In yesterday’s Vanguard, I laid out five questionable claims by the opposition to the West Davis Active Adult Community (WDAAC). According to David Taormino, there are many more.
In a response column on Friday, Mr. Taormino writes, “There are so many misstatements, distortions, fabrications and nit picking in the second article by Mr. Pryor and Ms. Nieberg I’m not going to waste the reader’s time by responding to each. Together, their articles contain at least 50 distortions all protected by the United States Constitution.”
As I pointed out in yesterday’s column, it would have been more helpful for Mr. Taormino to simply correct the record by sampling a list of what he viewed as inaccurate statements and then correcting them on an objective basis.
For voters attempting to determine whether they are going to support the project – how does this help?
My View: We Need a Better Discussion Here on Measure L – Part One
Yesterday we laid out a number of inaccuracies with the opposition case. Today, I will go through problems I see with the project.
The first problem with this proposal is that it is basically a classic low-density, peripheral housing project.
This is a 560-unit project on 74 acres of land north of Covell and just west of Sutter Davis Hospital. Think about this, the last time Davis approved a peripheral project primarily made up of single-family homes was the 1995 development of Wildhorse – placed on the ballot by a citizens’ initiative. The next two, the 2005 Covell Village and the 2009 Wildhorse Ranch projects, were 
rejected by the voters.
You could argue that the 2013 Cannery project fits the mold, although technically that was infill and did not require a Measure R vote.
Even more striking is the fact that, if WDAAC passes a vote, it is not clear where or when the next peripheral housing project will take place. There is no obvious next project.
While the renewal of Measure R in 2020 is expected to be the next big battle, all of the next big projects are expected to be infill projects – whether it is the University Mall redevelopment or projects within the downtown.
The passage of Measure J in 2000, and the rejection of Measure X in 2005, signaled that the voters of Davis wanted to limit the extent to which the city grew outward. Measure L marks an exception to that rule.
One key question for the voters is, given that we are not going to have a lot of peripheral projects, do we want to pass one that is relatively low density and for the most part made up of old-style, detached single-family homes?
Or should even peripheral projects take into account smart growth principals – better utilization of existing space, smaller and more multi-family homes, more density, more height, etc. These are critical questions for the voters, but we can’t have that discussion if we don’t lay these issues on the table.
To me this critical philosophical issue should be front and center in this campaign and it has not been.
Second is that Davis has never built a senior housing neighborhood before – should it start now?
Eighty percent of the units are restricted to buyers and renters aged 55 and over.
Is it lawful to build age-restricted housing? Yes. But just because something is lawful does not make it sound policy.
We could build housing that meets the needs of many seniors – with features like universal design, single-story flats, moderate to small size – without it being exclusively senior housing. In fact, once upon a time, the city talked in terms of making all housing universal design. That doesn’t mean we would need it to be exclusively single-story buildings.
On the contrary, designing homes for people to age in place is critical – that means you have some of the bedrooms and bathrooms on the ground floor, so as an individual ages, they can utilize their home without having to go upstairs.
In fact, some of this has already been adopted by the city through the Senior Housing Model.
A key point though is that the need for small- to moderate-sized homes, single-story with universal design, meets the needs not just of seniors, but many other groups that are in need of housing and for which housing is in short supply. That includes those who are lower income or even at median income for the city of Davis, smaller households, and those people with disabilities.
Bottom line: having a mix of housing with the features and amenities situated within WDAAC is helpful, but those homes could be built for many different populations, not just seniors.
Third is a problematic housing theory.
The developers at WDAAC have laid out one theory of their project. People who currently live in Davis and want to downsize could move to WDAAC. By doing that, it will free up single-family housing in existing neighborhoods for families and other younger people to move in.
But there is a critical flaw in this theory – even if they can legally restrict purchases to Davis residents (see below).
Right now, many seniors occupy fairly large homes that were built in another era within the core of the city. Some may want to downsize, others may not. Some may want to live in a predominantly senior community, but others may not.
The bigger problem is this: let us say that seniors wish to do this – sell their existing homes and downsize. Who is likely to purchase the vacated homes in existing neighborhoods? It is not going to be young families with kids for the most part, because they are not going to be able to afford the large single-family homes.
It is either going to be folks moving from the Bay Area fleeing those ridiculous home prices, or wealthy people from around the region. Either way, while there is nothing wrong with people moving here from elsewhere, it is not exactly filling the existing housing needs of this community.
Fourth – why are we not building the housing for existing needs?
Bottom line – if we are looking to create housing for families with children to move into, it is not going to be large, existing homes that come onto the market. We are going to need to either create a number of smaller, less expensive, affordable-by-design homes for families – kind of like what is being proposed at WDAAC for seniors – or we are going to need to create subsidized big “A” affordable housing for families.
I have told this story before, but it bears repeating. There are seven townhouses in south Davis that are formerly DACHA (Davis Area Cooperative Housing Association) homes. They are now rental homes for people who are right around median income, less than $70,000 a year. In every one of those homes are professionals, or families with children.
That is what it takes to produce housing for families in Davis. Larger homes in the core of the city are not going to be purchased by people making around $70,000 a year. Or even $100,000 a year.
If we want more homes for those folks – we have to build them.
Fifth – is the Davis-Based Buyer’s Program even legal?
Some people have attacked the motivations of the Davis-Based Buyer’s Program. But let us for right now accept at face value that what the developers are hoping is a way to make their theory work. Their theory is that retired folks or folks nearing retirement who are empty-nesters currently live in homes which are well beyond the size of their needs.
Therefore, if given the opportunity, they will move from existing neighborhoods to WDAAC and then sell their homes and free them up for others.
We have already criticized the back end of that theory – the idea that these large homes are going to serve people with children seems unlikely.
But the front end is equally problematic. Without restrictions, the concern is that these new homes will simply be snatched up by seniors trying to flee the ridiculous housing market of the Bay Area.
So they came up with a plan to restrict buyers to people already living in Davis, or people with ties to people living in Davis.
The latter is a problem anyway, because it could be so permissive so as to render the program moot.
But the other problem is there is no way to know that this is going to pass legal muster. As noted at the council meeting, these restrictions are not tied into the Project Baseline Features or even the Developer’s Agreement. So, the developers are in no way bound to adhere to it.
They have a legal opinion from their counsel that this would pass a court challenge, but until there is actually a suit and one which gets to a court and we get a ruling, we will have no way of knowing.
Without the Davis-Based Buyer’s Program, this is basically Cannery all over again. Market rate, single-family homes, some of which may serve the purpose as outlined by the developers – but we have no way of really knowing.
At the end of the day, this is what we should be discussing: Do we want a large, peripheral subdivision? Do we want mostly detached single-family homes on the periphery? Should we age restrict? Is this filling our biggest housing needs? And is the Davis-Based Buyers’ Program legal?
These are all subjective questions, but is that what Measure R should be based on? We shouldn’t have to question the underlying “facts” – only whether or not we want this project and this project serves the community’s needs.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
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Interesting, David – In todays’s installment of your “fair and balanced” series reporting on the WDAAC proposed development, you are supposedly pointing out shortcomings of the proposed project. Yet you start out with 5 paragraphs that do nothing but disparage opponents on the Measure.
So it seems that you think the developer should have gone through and “correct the record” ”on an objective basis” on their own but they didn’t. So being the hard -hitting, boots-on-the-street tough investigative reporter that you are, you decide to carry the developer’s water bucket and point out what you feel are the inaccuracies for them.
And then when you go on to point out what you see as the only “land-use” problems with the project, you put on your paddy-cake gloves.
Then, you fail to point out that we first raised all of the issue that you point out as problems well before you put pen to paper. Your supposed list of problems with the projects you roll out today are simply a rehash of the land use and discriminatory problems with the project we have been pointing out for months (see http://www.NoOnWDAAC.org) except you vanilla and sugar coat them all.
But what I did was take out all your hyperbole and all your inaccurate statements. You’re right, it’s more vanilla than it reads in your literature. Shocking.
What do home-buyers want?
http://economistsoutlook.blogs.realtor.org/2013/12/03/latest-consumer-preference-survey-from-nar%E2%80%99s-smart-growth-program/
The neighborhood shopping centers in Davis are integral to the planning process and practices. The intent is that each broadly-defined neighborhood shall have a shopping center that meets the basic shopping needs. This proposal would have nearby shopping that meets basic shopping needs. Many residents are likely to walk to it, though a number will certainly prefer to drive.
It’s fine to talk about smart planning principles and focus on high-density mixed-use downtown residential units, but the reality is that is not what many people want. In fact, it is probably not what most people want. It’s probably not even what most of the opponents of WDAAC actually want or live in themselves.
The difference for Davis, compared to other communities, is the planning principle that protects the downtown AND the neighborhood shopping centers (review our ‘grocery wars’ from a couple of decades ago for more on that). Strong neighborhood shopping centers can reduce the carbon footprint of peripheral development.
But is a detached single-family home a luxury we can no longer afford in our world? (Honest question).
As long as most people “can” afford a single family home we will continue to have them in our world (I don’t see Bill Gates and Warren Buffett moving in to a duplex or “co-housing” project any time soon)…
Regardless of what a market will support, I’d ask if it’s sound policy for cities to continue approving sprawling developments across open land. That’s what’s created a mess (in more ways than one), throughout the region, state, and beyond.
Should Davis continue to be conducting “business as usual”, using the same sprawling model that every other city in the region uses? (Much of which appeals to, and is ultimately occupied by folks moving in from the Bay Area – who have the resources to purchase it?)
Some people can afford them. And in our three nearest communities, detached single-family homes presently cost substantially less (I mean, a whole lot less) than they do in Davis.
A planning process that allows for a mix of home styles is probably the best balance between consumer preference and community benefits. In Davis that will skew toward multi-family housing because our market is about 55% renters compared to about 45% renters elsewhere. But it doesn’t mean 100% of new housing needs to be multi-family and high-density. And more important, there doesn’t need to be a direct connection between housing location and downtown shopping amenities. Downtown is not a retail hub for daily shopping purchases. It is a shopping destination with other options primarily, and is increasingly an entertainment/restaurant destination. The key to sound planning is the presence of neighborhood shopping for existing and new residential neighborhoods.
I suggest people look at the city’s current general plan and do a search for ‘shopping’ so they can see the many times that neighborhood and downtown shopping are mentioned.
One reason people can “have their cake…” in this context is that the costs of driving are far from internalized.
Not enough people voted for the parcel tax for road repair (though some didn’t do so because they claim they didn’t trust where the money was going, they did vote for the parks tax… and it goes without saying that if potholes were proportionate to the size of cars – i.e. if they threatened driving as much as they threaten cycling – the tax would have passed. It’s also doubtful that U-Mall 2.0 will have paid parking, even though Downtown 2.0 will have paid parking. There are other examples…
Don: I didn’t mean afford as in “ability to pay” – I meant it in terms of land use and climate change policies.
The key is to provide the basic amenities nearby, which the neighborhood shopping centers do.
Interesting survey results you referenced, Don. I think there are a couple of other take-aways from the article releveant to the discussion about WDAAC.
1) Residents prefer detached homes but with smaller yards. I think Cannery fits the bill with respect to smaller yards. They are really shoe-horned together there. But at WDAAC, the average lot size for the Greenway homes is about 4, 700 sq ft and the average lot size for the small builder homes is 5,200 sq ft.. These are large suburban tract size lots which are presumably NOT what consumers want accoding to the survey.
2) At $450 per sq.ft, an 1,800 sq ft home will cost around $810,000. The builder lots will almost certainly have larger homes pushing prices up to $1,000,000 and north. This certainly isn’t going to be a development for any seniors of modest means. So to live at WDAAC you are going to have to be a millionaire to buy a home or be functionally living month to month on social security to qualitfy for a low income apartment…Not exactly a diverse, cross-section of seniors.
According to the survey, only 11% of the respondents said they thought here was “Too Little” “Housing for People with High Incomes” while 28% said there was “Too Much” “Housing for People with High Incomes”.
36% of the respondents said they thought here was “Too Little” “Housing for People with Moderate Incomes” while only 6% said there was “Too Much” “Housing for People with Moderate Incomes”.
Finally, 46% of the respondents said they thought here was “Too Little” “Housing for People with Low Incomes” while only 10% said there was “Too Much” “ Housing for People with Low Incomes”.
It would seem that there is much, much more support for more housing for moderate income housing than housing for more wealthy buyers. It will be interesting to see if this is reflected on the ballot results come election day.
Per industry surveys, average lot size in the Pacific region is about 6000 – 6500 sq ft for a single-family home.
The homes in WDAAC will range from 1400 – 1800 square feet.
I have no idea what these homes will sell for.
4,700 sq, ft. is not a LARGE “suburban tract size lot” it is a tiny “postage stamp” size lot (about half the size of many Davis Streng tract home lots in the 1970’s).
The average lot size for a new single-family home sold in the US in 2013 was .35 acres or 15,456 sq ft.
http://lifeedited.com/lots-and-lots-of-problems/
I was using data broken down for regions, because lot sizes back east are much bigger than here. The number I cited was for the ‘Pacific’ real estate market. The west generally is somewhat larger, the south and New England much larger. You want a lot of land? Buy a home in Alabama.
Ken A.
In general using averages (heavily influence by extreme values) rather than medians is not going to be descriptively accurate. You’ve illustrated exactly why: the median lot size of a new single-family detached home sold in 2017 in the U.S. was 8,560 sq. ft. http://eyeonhousing.org/tag/lot-size/
P.S. Median lot size in California is significantly less than that.
Don… you and others have missed a downright exaggeration by Alan P… $450/sf of house… even in Davis, median/average is $377 (asking)/sf, tops… 377 is around 20% less than Alan’s blatant distortion… (source: Zillow…)
https://www.zillow.com/davis-ca/home-values/
My point was that few people (other than Alan and others tying to kill the project) would describe the “smaller than average” suburban SFH lots at WDAAC as “large suburban tract size lots”. When looking at lot sizes there is a BIG difference between “urban” and “suburban” in CA (my grandparent’s little 1,400sf home in SF was on a 1,700sf lot in the Mission District). I know lots are getting smaller, but just because people are paying 3/4 of a million for the new Willow Creek homes in Davis where you can lean out your window and touch the home next door does not make the WDAAC lots “large suburban tract size lots”…
The Davis Vanguard peanut gallery are really twisting themselves into knots to try to discount Alan Pryor’s arguments. His phrase was that the 4,700-5,200 sq. ft. lots “are large suburban tract size lots” and he contrasted these with some of the smaller lots at The Cannery. Some regular commenters here are trying to parse this in ridiculous ways.
First of all, it is inarguable the WDAAC proposal is primarily single family homes at suburban densities. Secondly, the City of Davis Affordable Housing Ordinance defines “large-lot single-family units” as being on lots 5,000 sq. ft. or larger. This is right at the density that we are discussing.
Thirdly, The Cannery project documentation shows that the largest lots are in “The Park Homes” area at 50-55’x90′ lot sizes (4,500 to 4,950 sq. ft.) and the “Cannery Village” area at 45’x105′ (4,725 sq. ft.). These are roughly equivalent to the proposed WDAAC single family lot sizes. HOWEVER, the smaller single family units lot sizes that Alan was referencing include “The Cottages” area at 46×75′ lot sizes (3,450 sq. ft.) and “The Bungalow Alleys” area at 40’x80′ (3,200 sq. ft.).
Finally, Howard P. jumped in to talk about median home values / price per sq. ft., ignoring the fact that this is data for the entire housing stock, not new housing that has a big premium,
I’m wondering why Rik is defending Alan when he claims in error that lots under 5ksf are considered “large” (when they are smaller than average in not just Davis but almost every Suburban community in the country). As far as Alan’s off base claim about price per foot even the new stuff in Davis is selling for a lot less (Howard even had a link, unless Rik is working with Alan to mislead people it seems like he could easily insert a link to prove Howard wrong) FYI people tend to pay more per SF for older homes in nice neighborhoods than new stuff (I expect the average price per SF in the WDAAC to be lower than College Park Circle just like the Cannery is)…
I think the hope is that a large number of seniors in Davis have built up significant equity in their current homes and will trade up in value while trading down in size.
I know when URC opened a number of seniors did just that. If you’ve lived in your current home for a couple of decades, you’re probably almost a millionaire on paper and in terms of equity.
I often see quotes like “Many residents are likely to walk to it, though a number will certainly prefer to drive.” that ignores the reality that VERY few people (even in “Bike City USA” home of the “United States Bicycling Hall of Fame”) walk ride their bikes to shopping or even the neighborhood parks. Yesterday my daughter and I locked our bikes up at the Oakshade shopping center and they were the ONLY bikes locked up. We later cut through Pioneer Park in South Davis and the place was packed with a birthday party and the only bike locked in the bike rack was missing wheels and looked like it had been there for months. Lately I’ve been noticing a sad trend that an increasing number of 20-30 something adults are bigger and in worse shape than their 50-60 something boomer parents. With Uber and Lyft making it easier and easier to avoid walking even a 1/4 mile I don’t think we will ever see an increase in people walking and riding to the grocery store (We still drive to the grocery store more often than not, but have ridden with the Burley at least a hundred times, not even once has there been another person with a Burley loading in groceries.)..
I was being circumspect. The reality is that most people prefer to drive their cars for shopping and errands. Overwhelmingly most people, even in Davis. But you aren’t supposed to ever say that. If we want to focus on making developments ‘greener’ then the most realistic scenario would be to mandate electric-vehicle plugs with preferential EV parking right near the stores at every new shopping center.
Most people use their bicycles for fun and exercise, not as a primary means of transportation.
I hope we wait until we have a lot more EVs before adding a ton of “preferential EV parking” I was at Home Depot in West Sac yesterday and they have a giant ~4,000sf parcel front and center of the store dedicated to a dozen ADA spaces but I have never seen a single car parked there (I guess most people in wheelchairs don’t pick up their own drywall or 5 gallon potted plants). I just looked on line and I’m happy to see that when Google took there aerial photo there were 2 of the 12 (6 van accessible) spots occupied,
https://www.google.com/maps/place/The+Home+Depot/@38.590398,-121.5473311,44m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0xdd2ec9420d7a3015!8m2!3d38.5903646!4d-121.5471916
I SAY this all the time. Last night here in Birch there was a huge party next door of what looked mostly like 18 to 22 year-old students and there were no bikes in front and as far as I could tell in the backyard. The street was full of private cars – perhaps some L/U’d and some walked.
But this preference is not in a vacuum: UC Davis destinationing is expensive by private car and junior high kids can’t drive themselves. So with the latter, the obvious problem is that parents can drive, and with the former as an example the obvious solution to make drivers responsible for their costs of driving – see my comment above – and to realize that convenience-narcissism is un-American! Give people better options and make them pay for the existing ones, and preferences will change. (The domination of automobiles is a so-far successful case of social engineering policy…)
“But this preference is not in a vacuum: UC Davis destinationing is expensive by private car and junior high kids can’t drive themselves.”
Except that the statistics don’t bare that out. Only about one-third of all students have cars these days. Most don’t.
On the contrary. It is what most people want OTHER PEOPLE TO DO.
Don
First, a survey, especially an unstructured one that does not account for all factors facing a consumer, does not necessarily reflect the true market values those consumers hold. For example, while this survey claims that residents prefer single family over commute time, a study I saw 30 years ago showed that house prices went up $10,000 for every extra mile from San Francisco (and his probably $50,000 now), belying that residents actually value commute time highly.
Second, look at who sponsored the survey–isn’t it in Realtors’ best interests to promote single family houses?
I’m not sure where you’re going with this comment. If you have studies that actually show otherwise than what I posted, I’d be interested to see them.
Do we really “need better discussion of Measure L”? Or do we need David Greenwald to stop pretending he invented the wheel? I don’t see where Greenwald is doing anying in this self-purported “bettering” of the discussion other than echoing some of the same arguments that the No On WDAAC campaign has already produced. Let’s go through these points individually:
Point #1:
Davis Vanguard:
“The first problem with this proposal is that it is basically a classic low-density, peripheral housing project.”
No On WDAAC:
“#9. WDAAC is a sprawling development reminiscent of the 1950s and 1960s. It does not meet any of the Sacramento Council of Governments’ (SACOG) Seven Principles for Smart Growth and clearly needs more density, different and diverse building types, and good transportation infrastructure.”
“#8. The far edge of town is exactly the wrong location for a senior development and this project has exceedingly poor connectivity for seniors.”
“Even if the WDAAC did serve a needed demographic segment in our community with the right down-sized units needed by seniors who might be able to afford them, the location of this project on the very edge of town is a serious shortcoming.
Point #2:
Davis Vanguard:
“A key point though is that the need for small- to moderate-sized homes, single-story with universal design, meets the needs not just of seniors, but many other groups that are in need of housing and for which housing is in short supply. That includes those who are lower income or even at median income for the city of Davis, smaller households, and those people with disabilities.
No On WDAAC:
“#1. WDAAC does not meet our City’s real demographic needs for more diverse and affordable housing for working families and those of moderate income.”
“2. WDAAC does not meet the needs of seniors of ordinary means.”
“What Davis really lacks is more diverse and affordable housing suitable for BOTH seniors and working families of more modest means. It has become increasingly more difficult for even middle income families to afford a home in Davis.”
Point #4:
Davis Vanguard:
“Bottom line – if we are looking to create housing for families with children to move into, it is not going to be large, existing homes that come onto the market. We are going to need to either create a number of smaller, less expensive, affordable-by-design homes for families…”
No On WDAAC:
“Because of these huge lot sizes, landscaping and other amenities needed to fill the excessive space would increase costs by about 15% – 20%. These are hardly “affordable” units and would not even be obtainable by most middle income seniors. Thus one could expect that WDAAC will be populated almost entirely by wealthy seniors.”
“Davis must begin to make greater efforts to provide housing for its working citizens and young families – those earning middle incomes who cannot afford to live in the community where they work. This is the type of housing that the City Council must begin demanding from those who want to build in Davis.”
Point #5:
Davis Vanguard:
“But the other problem is there is no way to know that this is going to pass legal muster. As noted at the council meeting, these restrictions are not tied into the Project Baseline Features or even the Developer’s Agreement. So, the developers are in no way bound to adhere to it.”
No On WDAAC:
“These types of locational preferences for housing—especially in a community with a history of housing practices that have favored white people and excluded minorities—are highly problematic in terms of fair housing law. In this broader historical context, the phrase “Taking Care Of Our Own” has much more implicit implications and consequences than the project proponents intended. People that have been historically excluded from living in Davis will continue to be excluded because of the restrictions that this project is proposing.”
Greenwald rightly raises the issue that the program may be illegal. But is there really “no way of knowing whether it will lack legal muster.”? If Greenwald wanted to dig a little further, he would have found statements such as this where the project proponents themselves acknowledge that the project legality is highly dubious. From the project FAQs (http://cityofdavis.org/home/showdocument?id=8285): “1. Will you restrict the homes to only those that currently live in Davis? Our goal is to provide housing for the larger Davis community. We know from many conversations that a lot of us have aging parents that we’d like to bring to Davis but there are limited options to do so, which is part of the current community need. However, we all recognize that the legality of discriminating based upon zip code is questionable.”
There are also numerous recent court cases that have addressed whether these types of locational preferences in housing projects are legally valid. A bit of investigation into that would provide a much clearer opinion on whether the project would pass legal muster. A law review article written this year provides a hint in that regard:
Finally, there is one point that, to my knowledge, is not really discussed in the materials that the No On WDAAC campaign has produced so far:
Point #3
Davis Vanguard:
“The bigger problem is this: let us say that seniors wish to do this – sell their existing homes and downsize. Who is likely to purchase the vacated homes in existing neighborhoods? It is not going to be young families with kids for the most part, because they are not going to be able to afford the large single-family homes. It is either going to be folks moving from the Bay Area fleeing those ridiculous home prices, or wealthy people from around the region. Either way, while there is nothing wrong with people moving here from elsewhere, it is not exactly filling the existing housing needs of this community.”
However, No On WDAAC has directly stated that the project does not address the community’s existing housing needs, and this is merely extending that to the sort of secondary, trickle-down effect that the project proponents are touting.
Again, I don’t see where Greenwald is doing anything in this self-purported “bettering” of the discussion other than echoing some of the same arguments that the No On WDAAC campaign has already produced. However, in this article he has ignored some of the arguments about the developer giveaways, the lack of guarantees in production of any affordable housing, the weak development agreements, potential negative fiscal impact to the City, etc. Will those be in a Part Three to follow, or will he be back to trying to make the project developer’s arguments for them and criticizing the No On WDAAC arguments through cynical distortion of the actual substance of them?
Comments on several items
– We already have a seniors only housing project in Rancho Yolo. The structures are different, but the community type is the same.
– “The bigger problem is this: let us say that seniors wish to do this – sell their existing homes and downsize. Who is likely to purchase the vacated homes in existing neighborhoods? It is not going to be young families with kids for the most part, because they are not going to be able to afford the large single-family homes.” In our neighborhood in the last couple years, which is between Community Park and Downtown, we’ve seen a number of families buy houses. We have not yet seen a house converted from owner to tenant. So I don’t think there’s a factual basis for such a broad statement.
It is very difficult to build anything other than multifamily for lower income households. The way that single family houses become available to lower income families is that they get older, and the higher income households decide to move into a newer house for different reasons. Getting a larger amount of affordable housing in a significant way requires making more existing housing into the market. Until we stop protecting homeowners with Prop 13, that is much less likely to happen. I calculated 20 years ago that Prop 13 adds about 15% to the price of a house because homebuyers need to pay the higher property taxes that the current owner will incur when buying a new house. (I suspect this number is now higher.)
From the Bay Area? 🙂
“Not that there’s anything wrong with that” – to paraphrase / change the reference of an episode of Seinfeld.
They bought from both in-town and out of town. Some were renters who bought. They are not easily or simply characterized. I was surprised at how many families with elementary school kids were/are moving in.
While it is true that “poor” young families with kids are not buying homes in Davis, as Richard points out plenty of young families with kids that have decent jobs (like cop or nurse) or better jobs (like doctor or lawyer) can easily afford to buy a home in Davis (unlike Palo Alto where even most MDs can’t afford to buy a home).
P.S. I would be interested to see the math Richard used to calculate a how Prop 13 “adds” 15% to the price of a home…
Ken
It was a statistical analysis using housing price trends and property tax rates across the states. It’s not a simple “math” calculation–it required some analytic rigor. Because it was so long ago, I don’t have the data and analysis readily available. I am a professional economist, and I used the methods that I have used for many other studies.
I want other point – no family with the top earner earning less than $20/hour is going to be able to buy a house in California unless they have another wealth asset to supplement the purchase. In fact, we should NOT encourage these families to BUY–they need ready mobility to move to higher paying jobs in other locations, at which point they can then buy a house. So we should be focusing affordable housing efforts on rentals, perhaps with longer term leases, as much more appropriate.