Dispatch from Palo Alto: Local People Fight ABAG housing numbers

Bold leaders are fighting the taking of our communities by ABAG, HCD, HUD and other power hungry bureacracies.

Editor's Note: The housing allocations in Marinwood-Lucas Valley are totally out of scale with the actual need and legal requirements of the community.  What sense does it make to concentrate 71% of all affordable housing in unincorporated Marin in a single 5.78 square mile community of Marinwood-Lucas Valley?  We are only 2% of the total population.

We cannot afford to carry the burden of a housing development which will pay miniimal taxes to support 83 families and their estimated 150 school children in the Dixie school system for the rest of Marin.  We currently pay about $10,000 per student making the total annual burden of $1,500,000 for at least 55 years. 

Clearly this is unworkable but came as a surprise to Marin County planners and politicians.

We can do better.

Palo Alto is fighting back. 

Our very future as a livable, affordable community is at stake. 


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Local comments on the ABAG housing story printed earlier this week.

The real issue was not the division of the regional allocation among the local cities but the size of the allocation made by the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) to our council of governments (ABAG). ABAG and HCD settled on a base allocation for the Bay Area of a total number of housing units that is 15% above the forecast amount that the Demographic Research Unit of the Department of Finance is currently using; the discrepancy grows to 40% by 2040. ABAG refuses to discuss this discrepancy, allowing local governments to send in appeals based only on the regional allocation process of the California Code relevant to the Housing Law (Section 65584.04 and 65584.05). 

 But the full section of the Code clearly says that the housing numbers for each region will be determined only in a wider context. Section 65584.01 starts with the statement: "The department's (Housing and Community Development) housing determination shall be based upon population projections produced by the Department of Finance...". This section goes on to say that HCD and the councils of governments (ABAG) can appeal for a change in growth but says that the final decision will be made by the Demographic Research group at the Department of Finance.

 

The Code also clearly says that local governments have the right to appeal the decisions of the council of governments or HCD. Section 65584.2 says: "A local government may...appeal regarding allocation data provided by HCD or the council of governments pertaining to the locality's share of the regional housing need or the submittal of data or information for a proposed allocation, as permitted by this article." [Bold added]. These two parts of the Code say pretty clearly that the demographic forecast of the Department of Finance are critical to the process when there exists a disconnect between the Department of Finance and HCD and that local governments have a right to appeal the use of selected data that are used to calculate regional housing needs.