California’s $2 billion housing plan discussed on Central Coast

Community leaders from all over the Central Coast came together on Tuesday to hear how the state is trying to ease the housing crisis in California right now.

“California today, according to the US Census Bureau, has the highest poverty rate in the nation once the cost of living is factored in,” said Ben Metcalf, the director of the California Department of Housing and Community Development.

For example, the median home value in San Jose is over $1 million. In our area, the lack of available housing is driving up prices too.

“Generally, we’re at about 30 to 40 percent of where we need to be in terms of meeting our regional housing goals,” said Matt Huerta, the housing program manager for the Monterey Bay Economic Partnership. “Especially, we need to create more opportunities for very low-income households.”

Metcalf says the state is committing more than $2 billion to help alleviate housing strains. The one-time general fund surplus money will head to local governments to help improve planning, update building codes and possibly reduce regulatory barriers.

The state also plans to fund sewer and land improvements if it is directly related to housing development and pay for developers to build mixed-income and affordable housing.

“So that package of stuff is sort of a multi-pronged solution that addresses both the long-term production issues, the affordable housing needs and the immediate homeless needs,” said Metcalf.

Seaside City Councilman Jon Wizard says his city is already committing $2 million of their own to tackling the housing issue. Seaside needs to build 650 affordable housing units to comply with state requirements.

But Wizard says the effort is complicated by court-ordered mandates about water meters and the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA.

“CEQA in the last 20 or so years has been weaponized to become the way people can spike projects, the way that projects can get delayed inevitably,” said Wizard.

Metcalf says the state is looking to reduce barriers leading to low housing development.

“What the federal government wants to do on this stuff, what California wants to do on this is not entirely dissimilar,” he said. “There are unnecessary barriers that are making it harder than it needs to be to build housing in our communities, and we need to go after them and try and find them.”

The $2 billion state housing package is on the governor’s desk, but is awaiting further changes in the details before it could be implemented.