By David M. Greenwald
Executive Editor
Davis, CA – This week the hammer came down on San Francisco, On Tuesday, HCD announced it was reviewing the city’s housing approval and permitting process and at the same time, HCD informed the city that it must revamp its housing element to convince the state agency that the city has a realistic plan to build 82,000 housing units by 2030.
One of the big problems that SF faces it that the city claims to have 44,234 housing units in its pipeline.
It notes, “HCD has previously suggested that cities consider ‘past completion rates’ for ‘pipeline project[s]’ when crediting units towards a City’s RHNA obligations.”
The letter argues, “Based on historical rates of completion, the City’s housing pipeline of projects currently without building permits only appears likely to accommodate approximately 9,254 units of housing during the next 8 years.”
By contrast, “the City proposes to assume that the rate at which its housing projects ‘in the pipeline’ will produce permitted housing will more than quadruple (from 17% to 80%) during the next RHNA cycle. This assumption is not reasonable, especially in light 
of the City’s own findings that the City has recently placed a number of new constraints on development.”
The fact is HCD is suddenly requiring more than simple paper compliance with housing allocations – instead cities are going to have to show that they can build the housing.
UC Davis Law Professor Chris Elmendorf pointed out in an op-ed yesterday in the Chronicle, “San Francisco is about to change dramatically — whether it wants to or not.”
“What happens if San Francisco doesn’t get its act together?” he asks. “For starters, the state will decertify the city’s housing element, which would cut off various streams of state funding, including for affordable housing. More dramatically, it would empower a “builder’s remedy” under state law that would allow developers of affordable and moderate-income housing to bypass city zoning codes.”
Elmendorf notes, “There are unresolved questions about how this will work in practice, but a San Francisco without an approved housing plan could be San Francisco in which new apartments are allowed to pop up helter-skelter throughout the city. Ultimately, courts could rewrite the city’s master plan for housing, exercising judicial authority conferred by a bill signed into law that City Attorney David Chiu authored when he served in the Legislature.”
A key point that we ought to be looking at is the “city’s magical projection” in terms of its pipeline guesstimate which “UC Berkeley data scientist David Broockman ran the numbers and found that San Francisco’s pipeline guesstimate vastly exceeds historical yields.”
It is not an accident that HCD has lowered the boom on San Francisco. This a shot across the bow of many communities in California, including our own.
Guess what: Davis does not have a certified Housing Element either.
When the Vanguard spoke to City Manager Mike Webb in June he was not concerned about meeting the affordable housing allotment of just under 1000 affordable units.
“I don’t really think it will be a problem,” Webb said. The city will have to lay out a rationale for the sites that will have to be pursued. But even with the loss DiSC, Webb expects they can lay out enough infill sites to not have a problem meeting the housing needs. Though he did say HCD might want to see a timeline where the housing can be built sooner rather than later in the cycle.
The Vanguard has been warning, however, that the city is running out of infill options and here Mike Webb agrees.
“The next Housing Element cycle, that’s where the community will need to be reengaged,” Webb acknowledged. “I don’t see us infilling our way to a Housing Element next time.”
That means that, by 2029, the city will have to figure out how to get the allotment of affordable housing.
But can the city actually get to that 1000 figure this time? Because the high cost of construction in the downtown and the requirements for peripheral projects clearing a vote of the people – I have heard from fairly reliable sources that HCD is going to at some point could be taking a long hard look at Davis.
The article that Chris Elmendorf wrote with respect to San Francisco, could have been written for Davis as well.
The demand for housing in Davis remains sky high. That’s why developers are lining with Measure J projects. The latest one, “On the Curve” which is looking at between 551 and 788 units, many of them smaller and higher density units that could appear to young families.
In the submittal for that project, it notes that Davis has its own housing crisis.
They write, “in the twenty years from 2000 to 2020, the City of Davis grew by only 6,542 people: a 10.8% population increase. That is a growth rate of roughly one-half of one percent annually for twenty years.”
They add, “As a result of Davis’ inaction, we see large discrepancies between the City of Davis and the remainder of the region when it comes to the issues of housing affordability, age, diversity and opportunity.”
But this project will have to get in line with Palomino and the Signature, each of those along the Mace-Covell Corridor. When all is said and done, there could be four or five Measure J projects lined up and waiting to go.
But already some housing opponents are licking their chops for the next development battle, relishing the chance to kill the next project.
But what happens if they succeed? At some point if the city can’t meet it’s affordable housing quota, will the state step in and prevent the community from saying no?
I firmly believe Davis is about to, just as San Francisco will, “change dramatically – whether it wants to or not” – what that looks like, I’m less certain of. Davis is going to have to have a realistic plan to meet the state housing requirement, it is no longer going to suffice to draw lines on maps and call it a day.
Depending upon the number of cities “out of compliance”, HCD (and the attorney general) are going to have their hands full suing individual cities (or otherwise attempting to “force” compliance). The state would probably need an army of attorneys, to accomplish that. So unless the state has the determination and resources to pursue that, HCD itself is going to be under pressure to approve plans – more so than the individual cities.
Ultimately, I don’t think it will bode well for state officials themselves, to declare war on its own cities.
In addition, the population has actually been dropping in places like San Francisco (in particular), and the housing market itself has entered a downturn. It’s pretty tough to “force” builders to build, in such situations.
For those interested, there are organized groups attempting to take-back control, from the state (e.g., via a state constitutional amendment). Again, the more aggressive that the state is, the more likely these efforts are to succeed.
I agree with your political analysis regarding local pushback. It’s precisely this NIMBY pushback that is the reason for the HCD to be in this business. As with any progressive or needed change, there will have to be an aggressive campaign to mobilize voters to push forward and win these fights one community at a time.
In regard to what you’re stating, there already is an aggressive campaign to force communities to accept the state’s mandates. Unlike what you describe as “NIMBYs”, the YIMBYs are funded by business interests. So are the political campaigns which enabled folks like Wiener to win public office.
These are the same type of interests that have pushed for more development, for years. The only change is that they’re using different arguments, now.
I have yet to see anyone define what the “housing crisis” actually means, and how we’ll know when it’s “over”. Let alone whether or not the state’s efforts will have any impact whatsoever, regarding that.
I’m also failing to see the problem with folks leaving for other locales, where the cost of living is more aligned with salaries.
However, I am a fan of rent control.
Kind of interesting: In this scenario, the state would cut-off funding for Affordable housing, but then enable builders to build such housing (for low and moderate income) without that government funding.
In one of the most expensive cities to build in the entire country.
This sounds like one of those situations in which you cut off your own nose, despite your face. (How does that saying go, exactly?) 🙂
I can envision other complexities that could also arise, under this scenario. It will be interesting to see if this actually happens, in places like San Francisco.
I could make a good argument that sticking low income people out on the far reaches of the Mace Curve is a way of isolating them and adding transportation burdens to people who already have enough difficulty getting to and from work. The poster child property for forcing development would have to be the northwest corner of Pole Line Road and East Covell Blvd. The big question in my mind is to what extent the state is willing to weigh in on where development should occur in any given community?
I actually agree with this, in that any (additional) Affordable housing should be integrated into the city.
This is also related to the reason I support rent control – which doesn’t require any expensive, taxpayer-funded building at all. Nor does it come with stipulations regarding income – unlike Affordable housing – which can discourage pursuit of higher income.
Affordable housing can trap people into a permanently-lower economic class, as they can lose their housing if their income rises above pre-determined levels.
In any case, the worst place for Affordable housing is on the periphery of the city – a “ring” of Affordable housing, encircling the wealthier interior of the city.
The worst place for affordable housing is to use this as an excuse not to build affordable housing.
A “gauntlet” of Affordable housing encircling the city is not a good idea, for a number of reasons. (One of which was mentioned by Dave Hart.)
Affordable housing (of which I’m not a fan of, compared to rent control) needs to be incorporated (and permanently-affordable); not in isolation and distant from the “wealthy core” of a city.
That’s not an “excuse” for anything, other than appropriate, long-term city planning.
I believe this is my fifth comment for the day.
What evidence do you have for making such a disparaging comment or is this just a self-gratifying statement?
Because past performance is no guarantee of future returns.
“That’s why developers are lining with Measure J projects.”
I imagine there will be a land rush to get on the November 2024 ballot. I could see multiple projects on that ballot.
Ordinarily this would be the job of the General Plan. The problem is that the city has dragged their feet on even getting that process started.
I support HCD 110%. They don’t have to go after every city, just a few to scare everyone else in to compliance. They should choose Davis as their test case. Measure J needs to be ripped to shreds.
Maybe I’m missing something but I don’t see how Davis gets there for the affordable housing required in this housing cycle. There’s not going to be a lot of new affordable housing downtown or via infill that I can see giving the necessary numbers. Given the constraints on funding from private sources and the money about to flow from state and federal governments, I think the city and county and UC need to form a task force and choose some sites to make use of those dollars.
Maybe each candidate for council can address where in their council district they would propose affordable housing as well as homeless housing units.
I agree Don, which is what I’ve been saying for a few months now, I don’t see how they are going to get there this cycle.
Some people seem to imply that the only way that new folks can move into a given town is if “new” housing is built for them. These folks seem to believe that towns “owe” them additional sprawl, to accommodate their personal desires to move to a given locale from wherever they’re moving from. That belief, my friends, takes a lot of “nerve”.
Some also seem to believe that the reason for Davis’ existence is to accommodate the growth desires of a university, which avoids taking responsibility for its impact (and does not seek input from the city regarding its plans, regardless of its impact on its adjacent neighbor).
Also ignoring the fact that many Davis residents have nothing to do with UCD, in the first place.
Also ignoring the existence of “North, North Davis”, which is simultaneously touted and criticized by some of the developers who created it.
These folks also ignore Davis’ existing housing stock, as if the current residents in them never move or die.
Again, goes back to that belief that a city needs to “grow” to accommodate folks who don’t even live there (and may have no need or desire to do so), and who nevertheless have plenty of opportunity to move into existing housing stock, regardless.
Every Davis resident has a connection to UCD, whether direct or not. If they are not either a student or staff member, they a connected through the school district where parents who are employed by UCD boost the education level (research shows this is much more important than teachers or funding), housing prices boosted by increased local demand by higher income households, and cultural amenities provided either directly or via UCD-connected individuals. Saying otherwise is naïve and myopic. If you want to see what Davis would be like without UCD, look at Dixon or West Sac with lower average incomes, lower school performance metrics and lower housing prices.
These are economic benefits that have been bestowed on Davis by state taxpayers through billions of dollars in investment over the last century plus. That legacy and expectation for the future comes with an obligation to accommodate UCD’s mission to educate the youth of our state. If you don’t like being part of that mission, then you can move far away. Living in Davis doesn’t give one a property right to dictate what the university should do–you knew about UCD when you moved into the region (even in Woodland). Attempting to lock others out of Davis because of your personal preferences (preferences that are irrelevant since you live in Woodland and are not a legitimate stakeholder in this discussion) is at the root of segregation. Instead we must acknowledge our responsibilities that come with our rewards for living here.
Certainly, UCD has a big impact on Davis, both “positive” and “negative”. I’d agree that it’s an overall positive impact. And those moving into Davis already pay a premium for it – it’s not “given” to them by UCD.
Those investments remain on campus. And again, Davis residents already pay a premium to move into the community. Nothing is “given” to them, by UCD.
For that matter, UCD doesn’t pay property taxes on parcels that it occupies in the city, either.
True. And those who are constantly trying to change Davis can do the same. (I wish that more of them would do so.)
What “mission”? Is that in the “contract” that those living in (or moving to) Davis must sign?
UCD cannot make “demands” upon the city, either. They are separate entities. And UCD is far “wealthier” than the city, and is subsidized by the state. There’s also other subsidies for UCD in the form of grants, student financial aid and loans, etc. Those subsidies are not given to the city.
You don’t know much about me, it’s irrelevant, and it’s none of your business in the first place.
But again, you’re the one who advocates for leaving Davis residents (direct stakeholders) “out of the process”, since you advocate the abolition of Measure J.
Of course, if you were actually worried about segregation, you might also have been concerned about the “Davis buyer’s program” (or whatever it’s called) at Bretton Woods.