When Governor Gavin Newsom declared he wanted 2.5 million new housing units in California, he failed to see how his “aspirational goal” would transform the Golden State into a matrix for high-rise, rental development. Newsom’s number became the basis for the 6th-cycle RHNA (Regional Housing Needs Allocation) numbers, the outsized housing demands now at the heart of every city’s Housing Element.
And that’s not all. Since 2017, Newsom and the State Legislature have passed more than 200 housing bills; there are more than 20 awaiting passage during the current legislative session. Yet the maze of legislation fails to provide more than a tiny fraction of homes needed by people with very low, low or even moderate incomes. What all that legislation does is pave the way for very deep-pocketed real estate investment companies to buy property and build whatever they believe will prove most profitable to them in the long run.
Even the name RHNA (Regional Housing Needs Allocation) is a whopping misnomer. What California city do you know that “needs” more rental apartments in buildings of four stories or more? That’s what many developers propose. Cities are under enormous pressure to approve the plans in frantic attempts to reach their RHNA numbers. In theory a developer who builds a large market rate project must set aside 20 percent of the units for “affordable housing.” When density bonuses and other concessions are calculated, what typically gets built is 10 market rate units for every one labeled “affordable.” Since “affordable” can be applied to units priced for those earning between 0 and 80 percent of the area median income, units labeled “affordable” are often beyond the means of teachers, nurses, retail and restaurant workers.
Portola Valley is headed for bankruptcy in attempts to meet its 253-unit RHNA requirement; Woodside is laboring with a requirement to build 328 units and Los Altos Hills to find room for 489 additional units. The burden on the City of Los Altos is 1,958 units. In all cases the cost of providing services and infrastructure falls on existing residents. One has to ask, “Whose needs are cities scrambling to meet?”
If Newsom and the Legislature wanted to address the housing needs of working people, they would tackle the underlying difficulty --- over the last 50 years, the cost of construction has risen exponentially while wages have remained nearly flat. According to the National Association of Homebuilders, fewer than 80,000 new homes have been built in California in each of the last ten years. The demands of the 6th-cycle RHNA cannot be met even if cities abandoned all their local housing ordinances.
The 6th-cycle RHNA applies a wrecking ball to the California dream of a house and yard of one’s own. What kind of built environment we are handing off to our children and grandchildren? I hate to think they will only be able to stay in the Bay Area if they are willing to choose among rental apartments in dense, high-rise buildings. Peninsula residents must shower their legislators with letters expressing the belief that a massive program of forced residential building will not make anyone’s housing more affordable. Peninsula cities must unite to resist Newsom’s number and the maze of recent housing legislation. Until then, we are all complicit in turning paradise into another Manhattan or Hong Kong.