State says city must provide more units of affordable housing

A battle between local government and the state of California may erupt if a preliminary proposal from the Ventura Council of Governments becomes mandatory.

The VCOG proposed that Thousand Oaks be required to accommodate 5,408 additional affordable homes by the year 2014, but the county body didn’t consider that the city may need to change its General Plan in order to comply.

“The state, for whatever reason, is not approaching it in a way that makes sense from a local government planning perspective, and the local governments are the ones that have to provide the services, make sure land uses are compatible and consistent with each other, and I don’t think it serves anybody to develop a large amount of housing in an area not designed to accommodate it,” said Senior Planner Jeff Specter during last week’s City Council meeting.

If issues such as environmental and transportation concerns are also not taken into consideration, Specter said, the result could be long-term problems in the community.

State law requires local governments to have housing plans called Regional Housing Needs Assessment submitted for certification by June 30, 2008. Under state law, the Southern California Association of Governments allocates the number of affordable houses each area city must provide for those who qualify as lowincome and verylow income.

Cities are not required to build the new housing, but they must create conditions that allow it to be built—such as policies, zoning, regulations and general plans, Specter said.

Those who work in restaurants, hotels, auto repair shops and other service occupations in Thousand Oaks could be among those who would qualify for such housing.

SCAG proposed Thousand Oaks be assigned 1,081 houses. Camarillo, 4,853; Moorpark, 939; Oxnard, 7,345; Ventura, 3,422 and Simi Valley, 1,081. VCOG met and changed the assignments to be 5,408 for Thousand Oaks, 2,831 for Camarillo, 1,210 for Moorpark, 5,814 for Oxnard, 4,841 for Ventura and 4,739 for Simi Valley.

The new numbers were determined by a methodology using the proportion of homes already in each community.

Councilmember Jacqui Irwin called the methodology ludicrous.

“I think it is really terrible the state is trying to thrust these numbers down our throat,” she said.

Councilmember Tom Glancy asked John Prescott, community development director, if he was aware of any previous occasion when VCOG formed an ad hoc committee and came up with bizarre numbers.

“It seems unusual,” Prescott answered.

“The problem is that far exceeds the remaining ability to our general plan to accommodate this number of houses. In order to do so, a general plan amendment would be needed and that general plan amendment would likely need approval by a vote of the people under Measure E,” Specter said.

“Under the state statute, they don’t care about self-imposed measures such as Measure E. That’s not a criterion that they look at and judge whether you can accommodate a number of housing units,” said city attorney Amy Albano.

City Manager Scott Mitnick pointed out that Thousand Oaks grew rapidly in the 1970s and added a great deal of housing, but now the city is at the end of new residential development while other cities are in the beginning or middle stages.

Mitnick will be meeting with city managers in the region who are more receptive to highdensity development and will try and work out a more equitable allocation, he said.

The VCOG will meet today, Dec. 14, to consider the plan. It was determined Glancy will be the interim city representative to work with the committee. Irwin was the previous representative.

The city can participate in an appeals process if that becomes necessary, Albano said.