Pacifica Tribune Letter to the Editor, 5/27/14. "Top 10 concerns" by Gloria Stofan (SFOP/PIA Leader)
| Sure these houses are affordable, PUD maintenance fees are low too |
| Attitude |
This year the city is involved in preparing a housing plan that the State of California requires to be completed by the fall of 2014. This plan is prepared only once every eight years, which means this plan will not be reviewed again until 2022. Therefore this year, the city now has an opportunity to develop new approaches to this community's housing crisis. By reviewing the housing plan, the city can create a plan that can become a "driver for action" in the coming years and catalyze changes that effectively address a critical and deepening community need. Thank you councilmember Mike O'Neill for your statement and your concern."
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Reference - SFOP/PIA, "Bay Area for all." "Who we are. The San Francisco Organizing Project/Peninsula Interfaith Action (SFOP/PIA) is a grassroots coalition of congregations and schools working to create innovative solutions to the economic and racial injustices facing residents on the San Francisco Peninsula. We engage families, youth and seniors in public life to create a safe, healthy, and thriving communities for everyone. Together with other PICO affiliates around the state and country, SFOP/PIA is creating a new vision that unites people who believe in justice across neighborhood, race, class, family structure and religion. read more."
Note photographs: Attitude from In El Dorado County News/Sacramento Bee/Loretta Kalb,7/31/12, (a shaggy affordable housing housing lawsuit outcome against the City of Folsom). Subdivision from Affordable Housing Institute: US, (the new construction subdivision is from Franschhoek, Western Cape, South Africa).
Posted by Kathy Meeh
37 comments:
Pacifica needs 413 below market houses and or condo's. Pacifica City Council has done zero!
Ye, affordable housing could easily be built if local ordinances would allow the types of cluster housing to be built as captioned in that photo of a South Africa development.
Definitely starter homes for singles or childless young couples or empty nest seniors.
BUT, no one (cities) around here would entertain such an idea. Too bad, just think how many little boxes could be built in the Quarry or on that fabled five acre field on Pedro Paint.
8:32
Do you want to give the Pedro Point nimbys a massive stroke?
@832
That might be interesting to find out if they are as liberal as they would like to believe.s
Pedro Point's version of Yosemite Sam was almost crying at City Council. 88 houses in Pedro Point. We like to let our dogs poop on that lot. It should always be a dog poop lot.
A true test of beliefs? That can get so awkward.
Pacifica needs 5 Republicans on City Council. Build baby build.
1221, Republicans aren't that popular. There's a reason for that. But this city and region, needs its fair share of affordable housing, or free birth control. (I know, you're solution would include the low income working class commuting from Bakersfield, no birth control, and immigrant self-deportation).
The Democrats are not that much better.
Ms. Meeh! LMAO.
Smart move, Meeh. Got to do right by the Republican Agenda.
^^^ 122 typo, your (rather than you're).
Ms. Meeh, if somethings worth saying, oh and is it ever, then it's worth saying right!
I'm glad Mike O'Neill is concerned with affordable housing, or at least says so. He's been on council for a bit now, what has he or anyone on council done to build affordable housing here since 2012? There is nothing in the pipeline, so to speak. Council could put WWTP for sale but they are waiting for the library bond in 2016. We will get an affordable unit or two with Harmony @ 1 but timing is questionable. So little when the needs are so great. Pacific Skies owners will probably lose and get kicked out, so we will have less affordable housing here in Pacifica when neighboring cities are building them all over their towns. Leadership? Courage? Not in this case.
Mike O'Neill has done a lot to bring the issue of affordable housing to the top of of the discussion.
Thanks Mike, we really need more of it here for the working class that already lives here and is struggling to get by.
Hell will freeze over before a $30,000,000.00 Library Bond will be approved. What a goofy set of priorities we have.
Pacifica's infrastructure is crumbling into a pile of rust and we are closer to bankruptcy than ever before.
Meanwhile we use prime "ocean front" property for a storage yard and a bi-weekly feel good event where the biggest news is who is out of order for booing or clapping at a Council meeting.
Is there no one in Pacifica's leadership able to make a common sense decision?
PIA had to take Menlo Park to court in 2012 to get them to honor their legal obligation to build affordable housing. 1000 units on the way. So many cities stall on affordable housing and get away with it. Lots of talk and sympathy, decades of it, but no action.
No Below Market rate housing left in the Harmony @ one project. Council voted to accept a small fee ($150,000 range) instead of the approved two B.M.R. units on two acres of land.
8:57
All city council does is talk talk talk. Nothing ever gets done.
Same old song and dance my friend.
That $150,000 in lieu fee must have looked pretty good to Council. I see a consultant in our future, with a report telling us we need affordable housing. Paid for by this $150,000. Circle of life in Pacifica.
Tom when did council vote on that?
That needs to never happen again. In fact future large developments should have at least 30% affordable housing built in like San Francisco has done for years.
30% affordable housing ???
SF was 10%, then 15%. Now they're at 30%? Might still be enough wiggle room in the Big City to make a profit, but question how many builders would tackle such a restriction in Pacifica or other small towns. Yes, you can still make a hefty profit in construction these days, but the higher the number of affordable units, the higher chance that a developer will look elsewhere.
Not sure if $150k in lieu fees is enough, but I think the City and Harmony did the right thing. No reason that affordable housing should allow someone to live on a two acre lot with an ocean view . Better that money be used as down payments on three Linda Mar ranchers and the Harmony houses be sold to the deep pockets people who can afford them.
Hutch, Council voted on last year and Tait gave them a $350,000 check as an in-luie fee. It caused quite a stirs as the project is seen as a potential $100,000,000 project when finished and the inluei fee should have been at least 10x greater than it was.
Keep in mind this was back in the Steve Rhodes era of profit first, residents second.
"future large developments"? Ha. Won't be any.
No one gave anyone a $350,000 check for Harmony @ 1.
Ask down at city hall this never happened.
146 Developers receive loans, subsidies and grants from HCD, HUD and other agencies that help them get these projects built.
Didn't the city sign an agreement last July with the developer (Stoneridge LLC) for $350,000 ($344,940.00) as a payment in-lieu instead of developer building the 2 affordable units? To be paid when the final project was approved. I believe the agreement stated the money was to be used by Council for affordable housing "purposes" in Pacifica. Is it too soon for that to be paid or is the $150K a partial? And since we don't seem to be building any affordable housing, what exactly is this money used for? Does it make its way into the GF? If so, it's enough to fund the PRC for 4 years. They help house people.
Is it true that each luxury home in the Harmony@1 development will have to go thru the design and permit process individually? Guess it goes with all the specialness of a big price tag, but it will take forever.
Harmony @ 1 will never be built
Yes each home will needed to go to the Planning Commission for approval.The original project approval set specific design guidelines, none of which I remember right now.
City Council just approved a contract for inspection services for the infrastructure phase of the project. Read the consent Calendar that were the real money gets spent.
7:50, have you been up there lately, there are new fences, rainwater barriers, it looks like they are getting ready to do grading, there are construction stakes in the ground...go check it out.
Ok, things may be moving forward. So when do we get the $344,940.00 that Council agreed to accept in-lieu of 2 affordable units? The agreement between the city and the developer was on an agenda last July or August. Anyone know?
I have just been informed by a reliable source that the in-lieu fee was $350,000 an that it has been paid. Sorry about the miss information ($150,000) in my first post on this subject.
Is Skyfield USA the consultant on Harmony @ 1?
This is a ridiculously small amount of money when compared to what those two units would have cost to build. The message sent to both developers and affordable housing advocates is that Pacifica is not really concerned about the affordable housing gap.
Thanks Tom Clifford. It doesn't seem much when compared to the price tags for those homes--I've read 3.5 million per so the fee amounts to 10% of one home. How'd they arrive at that number for the in-lieu money? And where does that money go? The agreement says it's to be used for affordable housing purposes? Sounds flexible.
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