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The city of Mountain View is confident that it can meet ambitious housing targets laid out by the state, but some local stakeholders are wary.
Mountain View City Council is slated to discuss its draft housing element at its June 14 meeting. The housing element is one of seven pieces that jurisdictions must incorporate into their general plans, and the only one subject to review by a state agency, the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD).
A major goal of the housing element is to create a sites inventory, the places where housing is likely to be built, and ensure it’s enough to meet the state’s Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA), the number of units that must be planned for over the next eight years.
Mountain View’s housing allocation is among the highest in the region at 11,135 units, according to a memo prepared by city staff. Between projects that are already in the pipeline and opportunity sites — those that are reasonably likely to be redeveloped into housing — the city says it’s prepared to build 15,100 units in the next eight years, an ambitious target that would exceed state requirements by 36%. But some are concerned that the city’s being too optimistic.
“It’s like, OK city, you’ve identified this pile of sites. How easy is it actually for a developer to come and build something there?” said Ilya Gurin, lead volunteer with Mountain View YIMBY. “The developers all agree that Mountain View is a really hard place to do business. They don’t make it easy to build new homes.”
The Mountain View Chamber of Commerce agrees. Chamber President and CEO Peter Katz sent a June 7 letter to the council enumerating barriers that developers face when trying to build housing in Mountain View. The letter states that Mountain View’s “excessively long” entitlement and building permitting process, its high development fees, and its zoning rules make it hard to build both market-rate and affordable housing in the city.
“There are clear issues with some of these sites, like the owners don’t have any intention of redeveloping necessarily,” Gurin said of the city’s sites inventory.
The Target located at 555 Showers Drive, for instance, was originally included on the inventory list, but had to be removed at the council’s last housing element study session in March after the property owner clarified that he has no intention of building housing on his property.
Mayor Lucas Ramirez acknowledged that there are still some tenuous sites on the list, such as the Community Services Agency (CSA) building on Stierlin Road.
“CSA is a longtime nonprofit partner who has been serving low income and vulnerable people in our community for decades and that’s the only property they’ve got,” Ramirez said. “So what evidence can the city provide that that building is going to be demolished, which means CSA has to go somewhere else, and built with housing within eight years? That one might be a little more challenging for the city to provide compelling and credible evidence for.”
On top of meeting its RHNA quota, the city also must comply with a slew of new state laws that weren’t around in the last housing element cycle. Cities have to conduct an assessment of fair housing and evaluate the sites inventory “through the lens of affirmatively furthering fair housing,” the study session memo states.
In other words, Ramirez said, cities need to make sure the placement of new housing isn’t contributing to segregation, or being built in under-resourced areas.
“It’s not enough to just build affordable housing,” Ramirez said. “You have to build affordable housing in areas that are resource-rich, and that are affluent, and that provide the people who live in that affordable housing the opportunity to benefit from the economic mobility provided by the opportunities in that neighborhood.”
Ramirez noted that the housing element is still a draft, and will likely be adjusted based on council and public feedback at the June 14 study session.
“Following the study session the staff will revise the draft to include any direction from the council and input from the public as appropriate,” Ramirez said. “HCD ultimately will determine whether we are in compliance with state law.”
Ramirez said after reviewing HCD feedback already provided to cities in Southern California, which are about a year ahead of the Bay Area in this cycle’s housing element process, he expects the city to receive “similarly robust” feedback, identifying areas for improvement and what changes the city needs to make to comply with state law.
The meeting starts at 5 p.m. and will be streaming online. Find the agenda and viewing links here.
Not listed in the story was the historical number of units that were approved and built over the past 5 years. This could help indicate how likely the city is to achieve their goals. If the numbers are lower, then it’s important to the city to show how they’re going to streamline the process.
Why did the Voice only interview 3 people who are “pro-housing at any cost?”
We have added 1000s of new units the past few years, and approved 1000s more with permits that aren’t getting built. But developers build housing, not the city. Of course the developer-funded YIMBY quoted says it’s hard to build here. She hasn’t built anything.. she’s just repeating what her funders say. We all see the spread
Anything more than ‘no restrictions’, to developers, is ‘hard.’ They only build if each new unit, whether for sale or rent, can get top luxury dollars (luxury is their word, not mine).
Fees pay for parks and schools; requirements for parking are there because people still have cars. For 15y developers stated at City Council meetings that millennials don’t have cars. And yet they keep showing up with cars.. few don’t have them.. most do.
Developers make a fortune on housing in MV and they should pay for the impacts. But also, all offices SHOULD be paying for these fees as well, as the RINA numbers are directly linked by the state to adding office space.
I would be fine having all new buildings *not* build parking, but then they need to be paying for enforcement of parking permitted zones ongoing, and only get the number of permits bordering their properties, or get none at all if they negotiate to build no-parking in their buildings. Also, we could do what Berkeley does when a developer doesn’t want to put in parking: have the state refuse to register vehicles to that address.
But when you suggest that, developers freak out. Because they want their building users to spill all over the free streets. YIMBYs live in fantasy that building more housing will lower prices (it won’t) and that taking away all the fees and requirements will make it all work just fine.. (it won’t.. you still need schools, parks, roads and other publicly shared expensive stuff when adding new people to the city).
Developers of housing and offices need to pay for impacts. It’s not free.
The question I was asking at the end of paragraph 2 is:
Where are the spreadsheets detailing how “hard” it is? Right.. developers won’t show us anything or prove their statements. They refuse. And expect us to believe generalities that it’s “hard.”
Not sure why but the ‘edit button’ didn’t work.
Mary, thank you for providing the unique perspective of someone who owns multiple homes and splits their time between different cities. It’s a demographic that often goes under-served, while people worry about the people who can’t afford housing. Why won’t anyone think of those with too many houses?
How nice that state politicians issue a “Regional Housing Needs Allocation”. How nice that MV’s RHNA is among the highest in the region. Do others know that the State Auditor recently issued a scathing report about the process used to set these targets?
“Overall, our audit determined that HCD does not ensure that its needs assessments are accurate and adequately supported.” – https://www.auditor.ca.gov/reports/2021-125/index.html
Do state politicians issue a “Regional PUBLIC SCHOOLS Needs Allocation”, or a “Regional WATER Needs Allocation”, or even a “Regional TRANSPORTATION Needs Allocation”? Sadly, the answer is no.
“Paying for infrastructure is expensive, and Mountain View is going to need a lot of cash to build out new areas of the city poised for massive growth.” – MV Voice, https://www.mv-voice.com/news/2022/05/25/mountain-view-approves-fees-on-housing-already-considered-too-costly-to-build
Dramatically increasing density without enhancing infrastructure is like forcing 10 lbs of stuff into a 5 lb bag: things break down and get ugly very fast. Not having a plan to pay for infrastructure is really a stealth tactic to force the “little people” of MV to choose between enduring overcrowded schools, traffic nightmares, etc., or pay for improvements ourselves.
How nice to see a lead volunteer with MV YIMBY openly advocating on behalf of developers, who find it “hard” to pay fees to enhance infrastructure. Many YIMBYs mockingly refer to infrastructure as “quality of life” issues. Those of us who have raised families here know what is at stake if schools, parks, etc. are allowed to degrade.
I find it wild, though, to see MV YIMBY referred to as a “local stakeholder”, because they primarily advocate for those who WANT to live in MV, not for those who ALREADY DO. I agree with maryhodder. Where are the voices from local residents who want responsible urban planning?
Leslie, my friends lived here before they were priced out. The housing crisis affects all of us, not just non-residents. I live here, but I’m not even sure if I can afford to settle down in this area because of the ever-increasing cost of housing. You may not realize the crunch the housing crisis has placed on middle-class people if you’re not a renter.
And please have some compassion for non-residents. The teachers who raise your kids, the waiters and chefs who feed you, the public safety responders who keep you safe – they all deserve to live here too.
I am confused. There are trends showing that on site work is being delayed again due to Covid. And the fact that property values have not even close recovered to pre Covid levels. Where is the money going to come from if investor can’t make he money they want?
What should be noted is that the RHNA numbers or quotas call for more subsidized regulated affordable units to be built than plain market rate housing. Mountain View is set to well exceed the number of market rate units for this cycle (profitable, expensive, high cost luxury housing for Google workers, etc.) It’s not over until 2023 but it appears that meeting the BMR unit quota is not assured. By 2023 there are supposed to be 1833 BMR units added. The 1093 target for market rate will be met.
The new targets are larger. By 2031 the target after 2023 for market rate is 4880 and for BMR-type it is 6255. Inclusionary units in projects with market rate might provide 700, but that is a lot of subsidized units left to be provided, 5500.
All this talk about regulation and planning slowing things down for developers missed the point that the big get is going to be the subsidized housing. Land in the area is up around $20 Million per acre. Isn’t it in fact true that subsidizing the affordable units is the largest problem, specifically covering the astronomical cost of land? Worry about big REIT’s making projects under the auspices of the Chamber of Commerce screaming to cut fees? The biggest problem is that land costs may continue to rise. If it holds at $20 MIllion, for 70 units per acre, the BMR housing is going to need $1.6 Billion just to acquire the land. The fees and preferential treatment (skimp on review, speed approval) requested by the Chamber for the big REIT’s is not proportionate to the need. So long as Tech Google Alphabet provides tenants who can pay $4000 per month for market rate units, the units will be built. The real need is the subsidy for the lower income levels.
All the talk from the YIMBY’s holds that feasibility needs to be considered. Where pray tell is there land available to get 80 acres for low income housing? Where is THAT feasible?
The premise that new projects are only 15% affordable BMR units just isn’t going to work with these required low income housing numbers. The kibbitzers ought to consider that when they dump on the city council about feasibility.
This is really selfish, the way the YIMBY’s focus on developers and the probability of their liking the locations identified in the HE. No mention of the feasibility of the locations as regards feasibility for public housing developers, those not focused on their profits. Sigh. Sometimes the YIMBY’s also stretch out to trying to push some more expensive locations being added to the development possibilities. That makes little sense for any income level, but really not at all for public housing. The whole city is only 12 square miles. The shades of gray of “resource rich” is very deceptive. All is very close together.
Salim, gentrification is a process where wealthy individuals move into what was previously a poor or working class community and drive the original inhabitants out. When I first moved to MV it was very much working class. I have nothing but empathy for those who are priced out and/or struggling to pay high rents. What I don’t have is empathy for those who try to exploit this pain in order to make a profit for themselves by INCREASING GENTRIFICATION, and who falsely scapegoat existing residents as somehow being THE CAUSE of this pain.
Over this past year, we have seen bills passed in the name of “affordable housing” (SB9/SB10) that DO NOTHING to help “the teachers who raise your kids, the waiters and chefs who feed you, the public safety responders who keep you safe.” How do you feel about that? In the business world, claims of false advertising could be brought, but in politics it is perfectly legal to make and break “campaign promises”.
“The [CA YIMBY] organization works feverishly to implement Big Real Estate’s and Big Tech’s pro-gentrification, trickle-down, luxury-housing agenda by pushing statewide legislation. The legislation always enriches Big Real Estate, but devastates middle- and working-class neighborhoods.” – Housing Is A Human Right https://www.housinghumanright.org/why-is-california-yimby-hiding-the-names-of-big-money-contributors/
I pointed out how a lead volunteer with MV YIMBY was openly advocating on behalf of DEVELOPERS, who don’t want to pay fees that help pay for schools, parks, transportation, etc., that the entire community needs. Was he advocating for teachers, waiters, chefs etc.? No! He was advocating for DEVELOPERS, who want to maximize their PROFITS by avoiding these fees.
Do low income persons somehow benefit if developers don’t pay these fees? Do they yearn to live in a community with overcrowded schools, overcrowded parks, traffic congestion and parking nightmares? Will rents come down? Of course not. We won’t get more affordable housing for low-income persons, the only thing we will see is increased profits for developers and more urban blight for our fine city.
Lets face facts here, in the latest City Council meeting they were asked to adopt SB330 to require no net/loss of affordable housing, and so far they are not going to do it. The facts are developers pay a fee to avoid building any affordable units in the city. The current projects are not necessarily going to be completed. So you have a city recording a “permit” for housing as an assumed unit. That is backwards, you cannot claim any units completed until they are built. This is in effect “counting chickens before laid or hatched”
Ha! I wish I got paid for YIMBY work. Homeowners “get paid” just for being homeowners, via appreciation.
Yeah, well Google stock holders get paid for Google’s gentrification on the local housing market, by stock appreciation. Everyone’s housing prices went up over the last 10 years or more from speculation caused by low interest rates. Speculators need the low interest rates to truly wreak the most havoc, and they had it, and they did. The homeowners face the same inflationary pressures as everyone else. To my mind, the Tech industry and the biased monetary policy caused the housing price rise, not the homeowners. Ownership merely helped them to keep even.
Google is paying too many engineers too much money, and that’s fueling the demand for the very high priced homes and luxury apartments. If The Googlers couldn’t afford it, then the new apartments would not cost $4000 minimum per month to rent. The salaries fuel the price increases, and the speculators only build the apartments because they know about it.
Where there is some hope for change is that the speculation has now reached over almost the entire country. People in Florida are aghast at gentrification-fueled rent increases that still leave them far behind what the local market charges. But it looks to be keeping on closing the gap. Same in Phoenix, same in Las Vegas. Recent progression toward the state of Silicon Valley.
IVG,
I hate to say this but the current rate of increasing fed rates are going to put a test to appreciating real estate values. In fact most economists are seeing the housing market rapidly cool. Soon after July we will reach the inflection point where the Mortgage rates will exceed 8% at minimum they are already at 6% just before the current increase. That rate will start a systemic depreciation trend. The recent bubbling of real estate seems identical to 2007 so we can in fact replay 2007 again, along with covid and a recession. Things are not looking nice for the next at least 12 months.
Is the city full? I don’t think that’s the issue. There are essentially no limits on how much the Googleplex can expand to fill all the entitlement they have laid in place.
At the same time, proposals like what came from Syufy to add a couple of thousand housing units all right there on land they already own are eschewed. Why? Because Google doesn’t like Syufy, a REIT with a long track record of good development projects. I haven’t heard Leslie or myself oppose Syufy’s offer to provide so much housing right on Google’s doorstep, low commute.
The situation with the low interest rates has had a terrible impact on housing prices–not just locally. 8% mortgage rates aren’t just significant for YIMBY home buyers who have been blaming zoning for higher prices. The construction financing rates will correspond and this will crimp the style of speculators. Crimping speculators is as Martha Steward would say “a good thing.”
Syufy’s offer is noteworthy from the way the YIMBY people ignore it or disparage it. The location is perfect since it’s all within the same contiguous traffic area where there is a commute imbalance caused by Google stacking in the jobs with no housing. Why not build 2000 homes there if Google is going to put in 50,000 workers? It’s still the same city. 2000 homes in tall buildings is too much but 50,000 jobs in weird office palaces isn’t? I don’t see this as a NIMBY issue.
The cost of housing will remain high here as long as employers pay incredibly high wages to so many persons. The problem is capitalism itself. It is rather odd that YIMBYs are primarily highly paid persons themselves. Big Tech funds the movement https://www.housinghumanright.org/inside-game-california-yimby-scott-wiener-and-big-tech-troubling-housing-push/ because it has problems hiring when those out of area understand that they might get paid like a prince, but still might not be able to buy a home of their own. Does Big Tech sincerely care about low income workers? Why would they, there is no profit in that. Does Big Tech care about issues that impact their ability to hire workers? Yes, of course. Also, Big Tech knows that many persons are able to do the math and grok that fantastic techie salaries OBVIOUSLY have an impact on the cost of housing. Big Tech itself contributes in a big, big way to the unaffordable cost of housing in these parts, which is bad PR for them.
The “solution” to the housing crisis offered by the YIMBY movement is nothing but fake campaign promises. Building tons of McMansions is not going to bring the rent down, it will only increase gentrification and maximize profits for developers. Cutting fees that developers pay for infrastructure for increased density (for needed schools, parks, transportation, etc) is not going to bring the rent down, it will only maximize profits for developers (and inflict pain on the community).
The fate of teachers, service workers is merely a cover story that the movement uses to deceive the public. The reality is that the pain of these people is being exploited in order to deceive the public into supporting measures that will not help low income persons one little bit, but will maximize profits for developers. Exhibit A: SB9 and SB10 that were called “affordable housing” bills, yet literally did NOTHING to help low-income workers.
“Follow the money” is the most important rule in politics. Who makes $$$ from a bill? Who loses? CA YIMBYs consistently support bills where developers make $$$, and the MV COMMUNITY loses.
The focus on market rate housing construction is a deliberate obfuscation on the part of the YIMBY fanatic zealots, or else of their orchestrating masters. Leslie is spot on regarding that. It shows up in so many ways. The State HCD RHNA numbers have a lot of flaws but one thing I trust is the large number they use statewide for the number of needed BMR units. From the way the YIMBY’s talk, they think there will be trickle down of BMR units from construction the market rate units. But HCD now shows a continuing need for vastly more BMR units than for new affordable units. Mountain View exceeded the quota it has for market rate housing, but not for BMR. Now both have been increased. The issue is not land to build YIMBY’s (or YUPPIE’s as they used to be called back in the day) somewhere to live. The real problem is that Mountain View needs to create stand alone projects which are all BMR and will house 5500 more family units in subsidized affordable housing. It’s not a question of lowering the cost to the tenant. BMR units charge a regulated amount regardless of the market.
Mountain View turns up its nose at Syufy solving 1/3 of it’s market rate unit quota all right near the source of the problem–Google. They want to use more of the identified locations all around the city. But these locations should be prized and reserved for BMR projects for the most part.
Crickets from the YIMBY’s on how to build or even how to locate so many needed BMR units…. the Googlers will keep on displacing lower income residents from their homes and there won’t be new BMR units to house them. The lower income levels are being forced out of the city bu the overflowing wallets of the well off Tech workers.
The way new construction should work is that BMR quotas are met and if anything falls short, it should indeed be for-profit market rate housing construction!
When something walks like a duck, and talks like a duck, it’s pretty obvious to most everyone what that critter is.
You make wild accusations against me, but never have any actual EVIDENCE to back it up.
“That’s why I keep asking you what your solution is to the housing crisis,” – sorry but these words are not good faith on your part, I have answered that question for you many times.
I don’t have a cure for capitalism. I support Prop 15, which would reform Prop 13 to be what it was supposed to be back when it was passed back in 1978: a protection that allowed ordinary people to not be forced out of their homes because they could no longer pay the tax bills.
Prop 15 would ensure that big businesses like Google paid property tax on the current market value, instead of frozen rates from years ago. According to yimbyaction, https://yimbyaction.org/endorsements/november-2020/california/#props
“Proposition 15 will get rid of property tax breaks for big businesses, and put billions of dollars towards schools and local services.
Currently, thanks to 1978’s Prop 13, owners pay property taxes based on the price they originally paid for that real estate—typically a lot less than what it’s worth today. Prop 15 will roll this back for many large businesses, raising property taxes to be assessed based on the property’s current (probably much higher) market value. Prop 15 will raise approximately $6.5 to $11.5 billion — 60% for cities, counties and special districts, and 40% for schools and community colleges.”
If Google was forced pay it’s fair share in property taxes, the city of MV could do more to offset the harm that they cause. In particular, Prop 15 money could buy a whole lot of BMR housing.
Prop 15 would also take away the perverse incentive that Google has to hire workers in areas like MV where land is unaffordable to them. Prop 15 would put Google in the same boat as its workers. Growing new jobs in area that are affordable to workers – such a novel idea! Actually, no it’s not, Hewlett-Packard did so back in the day, instead of engaging in hate-mongering against residents in communities where they did business.
Google bought up a lot of office properties long ago, in a hedge against future appreciation. The Prop 13 break fuels their ability to do this as it does any speculator. Individuals don’t do much of this speculation on residences. The split roll from Prop 15 would add costs to Google’s land grab–which was well in advance of need. That would be a good thing. Google is already broadening its target areas and using the same tricks in other cities. They have locked up a lot of office land in Sunnyvale and now in San Jose, where they are welcomed.
It is important to realize that what has happened in the county is that office development has merely shifted from San Jose up to Mountain View and Sunnyvale. It’s not growth overall, just grabbing a bigger piece of the pie. So to ask for a solution to housing crisis assumes the wrong plan. San Jose has actually been losing population. Is this fair?
I never REFUSED to discuss solutions for the housing crisis. I even wrote about them in comments for my guest essay back in Sep 2021. Some of the other ideas I shared: https://www.mv-voice.com/news/2021/09/25/guest-opinion-housing-affordability-bills-math-doesnt-add-up
“*) Put pressure on government and Big Tech to provide more funding for affordable housing. Corporations have a fiduciary duty to their stock holders. Sadly, they have no duty whatsoever to help the low-income people they displace when they gentrify a community. Think of the positive press that could be obtained by making VERY LARGE CONTRIBUTIONS anyway on behalf of low-income families!”
“*) Encourage employers who are magnifying the housing crisis to consider hiring workers in places where housing is more affordable. Prop 15 will do this, but we don’t need to wait for it to pass.
It is not a true win for workers to pass bills that create thousands of market-rate RENTAL units; I think that is close to worker exploitation, myself. Hewlett-Packard created scores of divisions all over the Bay Area, and never insisted on growing any site to the absurd levels that Google is contemplating for it’s HQ. HP’s strategy allowed many workers to buy their own homes, and they did it without demonizing existing residents of those communities.”
One practical way to provide BMR units is to allow a funding mechanism where housing authorities or cities or JPA’s can buy into market rate developments and increase the number of BMR units they have. Depending on the area in the state, the requirement now is for the developer to provide 10% to 20% of the project as inclusionary BMR units funded by the developer and the other units. That’s viewed as the limot as to what the government can provide. There’s effectively no way for a project to have 50-50 mix of BMR and market rate housing. That seems like a bad thing to me. There should be some way to get up to 50-50.
This is sorely needed. Consider how the current RHNA quotas require overall more BMR units to be created. A lot of forces are at work to increase the cost of BMR units. For example, developers of market rate projects rarely use union labor, and their labor costs are lower. BMR unit projects though have public money which is current required to pay more for Union labor. If this is truly a crisis, it makes sense to allow BMR units to be built by the same workforce that makes the for-profit units. Buying out units after the fact would perhaps let government money pay less per BMR unit.
You are exactly correct, LongResident. The need for affordable housing requires that we focus on the construction of BMR units, that is how we will help the teachers, service workers, and low income workers who are the most harmed.
“Depending on the area in the state, the requirement now is for the developer to provide 10% to 20% of the project as inclusionary BMR units funded by the developer and the other units.”
In MV, the requirement is 15% – 25% https://www.mountainview.gov/depts/comdev/preservation/homebuying/bmrhousing/default.asp
However, over the last 8 year RHNA cycle, the percentage created was actually 12%. On the bright side, however, developers wildly exceeded their market-rate housing unit targets for the highest wage earners (>650%)!
Developers do their best to wriggle out of creating BMR. In order to increase the amount of affordable housing in MV, we need to focus on BUILDING affordable housing. But it is not easy, because it REQUIRES funding. ABAG can set huge BMR targets in the RHNA process, but unless funding is provided, those targets simply won’t be met. It appears to be a tactic to increase pressure on City Councils to approve whatever the developers want to offer, even when RHNA targets will not be met.
Longresdent,
That idea you said is foolish. First, somehow you are saying it is more expensive to build basic housing instead of luxury housing because you claim the private sector does not use “union” workers. But isn’t it a fact that the current laws state that the workers must be paid the “prevailing” rates for all development? That would in effect completely negate any gains whether the labor was union or otherwise.
Another issue is that the current laws will continue to REQUIRE INCLUSIONARY housing to be part of the package. The Workforce Housing Opportunity Zone law DOES require 50% free market and 50% price controls. Where 5% of that project must be available to those earning 50% of AMI or less at 30% earnings, 15% has to be for earning 80% or less of AMI at 30% of earnings, and 30% at most can be 120% of AMI at 30% of earnings.
You are in fact arguing that the City and the government buy the existing vacated units that seem to be getting worse for developers because of the raising interest rates that are going to freeze or substantially limit any more building. And that AB5 which eliminates IT Contracting in the state has forced that work to be relocated to other states, leaving a large hole regarding current housing demands in the area.
This is in fact just another way to rip off the taxpayers. This is also PROOF that Costa Hawkins in 1995 was a false promise that the private sector could EASILY and EFFICIENTLY provide housing as long as the government would prevent Rent Controls. See where that led us to? The facts are the market only wants to build housing like 93 Octane gas, but provide no 87 or 89 Octane in the market. That is a failed model, because they said as the units age they will become affordable. THEY DO NOT!
Leslie, if the city doesn’t make enough housing that’s affordable for people moderate and low income, they’re going to simply lose the ability to set restrictions in housing being built. Mountain View is already subject to this, thanks to a YIMBY bill, so any housing development that’s 50% affordable gets ministerial approval as long as it conforms to zoning. Unfortunately, places where we can only build single-family homes will be unlikely to get that benefit.
Certainly, part of the way to achieve that goal would be to subsidize more than half of the people in the city, as you suggest when you say we should satisfy it by building BMR housing. Surely, you have to admit that we could reach that goal by simply flooding the market with homes and reducing the cost of housing. A mix of both is probably the best solution, but I encourage you to work out how much the city would have to spend in order to achieve our RHNA goals for everything Moderate Income and below.
WHOZ is voluntary for a city to establish and Mountain VIew hasn’t done it anywhere.
However, the RHNA targets for the city do break down across the various income levels, so overall, the housing breakdown is pretty specific. In broad strokes, for MV’s RHNA quota, more than half has to be BMR housing of some sort, affordable to moderate or lower income levels. Such housing is not developed by for profit developers, but requires public subsidy to something like Alta Housing which then would build projects.
The situation where more than half of units in RHNA have to be this public-paid housing is not well evidenced in the city’s plans.
As far as Union wages go, I was not saying that BMR housing is inherently a different cost to construct than market rate, but saying that BMR housing has to be held to specific union wage standards whereas housing not build with any public funds does not. This is a reason why developers won’t do joint projects–it taints the whole project with restrictions on labor to accept any public funding during construction.
Longresdent,
You have made a serious error here, as long as ANY city of CA has adopted the Workforce Housing Opportunity Zones, the City of Mountain View CANNOT disobey the STATE laws. Under both the 14th and the equal protection clause of the state and federal constitution. Here is some information about it.
“Senate Bill 540 (2017) authorizes jurisdictions to establish Workforce Housing Opportunity Zones (WHOZs) to increase affordable housing near public transportation and jobs. To establish a WHOZ, a city or county MUST adopt a specific housing development plan and create an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the WHOZ. If specific criteria are met, EIRs for the individual housing development projects within the WHOZ will not be required. A CITY OR COUNTY MAY APPLY FOR A NO-INTEREST LOAN OR GRANT FROM THE STATE TO HELP FUND THE SPECIFIC PLAN AND EIR REQUIRED TO ESTABLISH A WHOZ. Within five years after adopting the specific housing development plan, a jurisdiction must approve a project that satisfies the plan’s criteria. WHOZs have specific housing requirements: 50% of total housing units must be rented or sold to households at or below moderate-income, 10% of total units within a housing development must be affordable to lower income households, and no more than 50% of total housing units can be rented or sold to above moderate-income households. Additionally, like HSDs, WHOZs are subject to prevailing wages.
So it is NOT voluntary, and in fact there was litigation pursued and failed to prevent enforcement of this law in many cities.
The bottom line is if these private interest continue to not provide the numbers of housing just more INCLUSIONARY measures will be made to in effect FORCE more affordable housing minimums. I would think that the developers are not going to want to risk that.
6400 BMR units at $1M each means $6.4T to build them old.
But things could change. It could be more or less.
Longresdent,
Everybody knows that the cost of building in the area is inflated because everyone wants to make at least 20% profit at the end of the job. But more importantly you are greatly over exaggerating the cost, the highest in my research per unit in this area is only $621K, but most of this analysis has been performed by those with a conflict of interest to make housing as expensive as possible.
In fact one Santa Clara project report seen here (https://news.sccgov.org/news-release/county-santa-clara-approves-funding-7-more-affordable-housing-developments-totaling) states that with 2900 new units the price was only $375M along with $25M additional. That math makes these units cost only $137,931 each. This greatly suggests that your information is greatly overpricing the building costs
JAFO, respectfully, LongResident has said that MV has not established any WHOZ. I see nothing in your statement that contradicts this. Your text appears to say that MV is authorized to set up a WHOZ, I guess. But nothing in your quote says that MV is REQUIRED to set one up. Not setting up a WHOZ does not appear to qualify as “disobeying state law”.
LongResident is completely correct when he states that “RHNA targets for the city do break down across the various income levels, so overall, the housing breakdown is pretty specific.” I believe he is also correct when he states, “In broad strokes, for MV’s RHNA quota, more than half has to be BMR housing of some sort, affordable to moderate or lower income levels. Such housing is not developed by for profit developers, but requires public subsidy to something like Alta Housing which then would build projects.”
The bottom line is that if “public subsidy” is not provided, whoever builds BMR units can expect to take a financial loss if they do so. This tends to prevent the desired activity, most people don’t like to take financial losses as a result of their hard work.In my lived experience, government does not usually pass laws that require any entity to take a financial loss, or if they do, such laws are eventually struck down.
In general, it is wrong for the state to FORCE a city to provide new public services without also providing the funds to provide those services. Imagine if the state passed a law that forced you to pay for your neighbor’s grocery bills for the entire year. Would your neighbor love it? Of course! How about you? Would you love it too? I bet not.
In the past, there have been zero effective consequences for cities that fail to meet their allotted BMR targets. It is easy for state politicians to pretend to be outraged at the housing crisis, and the failure to meet these targets. But it’s essentially the same as being outraged at persons who aren’t willing to write a blank check to pay for a neighbor’s groceries. It’s political posturing. If those politicians are so outraged, why don’t they write the checks themselves?
The Measure A money doesn’t cover the full cost of projects, but just a portion.
“This latest round of projects have also leveraged significant philanthropic contributions. In addition to the $2.6 million grant from the Sobrato Foundation to the Moorpark Apartments, four of these projects are leveraging $7.59 million in low-cost predevelopment and acquisition financing from Destination: Home through its Supportive Housing and Innovation Fund. ”
Look further down:
“La Avenida Apartments, Mountain View: La Avenida Apartments is a new 102- unit apartment project at 1100 La Avenida Ave. in Mountain View. If approved, the County’s investment of up to $19 million would contribute to the construction of 34 permanent supportive housing units, 33 units for households earning up to 30% of area median income (AMI), 19 units for households earning up to 50% of AMI, and 14 units for households earning up to 60% of AMI. The developer is Eden Housing, Inc. The total development cost is $78,077,678.”
So the stated development cost for 102 units is $79M. I could be wrong but I think the land there was furnished by some developer. In particular, I don’t think the project paid for the value of the building, so it relied on the building being a tear down. It’s not so easy to find such locations.
LongResident,
Clearly you are not even doing some basic calculations. You first claimes it cost $1M to build an affordable housing unit. But my informationclearly showed that was wrong. Again, the City of Mountain View has always been genoerous regarding paying TOO MUCH for housing, look ad David Avny that bought my Building for $5M but recently hade the building itself value dropped by $1.1M officially with the SCC Tax Appraisal. WHY? bercause the city wants the highest property values to tax at the highest rates. so they do not take any fiscal discipline regarding housing proposals, and in fact give free money from taxpayers to inflate building costs.
Another note (https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/santa-clara-county-leaders-approve-75-5m-to-build-six-new-affordable-housing-projects/)
It appears that at least from this report states $75M to pay for providing 2500 units? That makes the cost about $30,000 a unit for this batch. So I strongly question and expect ANY new proposals to provide a proper DETAILED breakdown of cost of a development. And more importantly, NO COST OVERRUNS can be tolerated. If a low ball bid is used to TRAP any project, that price sticks. That means we will get better prices because the cost inflation occurring here can be prevented.
LongResident,
Clearly you are not even doing some basic calculations. You first claims it cost $1M to build an affordable housing unit. But my information clearly showed that was wrong. Again, the City of Mountain View has always been generous regarding paying TOO MUCH for housing, look ad David Avny that bought my Building for $5M but recently hade the building itself value dropped by $1.1M officially with the SCC Tax Appraisal. WHY? berceuse the city wants the highest property values to tax at the highest rates. so they do not take any fiscal discipline regarding housing proposals, and in fact give free money from taxpayers to inflate building costs.
Another note (https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/santa-clara-county-leaders-approve-75-5m-to-build-six-new-affordable-housing-projects/)
It appears that at least from this report states $75M to pay for providing 2500 units? That makes the cost about $30,000 a unit for this batch. So I strongly question and expect ANY new proposals to provide a proper DETAILED breakdown of cost of a development. And more importantly, NO COST OVERRUNS can be tolerated. If a low ball bid is used to TRAP any project, that price sticks. That means we will get better prices because the cost inflation occurring here can be prevented.
As far as pumping up the supply so much that prices come down, this could happen. The same could happen with groceries. If we had a big enough supply, their price would fall. But we don’t bank on doubling the amount produced to far exceeed demand and turn everything into a surplus item.
As far as cost projections go, anyone who thinks new housing can be built for $30,000 per unit has my encouragement to go ahead and build a dozen or more units. We need them. A factor to consider though is that the current HE plans cover a time period 10 years into the future. Prices will surely go up over that long of a period.
LongResident,
Actually given the data from Zumper I see, that the data indicates a systemic demand decline occurring. In fact the price of housing has stayed the same as it was in 2016 for the most part. Primarily because AB5 made Tech contracting illegal in the state. My work experience was that 70% of PayPal’s IT management was IT contracting. The general rule applies to all of the industry. That meant when 2020 started it made it so all of these workers had to be relocated out of state to do their work, unless they were transitioned to employees. And upon that the adoption of remote work.
I suspect the CAR and the CAA are about to get a very scary replay of 2007 with additional problems due to the current state cap on rental increases. This means the trajectory of increasing supply and dropping demand is going to cause some REAL problems.
And don’t get me even started on the fact that Covid is so bad we are still among the to 6 counties with infections and hospitalizations.
Statement 1: “the state doesn’t demand anyone produce BMR homes. They’re not “forcing a public service.”
Statement 2: “if the city doesn’t make enough housing that’s affordable for people moderate and low income, they’re going to simply lose the ability to set restrictions in housing being built.”
Which one is true? Clearly, they both can’t be. The second statement describes how the city will be PUNISHED for not producing affordable housing. When someone is PUNISHED for not doing something, they are clearly being forced to do it.
But all of this is simply clever political posturing by pro-developer forces who use deception and false “campaign promises” in order to confuse well-intentioned persons who are in pain over high rents. I understand that swallowing snake oil might be more appealing to someone who is ill over “doing nothing”, even though that snake oil will actually CAUSE HARM instead of heal.
Suppose Statement 2 is true: MV loses the ability the ability to set restrictions in housing being built. What on earth does that mean?
It sounds like developers will get their dream, and can focus 100% on building expensive market rate units AND ZERO BMR UNITS without being forced to pay fees to build the schools, parks, traffic infrastructure that will be needed when density drastically increases.
That would be a TREMENDOUS win for developers. I’d like to understand how that would help low-income or even average wage earners. I’ve been basically asking this question for over a year now, and NOBODY can explain how exactly rents will come down? They won’t. The result will be GENTRIFICATION, period. Developers and apartment managers want to make $$$ off of techies who get paid a fortune, global $$$ must be eager to help them do it.
All thanks to a YIMBY bill. YIMBY leaders are political animals who sell bills like SB9/10 in the name of “affordable housing”.
“As far as cost projections go, anyone who thinks new housing can be built for $30,000 per unit has my encouragement to go ahead and build a dozen or more units. We need them.”
I’m with you on that @LongResident.
@JAFO wrote- “So I strongly question and expect ANY new proposals to provide a proper DETAILED breakdown of cost of a development. And more importantly, NO COST OVERRUNS can be tolerated. If a low ball bid is used to TRAP any project, that price sticks. That means we will get better prices because the cost inflation occurring here can be prevented.”
I’d love to see this too. Sadly, I don’t think any YIMBY bill has been introduced to accomplish this. Developers frequently request that they be allowed to not pay certain fees or build fewer BMR units that are required or else the “project won’t pencil out”. But they are not asked to provide evidence for those claims. Instead, Council Members who face high pressure to “increase housing” make disappointed statements but then approve the projects anyway.
IMHO, our Council Members are being played. The latest RHNA targets appear to be designed to put even more pressure on them, by increasing the number of BMR units for lower income people. WITHOUT FUNDING THOSE TARGETS WON”T BE MET! Council Members are really being put in an impossible situation.
And if what I’ve been told is true, if those targets aren’t met then MV loses the ability to set restrictions in housing being built … how is that “consequence” going to help lower-income people? How is letting the fox into the henhouse ever going to help the hens! The idea is outrageous.
Ordinary people really need to wake up and smell the coffee. An excess of $$$ in politics is what is causing this mess, together with ambitious politicians who would rather serve Big Interests than actually help the 99%.
Read more, yell less. You use “BMR” and “affordable” interchangeably when it comes to RHNA, but they’re not interchangeable. There is a difference between BMR homes and RHNA targets for homes that are affordable to moderate incomes and below. BMR homes are one way to achieve that affordability, but the state makes no demand that cities use it.
At least LongResident has the intellectual integrity to admit that flooding the market with homes would make them more affordable. Another approach to hitting the goal would be simply to plan for 43K market rate units and use Mountain View’s 15% affordability requirement to achieve that segment of RHNA. Neither of those would require a dime of public subsidies and would lead to far more people of all incomes being able to live in Mountain View. LongResident ran the numbers for satisfying RHNA moderate and below as more than the entire budget of Mountain View! Granted, it’s clear we need to use any tool available to address the housing crisis, and I support the YIMBY bill in the legislature for the state to create social housing (AB 2053).
Finally, I explained exactly what happens when cities don’t reach their low income RHNA, thanks to a YIMBY bill: they have to grant ministerial approval to zoning-compliant developments with at least 50% affordable housing. Unfortunately, places where we can only build single-family homes will be unlikely to get that benefit. Your preconceptions and anger led you to jump to wild conclusions, but the facts are important.
Statement- “If, for example, one flooded the market with homes such that they were all affordable to people of many incomes, that would satisfy RHNA.”
True. But the big question remains: how does one “flood the market with homes” that are “affordable to people of many incomes”.
In particular, how does one “flood the market with homes” that are affordable to low-income people. Please share your ideas, I think everyone in CA would love to hear them.
Statement: “Another approach to hitting the goal would be simply to plan for 43K market rate units and use Mountain View’s 15% affordability requirement to achieve that segment of RHNA. Neither of those would require a dime of public subsidies and would lead to far more people of all incomes being able to live in Mountain View.”
Yes, that idea would certainly lead to far more people living in MV! But the use of the words “of all incomes” is rather coy and deceptive.
The statement implies that the housing crisis will be solved if 85% of units are expensive, market-rate, and unaffordable to most, if 15% are affordable.
I suppose it might be a good solution if 85% of the households in MV consist of highly affluent wage-earners.
I can see how this logic might be warmly embraced by the 1%. But the 99% are called the 99% for a reason. We have much less $$$.
https://classism.org/about-class/what-is-classism/
“Classism is differential treatment based on social class or perceived social class. Classism is the systematic oppression of subordinated class groups to advantage and strengthen the dominant class groups. It’s the systematic assignment of characteristics of worth and ability based on social class.”
I still make the simple observation.
The idea that housing is the same as gasoline in the market. That if we were to make our gasoline market the same as housing in this state there would be about 75% of gas stations only providing 93 octane gas, and the rest would only sell 91 octane gas at no lower prices. Even though everyone’s engines are able to function fine with 87 or 89 octane.
Thus what you have is a SUPPLIER MANIPULATED market, in effect forcing EVERYONE to pay too much for housing. Remember that there are 40,000 units that exist in SF that are held off the market. That practice is state wide. Which means there are units in this city that are being withheld. My building appears to be getting 4 open units by the end of July, but only lists one in the market. This kind of manipulated housing shortage is the cause of the problem.
Just like I described above, the NEW DEVELOPMENT is demanding that older affordable units to not be on the market so that the4y can get that income. Likely arranging deals where the owners like mine get a payoff as a result. Who could achieve such a thing, maybe the California Apartment Association?
“Thus what you have is a SUPPLIER MANIPULATED market, in effect forcing EVERYONE to pay too much for housing. Remember that there are 40,000 units that exist in SF that are held off the market. That practice is state wide. Which means there are units in this city that are being withheld. My building appears to be getting 4 open units by the end of July, but only lists one in the market. This kind of manipulated housing shortage is the cause of the problem.”
@JAFO, I agree with you. People involved in an industry tend to want to maximize their profits. Those involved in the real estate industry and rental housing industry are no different. Corporations have zero interest in the harm that they cause, except for purposes of public relations; they are entirely focused on the bottom line.
Here is an article you might be interested in: – https://www.housinghumanright.org/california-apartment-association-and-big-real-estate-influence-political-races-throughout-california/
California Apartment Association and Big Real Estate Influence Political Races Throughout California
“With election season upon us, journalists and voters should take another look at our special report about how the California Apartment Association and Big Real Estate deliver campaign contributions to politicians in every level of government in California. Without question, it’s a must-read.
Housing Is A Human Right routinely publishes special reports about the real estate industry and the politicians and YIMBYs who carry out Big Real Estate’s agenda. One of our reports — “The Garcetti-fication of Los Angeles: A Gentrification Cautionary Tale” — won the “Best Activism Journalism” award from the Los Angeles Press Club. In November 2021, we examined the political influence that the California Apartment Association and corporate landlords buy through campaign contributions. It remains a relevant read.
The California Apartment Association, the landlord lobbying group, is one of the most powerful organizations in California. It shapes, and stops, housing policies in the back rooms of the State Capitol Building in Sacramento, and fights to kill local tenant protections in city halls throughout the state. The CAA’s influence on California politicians has been enormous, but not deeply examined. We changed that.”
Housing is Human Right is part of a Charity which is trying to clean up tenement situations in downtown Los Angeles. It’s not a “slum lord.” Beyond that, it points out the hypocrisy of the YIMBY movement in the YIMBY attitude that for profit housing is the most important thing in the housing crisis.
There was a recent article in the Merc about the possibility of Mortgage rates reaching 10%. I propose that once they reach 7.5% that will be the critical point where all property values will start to decline significantly. How do I know this? Remember the housing collapse of 2007. The fed rate was only 5% at that time and the mortgage rates were only 6% at that time. We are already at 6.5% for a 30 yr and 5.3% for a 15 year and a 10/6 ARM is already at 6.3%. The fact is once borrowing becomes that expensive, prices cannot survive. The cost of borrowing will be forced to reduce prices themselves.
The facts are we are at the same rates that caused the housing bubble to burst. WHY? because of the same cause “housing inflation” required credit tightening because of housing speculations. Granted there were “sub-prime mortgages”, but we have similar problems today. However in this case since the problem is the new collateralized debt obligations, now called Traunch A obligations are in the same place as was in 2007. Thus the rising rates are going to drop these values again, and this time it is impacting more than residentials, but because of covid commercials are just as bad off.
In effect we are ready for another real estate correction like we saw in 2007 if not worse given that our location is adjusting to new realities.
There are “charities” in the world that only donate 15% of “the take” to the cause they are supposedly helping. Most people consider the leaders of such organizations to be fraudulent scam artists.
Those pushing housing crisis solutions where 85% of the benefits go to the most affluent members of society deserve to be called out for it. While they claim to be doing their work to help teachers, service workers, and non-techie kids, the TRUTH about the situation can be found by Following The Money. Who is making huge profits from the scheme? Who is losing out? The evidence shows that developers wildly prefer to build expensive, market rate homes. They make a lot of $$$ by doing so.
In the article, a lead volunteer with MV YIMBY advocates on behalf of developers who don’t want to pay fees that help pay for schools, parks, transportation, etc., that the entire community needs. Follow the Money again. Who loses when construction is allowed to proceed and these fees are not paid? The community itself. If we grow massively without enhancing our infrastructure, overcrowding of schools and parks, traffic congestion and parking nightmares, etc., will be the direct result.
“People live in homes, not percentages.”
I kind of love this sentence because of how perverse it is. What does it mean? I think it is saying that Math is stupid, ignore the percentages, don’t look THERE, look over HERE instead.
Is it really so noble to create housing units for low-income people that require them to live in a broken down community? Kind of reminds me of those deals that the devil likes to make where you “get what you want”, only it’s not what you really want at all. I watched some old Twilight Zone episodes last night, including “Escape Clause” …
Percentages matter. Math is not stupid. A scheme that primarily benefits wealthy elites and the highest wage earners in a community is a tale as old as time.
This is the scary part regarding development.
There is a recent story about a develper that was is so much trouble their entire business went into foreclosure, it can be read here (https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/06/17/bay-area-real-estate-sec-fraud-develop-foreclose-home-silicon-sage/)
The group involved was SiliconSage Builders , and I think this is just the tip of a very big iceberg. The facts that interest rates rising are going to pause if not completely collapse all development plans in the future.
US Bank sets FHA loans rates currently at 6.94% for a 30 Yr and 7.1% for a 15 yr mortgage. And this is BEFORE the July 75 Basis Point increase, that most people know is going to happen.
Lets face facts the “SUPPLY SIDE ” economics forcing nothing but LUXURY housing down EVERYONES throats in this city is going to result in a major meltdown. The facts are we have double the luxury housing the city needs where the rest of the market has record shortages. The City better get ready for major tax reappraisals of lower property values RIGHT NOW. In fact I propose within the next year we will see housing providers go into bankruptcy in a large scale.
2 years ago some group filed suit against Housing is a Human Right’s parent, claiming they were a slumlord, but that was a lie. Filing a suit doesnt’ prove anything.
However, AHF has WON a suit forcing the city of LA to create low income housing. See https://www.aidshealth.org/2022/04/court-orders-city-of-l-a-to-stop-violating-development-law-in-hollywood/
We’d be talking about 100% of 100 homes not 100% of 10 homes in the example cited above. The “tax” of 85% being high income luxury housing is too great. I’m with Leslie on that.
The state’s position on BMR housing has always been that it requires tremendous subsidy. They don’t address how much cities themselves need to provide. In most cases, cities provide very little of the actual funding for an affordable housing project, sometimes none at all. The key thing that cities have is land. I’d say using the available land for market rate housing needs to be de-prioritized in favor of using the available space for low income projects. The way the projections work out, there is a clear indication that more than half of the total units created need to be subsidized, managed, BMR unis. 15% is way too low as a fraction of units created. So via BMR projects, the overall average needs to come down to more than 50% BMR units that are created. 15% is a big problem. Saying it all needs to be 100% BMR is more close to the truth than saying just 15%…..
And of course if you believe Senator Weiner, we will get a lot of new market rate units from SB9 and that ilk. SB9 crates 0 BMR units so other areas need to do more than their share. So maybe actually the target for redevelopment areas should be 75% BMR.
I don’t know if anyone will see this, but what happened in LA is that AHF bought some tenement hotels and set about repairs. In one particular case the city inspectors delayed inspections so much that it held up the elevator repairs by nearly a year. The AHF got the city included as a co defendant on the lawsuit because the city caused the delay. Owing to the delay AHF offered tenants the option to relocate into another building. AHF was doing the right thing and the city screwed up. In the end we can assume the building received the repairs paid by AHF. They do their part to upgrade the low income housing they buy because it is substandard.
Lets point this out for Mountain View.
The CSFRA does allow for removal of tenants for renovation purposes. BUT they also are given first choice to move BACK IN at the original price of the rent. There is no excuse for any landlord to NOT properly renovate a unit FOR THE EXISTING TENANT!!!
In fact this situation appears to require a landlord TO PAY FOR THE RELOCATION OF THE EXISTING TENANT, along with PROVIDING FUNDS TO ENABLE a new residency. The practice of SHOVING older tenants out just to raise rents and sell to a new one is the WORST KIND OF CUSTOMER SERVICE example. Remember a landlord does NOT employ a tenant. IT IS THE OTHER WAY AROUND!!!
What CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS and the CALIFORNIA APARTMENT ASSOCIATION have done for years is sell the idea that a landlord is a tenants BOSS. Not only is that NEVER TRUE, but it is a blatant example of disregard for the legal rights of the customer.
Statement: “the person that runs “Housing is a Human Right” is a literal slumlord. See Web Link”
This comment is so dishonest, but it’s not surprising. There is a weird dynamic in play where pro-developer forces call themselves YIMBYs and pretend to be housing activists. Developers actually BENEFIT from high housing costs, they make a lot of $$$ building market-rate units. Those who advocate for developers will try to throw mud on anyone who gets in their way.
LongResident nails it when he said, “2 years ago some group filed suit against Housing is a Human Right’s parent, claiming they were a slumlord, but that was a lie. Filing a suit doesnt’ prove anything.”
“what happened in LA is that AHF bought some tenement hotels and set about repairs. In one particular case the city inspectors delayed inspections so much that it held up the elevator repairs by nearly a year. The AHF got the city included as a co defendant on the lawsuit because the city caused the delay.”
Here’s an update: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210803006147/en/Victory%21-Judge-Denies-Los-Angeles%E2%80%99-Motion-to-Dismiss-AHF%E2%80%99s-Madison-Hotel-Lawsuit
“In a visit to the Madison in October 2019, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti expressly promised that AHF would receive “concierge services” from City departments to help revive the Madison. However, to AHF’s dismay, the City not only failed to provide concierge services, but actually became a major obstacle to moving forward … the City delayed implementation of the solutions for extraordinary lengths of time.”
AHF took legal action against the city. “the City claimed that it had immunity from liability associated with the Madison. So the City moved the Court to dismiss the City from the case. Last week, the Court denied the City’s motion and ruled in favor of AHF.”
The “Housing is a Human Right” guys are the GOOD GUYS, the ones who are fighting for AFFORDABLE housing for normal people (“the teachers who raise your kids, the waiters and chefs who feed you, the public safety responders who keep you safe”), not just the highest wage earners in the land.
If the City was an obstacle that prevented AHF from being able repair the building, then the claim of “slumlord” is entirely ridiculous. The blame would belong on the shoulders of the City.
I’m taking the word of the Superior Court Judge who oversaw the proceedings, and saw enough to reject the City’s claim that it had immunity from liability in this case.
We have a tradition in this country of considering a person innocent until they have been proven guilty. The case is proceeding in court.
JUST AN FYI
I just posted my first Youtube video demonstrating the current state of the rental market in Mountain View. I plan on doing a video regarding the SCC Tax history of my building shortly.
The video can be seen here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nQF4taQ0Os)
It demonstrates that our property values are in no way in position to stay the way they are. And in fact due to the increasing Fed and Mortgage rates, MANY project will be stopped. Several already have in the recent news in the area.
The facts are that INVESTMENT expectations regarding housing were never going to be met consistently, the best rates of return in this market should be no more than 1.5% above CPI. Any history of higher has been met with property value corrections since 2007.
My video shows how VOLITILE the local market is. I am amazed at how rapidly values change in an market area that should be the most stable. It has NEVER been a reliable investment. And the City Council and this City better get used to this REALITY CHECK, or their CHECKS are going to BOUNCE.
Moderators, I wonder when you look at this comments section how you feel about just widespread misinformation and lies being peddled, while you delete all of my comments. Now, it’s just a one-sided echo chamber! You all have really made a mess of this.
For AHF, it truly was a case of no good deed going unpunished regarding the work they do to improve the tenement conditions of the decrepit hotels they purchased and began to repair….
Are you talking about evicting tenants when you’re mentioning good deeds, or was it the “persistent mold, as well as bedbug and roach infestations” according to the tenants? “Housing is a Human Right,” indeed!