Is coastal California doing its fair share to fix the state’s affordable housing crisis?

Is coastal California doing its fair share to fix the state’s affordable housing crisis? BY JENAVIEVE HATCH UPDATED AUGUST 10, 2024 1:07 PM| 4

Read more at: https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/article289676329.html#storylink=cpy

Assemblyman David Alvarez, a San Diego Democrat, grew up in the poor neighborhood of Barrio Logan. Despite living a stone’s throw from California’s coastline, he didn’t visit the beach until he was in high school.

“Access to the coast is not something I have been able to enjoy, growing up in a very poor part of San Diego,” Alvarez told the California Assembly’s Committee on Housing and Community Development in June.

Now, the Democrat and former San Diego City councilman who represents the lower-income border towns of Imperial Beach, Chula Vista, and National City in Assembly District 80, is working to make affordable housing more accessible in California’s Coastal Zone, the 800-mile stretch of the state’s coastline overseen by the California Coastal Commission.

“Access is not just about giving someone a chance to go and visit the beach on a Sunday afternoon,” Alvarez told The Bee. “It’s about living there, too. And right now, the coast is very exclusive.”

“Today, true access to the coast — which also means the opportunity to live on the coast — is very limited unless you are a rich person,” Alvarez added.

Alvarez is one of many California legislators working to expand housing density in the Coastal Zone, despite what he and others consider push-back from the Commission and environmental groups like the Surfrider Foundation and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The Coastal Commission serves as the overseer and protector of the coast. Established through the Coastal Act of 1972, the Commission’s main function is to protect public access to California’s beaches and its ecosystems from the effects of climate change and overzealous developers. There are 11 commissioners, appointed by various branches of California’s government who have immense power over everything that happens on the coastline — from surf competitions and beach views to apartment buildings and even fences.

What unites critics of the Coastal Commission — including coastal Democrats like Alvarez, rural and inland Republicans like Assemblyman Joe Patterson of Rocklin, and pro-housing YIMBY groups — is the agency’s extensive authority, including its ability to slow down much-needed affordable housing developments for violating subjective standards, like being “visually compatible with neighborhood character.”

“It is modern-day redlining,” said Patterson. He represents parts of Placer and El Dorado counties, and his district encompasses parts of the Eldorado National Forest, the Folsom Lake State Recreation Area, hundreds of miles of trails along the American River and the Sierra Nevada foothills, where centuries-old oak trees dot bike baths, creek sides and some of the last remaining agricultural properties in the region.

“I don’t understand what’s more special about the coasts than my communities,” said Patterson. “I just think it’s unfair that my district has to comply but these wealthy coastal cities don’t have to.”

The Coastal Commission resolutely denies it has contributed to housing inaffordability in the Coastal Zone.

“We should be working together to break down barriers to affordable housing, not hurling inflammatory epithets designed to score political points,” said Coastal Commission Legislative Director Sarah Christie.

But the lack of affordable housing on the coast affects inland communities, who must meet state-mandated housing demands as their populations grow, ultimately begging the question: Who carries the fair share of addressing the affordable housing crisis in California?

WHO CARRIES THE AFFORDABLE HOUSING BURDEN?

Alvarez thinks coastal communities could do more to address the affordable housing shortage in California. He is approaching the issue by addressing a preexisting Housing Density Bonus Law, which gives private housing developers certain incentives — as in, they can build more units — if they set aside a percentage of units for affordable housing.

Alvarez’s law would make it possible for developers to apply Density Bonus Law in the state’s Coastal Zone, but only in areas already zoned for apartment buildings.

“Density Bonus Law is about building affordable housing, and affordable housing means people who have low incomes, or people who have middle incomes. And that’s equity, in terms of access to the coast,” Alvarez said.

Communities outside of the Coastal Zone also grapple with the contentious issue of housing density.

In May, the Placer County Board of Supervisors voted after several contentious hearings to rezone the rural, unincorporated Dry Creek area — where residents have enjoyed decades of no traffic, no stoplights, no sidewalks and proximity to the oak groves — for the development of affordable multifamily homes.

“My lifestyle is at stake,” said Tammy Riedman of Dry Creek. “My sanity is at stake. My safety is at stake.”

Tammy and her husband, Rick, have lived on their Dry Creek property for 27 years. They raised two children there, and hosted every birthday party growing up for their seven grandchildren, giving all the kids a turn to ride horseback on their 4-acre property on Eva Lane and Vineyard Road, directly across from a planned development of 1,900 new homes.

“I’ve chosen to live a country life, a western life,” she said. “But if they build over there, why would we stay?”

“I’ve got all the patience in the world for animals,” Rick added. “But I don’t always do well with people.”

Decades ago, as the then-newlyweds considered their futures, all Tammy wanted was “a porch where she can sit and watch her horses.” But with all the prospective new developments, the Riedmans and other citizen activists are concerned Dry Creek will have all of the inconveniences of a city, but, as Rick put it, “still have all of the work of being in the country.”

Plus, as longtime resident and vocal critic of new housing developments Laura Bullard said, there are serious concerns about infrastructure. Only one fire station serves Dry Creek. It has no paved sidewalks for children to walk to school, let alone enough classrooms once they get there.

It’s a fight playing out in every county in California: an acknowledgment of an affordable housing crisis, distress over the state of people forced to live in encampments and wait years to access shelters, and a constant fight over where, exactly, affordable housing ought to go.

But what inland communities such as Dry Creek do not have that coastal communities do is the power, authority and advocacy of a statewide commission with an explicit mandate to limit development.

CHECKS AND BALANCES

Alvarez and the bill’s co-authors, including Patterson, have had to face off with the Coastal Commission over this bill and others.

They say the Density Bonus Bill won’t usurp the Commission’s authority over sensitive coastal environments and public beach access. Instead, they say, it will reduce sprawl in coastal areas, and help low- and middle-income earners afford to live where many of them work.

The bill has support from various pro-housing YIMBY groups as well as the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation and the California School Employees Association.

The Commission removed its opposition to the bill after Alvarez reluctantly agreed to two amendments. One of those would restore the Coastal Commission’s ability to approve housing policies in the Local Coastal Programs — development plans that coastal cities and counties are required to submit to show their accordance with the Coastal Act. Since 1980, the Coastal Act has not allowed the commission oversight into housing development.

In the new amendment, the Local Coastal Programs would be required to include language on “harmonizing” density bonus with the Coastal Act. Critics of the Commission say this is a power grab, essentially handing housing development approval back to the Commission.

“The appropriate context for repealing the current prohibition would be as part of legislation that also reintroduces housing policies back into the Coastal Act,” said Christopher Pederson, former chief counsel at the Commission, at the California Senate Standing Committee on Natural Resources and Water hearing in late June.

“That would allow the Legislature to address policy issues, such as the extent of the Commission’s authority to establish inclusionary housing requirements.”

The Commission says the amendment is a win-win, and provides local coastal governments their own authority to implement density bonus, while also serving as an important check on the housing industry and ensuring oversight of the coastal environment.

“This policy wouldn’t give the Commission any additional authority over housing policy,” said Christie, the legislative director. “It would simply require local governments to affirmatively acknowledge in their LCPs that density bonus projects can get built in the coastal zone, so long as there is no significant harm to coastal resources.”

Alvarez was visibly uncomfortable as he accepted the amendment.

“My goal is to try to move the ball forward and try to create, specifically, affordable housing opportunities in California,” Alvarez told The Bee after the hearing. “Anything we can do to create more housing opportunities, I’m supportive of those measures. … There are some amendments that I am still unsure of how limiting they might be in terms of achieving that goal.”

Other lawmakers concerned about the Commission’s authority were less generous.

“I never want to see them in another legislative hearing in my life,” Patterson said. “It is the job of the Legislature to set policy. It is not the job of the Coastal Commission to set policy.”

CALLS FOR COASTAL COMMISSION REFORM

The push-back from the Commission, environmental groups and wealthy coastal neighborhoods such as the City of Del Mar, Carlsbad, and Manhattan Beach has illustrated a growing tension among California legislators, housing groups and the Commission itself, ultimately leading to calls across the aisle for Commission reform.

“I think it’s only a matter of time until there’s reforms to the Coastal Commission,” Alvarez said. “Maybe it’s not the Coastal Act, but there needs to be a set of principles that are measurable in terms of what we want to protect. It can’t just be ‘This beach town is iconic, therefore you can’t build anything.’ Currently, the Coastal Commission believes that it actually has that authority … and we can’t have that level of ambiguity.”

Many of his fellow lawmakers agree. State Sen. Catherine Blakespear, D-Encinitas, a former mayor of a Coastal Zone city who also has a Coastal Zone housing bill in the Legislature this session, earlier this year called the act and the Commission “a bit of a sacred cow” and said that reforms are “an area of an emerging focus from the Legislature.”

DENSITY BONUS LAWS, AND THE COASTAL ZONE EXEMPTION

The California Legislature passed a Housing Density Bonus Law in 1979, and over the years it has been updated and amended to include very-low-income households, middle-income households, senior citizens and college students.

With the density bonus, developers enjoy certain incentives if they set aside a percentage of units for those groups while providing much-needed affordable housing at a lower cost than government affordable housing projects, which can become costly.

“Government-built affordable housing is some of the most expensive housing out there,” said Alvarez, a former San Diego city councilman. “I’d rather build affordable housing on the backs of developers than taxpayers, which is what these bills do.”

The Coastal Commission and environmental groups say that Density Bonus Law applied in the Coastal Zone simply puts millions in developers’ pockets, and that politicians like Alvarez, who have received thousands of dollars of campaign contributions from various trade and real estate groups, are serving their interests.

Alvarez takes issue with this assertion.

“You need to look at my track record before being in the Legislature,” he said. “I have always been working in a bipartisan fashion to reduce regulatory hurdles that get in the way of building affordable housing.”

Pro-housing advocates also say Density Bonus Laws encourage density over sprawl; rather than building outward in inland communities, where new sewage and electrical systems must be built alongside new suburban developments, developers can build more units in areas where counties or cities have already developed the infrastructure for such projects.

“The most important way to reduce environmental impact is to increase concentration of people living in existing urban areas that have already built that infrastructure,” said Matthew Lewis at CA YIMBY.

There are myriad examples housing projects being held up over zoning and permitting approval processes — ranging from million-dollar estates to buildings for low-income farmworkers, who experience a well-documented struggle to find stable housing. And while the Coastal Commission does not typically approve or deny housing projects — though it does approve Local Coastal Programs — it serves as something of a court of appeal.

If a developer wants to build an apartment building, resident groups or organizations like Surfrider can file a complaint about a Coastal Act violation to the Commission, who will review it and potentially act on it by serving the developer with cease-and-desist or restoration orders, thus potentially embroiling the project in years’ and millions of dollars’ worth of legal delays.

“This is another false narrative stemming from a very small set of projects that took longer to approve for a variety of reasons,” said Christie, who also pointed out that the Commission has never denied a density bonus project nor an affordable housing project.

But legislators take issue with those claims.

“I have heard no one tell me how easy it was in any process that had to deal with the Coastal Commission,” said Sen. Kelly Seyarto, R-Murrieta, in the Senate Housing Committee hearing for Alvarez’s bill in June. “It was another layer of government that they had to get through and a lot of times couldn’t even get through it.”

HOUSING IS A ‘STATEWIDE ISSUE

The Coastal Zone stretches from the Oregon border in the north to the Mexico border in the south, from the coast line up to three miles inland — though in many places, such as Huntington and Venice Beach, the Coastal Zone only stretches a few blocks east.

The Coastal Zone does not represent every coastal community in the state — a misconception the Commission is working to fix. The Commission does not oversee development in all of Los Angeles simply because it is a coastal community. Rather, it oversees the parts of Los Angeles that fall in the official Coastal Zone, closest to the actual coast line with the most sensitive natural environments.

Solving the affordable housing crisis in Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco or Marin County is a problem far more complex than the Commission itself is prepared, or was created, to address. But its critics inland, like Patterson, say it’s pushing the problem into their districts.

“I understand that there are impacts of development on the coast, just like in my foothill communities. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. Once you steamroll a beach or an oak tree, it’s gone. So I am cognizant of that.”

But California’s environment beyond the coast is as precious as the state’s beaches.

“Whenever you see the governor doing some kind of photo op or commercial about the beauty of California, it usually entails something on the coast and something in the mountains,” Patterson said. “They are protecting the Coast at t