SACRAMENTO � Last Monday, on the opening day of the legislative session,
Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, talked about the
phenomenon of California homeownership.
Parents are chasing that dream to cheaper, distant towns, then wasting
time in cars commuting to work, which hurts families, burdens roads and
produces pollution, he said.
Perata has sprawl, the poorly planned placement of housing and population,
at the top of his agenda.
The senator and administration officials are looking at a bold, "anti-dumb
growth" plan aimed in part at slowing the number of Bay Area residents
crossing the mountains and heading to San Joaquin Valley farmland in search
of cheaper homes.
The idea is to squeeze in cheaper homes, apartments and condominiums closer
to the urban core and suburbs.
"We might have to look at something as revolutionary as having the state
itself decide on land-use zones and land uses," Perata said.
An ambitious series of bills and constitutional amendments expected to be
introduced next year will propose usurping the decision-making power of
local planning boards, curbing state environmental regulations to lower
housing costs, spurring housing on old industrial sites, and offering state
money for parks or roads to communities that participate more willingly.
Perata said he expects many city officials to have knee-jerk reactions of,
"Oh, no, no one's going to tell us how to build a house."
And he's right.
"Thoughts like that really scare me," said Los Banos Mayor Michael Amabile,
whose boomtown in Merced County is helping absorb the Bay Area spillover.
"To think that anyone up in Sacramento can tell us what's best for our
community is really not the way it should be done," Amabile said.
In another valley bedroom community, Patterson Mayor David Keller
said local control over planning decisions is a "right that has been held
sacred by every community."
Valley leaders say they're acting responsibly � and reacting to the reality
that cheaper housing is driving the area's growth.
"The marketplace is what it is," said Kyle Kollar, community
development director in Manteca.
State could face a revolution
Stanislaus County Planning Director Ron Freitas predicted an uproar.
"For them to be presumptuous enough to zone land and tell us we have to
do that, I think you'll see a huge revolution of local officials," Freitas
said.
Freitas fears if the state orders new housing, communities will get stuck
with the bill for new sewers, water systems, streets, and police and fire
protection. Financial incentives from the state won't be enough, he said.
"A carrot is a drop in the bucket to what they're ramming down our throats,"
he said.
Former Modesto Mayor Carol Whiteside said it's not too late to do
something about Bay Area sprawl, questioning the nature of the housing shortage.
"They'd like us to believe they're full now, but I think they have more
capacity," she said.
However, Whiteside said the best approach for the state isn't to strong-arm
city officials.
"For the state to point at other jurisdictions before they have their own
house in order might complicate, rather than help solve, the problem," said
Whiteside, who heads the Modesto-based Great Valley Center, a policy group
working to preserve farmland.
Push to bring jobs to valley
Amabile, the mayor of Los Banos, doubts whether plans to keep housing contained
and prices lower in the Bay Area could last more than six months before the
market pushes prices up and people out again, he said.
"There's no stopping it," Amabile said. "What we should be concentrating on
is moving jobs to the San Joaquin Valley, and that's how our people can stop
commuting." Amabile said.
Sen. Tom Torlakson, a Democrat from Antioch who will take the lead on
sprawl proposals, said adding jobs to the San Joaquin Valley is part of the plan.
Too many rules, critics claim
He's been working with Assemblywoman Barbara Matthews, D-Tracy, to
create tax incentives to lure businesses to San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties.
Assemblyman Greg Aghazarian, R-Stockton, has been pushing a similar
"enterprise zone" bill for Stanislaus County.
Torlakson, who is chairman of a new Transportation and Housing Committee,
believes much can be done in the Bay Area to build housing.
"We're squandering opportunities almost weekly with land that is available,"
he said.
The culprits, he said, include neighborhood groups that intimidate city
officials into blocking apartments or cheaper housing. Or they take advantage
of the California Environmental Quality Act, CEQA for short, by calling for
environmental studies that can delay and add costs to projects, he said.
Torlakson said the state needs to consider pre-empting more local decisions
and, "we should look at adjusting CEQA."
Home builders contend that state lawmakers also need to recognize the long-term
consequences of too many regulations.
"Are they contributing to more efficient use of land or are they simply
excluding and forcing people to move farther and farther away?" asked Tim
Coyle, senior vice president of government affairs for the California
Building Industry Association.
The effort to coordinate a statewide housing policy is backed by the
California Performance Review, Gov. Schwarzenegger's top-to-bottom
report on streamlining state government.
"Housing efforts are increasingly under siege from other statewide mandates,
regulations and requirements, such as water standards, transportation
constraints and prevailing wage requirements," according to the 2,500-page
report.
"In addition, housing is often thwarted by local opposition from anti-sprawl
and not-in-my-back yard groups," the report says. "NIMBYism will always be
an obstacle to building multi-family housing, so long as people believe (it)
is a threat to their property values and quality of life."
Poor planning in Bay Area
Sunne Wright McPeak, Schwarzenegger's secretary of the Business,
Transportation and Housing Agency, has been meeting with home builders,
local officials, and policy, labor and environmental groups to help shape
a statewide plan she calls "anti-dumb growth."
McPeak, who grew up on a Livingston farm, wants cities and counties to look
ahead 20 years to accommodate population growth by building more housing
units per acre, preserving farmland and protecting wildlife habitat.
"The sprawl that is happening is because housing is not being accommodated
closer in, so it gets forced out into Modesto � and Turlock, Ceres,
Livingston � because the 101 jurisdictions in the Bay Area are not planning
for and accommodating (the) housing they need for their natural population
increase and jobs generation," McPeak said.
Torlakson acknowledges the controversy of the state taking on local planning
officials, and some suggestions are likely to be met with opposition from
environmental groups.
Perata, the Senate leader, said he's determined the state can get its hands
around sprawl.
"There's something wrong," he said. "We can fix it."
