheap for a reason, and if 450k is cheap, then perhaps people in SF and the BA need to get on a bus and take a trip across the country so they can be jolted back into reality versus being numbed into thinking that their pieces of dirt are worthy of such insane pricetags.
I will not buy in this current market, nor do I have any desire to put down roots in an area that will almost guarantee that if I were to have children, they would be unable to afford it unless they became lawyers and doctors.
Thus, coming back to the original post at hand, If I am to have anything to do with this area, then some off these oudated laws need major changes. Otherwise this state will simply be a bunch of retired baby boomers and uber-rich people.
Comment by Willy — September 18, 2006 @ 11:43 am