With Monday evening’s long-awaited City Council discussion of affordable housing nearly at hand, now what?
Where is the revenue?
The will to accommodate, to meet obligations, may exist, but optimism almost is invisible entering the 7 o’clock meeting in the Rotunda Room of the Vets Auditorium.
“Construction is expensive, and developers like Habitat for Humanity, willing to build affordable housing are few and far between,” Councilman Andy Weissman says.
Is the meeting, which is expected to attract a throng of advocates, a futile exercise, given the lack of funding available?
“Not futile,” said Mr. Weissman. “If one is expecting a light bulb to go on and a strategy will come out of the meeting that is going to lead to the immediate creation of affordable housing, you are going to be disappointed,
“That is not going to happen.”
Is a feel-good evening in prospect?
“It may turn out to be a feel-bad evening,” Mr. Weissman said, “unless we are able to develop strategies, the types of incentives that would create an atmosphere for developers to build affordable housing.”
Addressing motivation, the Councilman said “there has to be an economic reason to develop affordable housing. You cannot expect that developers are going to build projects and rent them out at below market rate, unless there is some economic benefit to them.
“The way to incentivize developers to do that is to increase density. That way they can build more units and make it up in volume.”
(To be continued)
The question for council tonight should be why is the main focus on the discssion about affordable housing is about new construction and increased density. The issue facing the city is escalating rents, there is enough housing stock to support existing tenants. The loss of rental housing to escalating rents is the true issue that is affecting the community. I would urge the council to discuss having a conversation about how to establish incentives for individual rental property owners to value and retain existing tenants as part of their business plan. Discussing what a framework for stable rental properties would look like is not rent control. The idea for how to go about such a program is based on some of the lessons learned from the city’s former RDA “First Time Homeowners Program”. No doubt this suggestion will do nothing to stop skyrocketing rents in the short term, nor is it intended to point fingers at the lack of affordable housing. I do believe, however that establishing a framework to bring together existing stable tenants from all walks of life, who make their home in our community with small property owners / landlords who have a similar stake in maintaining the unique qualities and value that makes Culver City a great place to live. I hope that the learned viewpoints of all five council members will make this suggestion an alternative to ask staff to explore with community input.
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