Up Against the Wall

What they have in common is that they're both up against the wall, battling the housing crunch in the county that's gliding warp speed towards having no housing available for anyone less than a mini-millionaire. In an attempt to stave off Silicon Valley-dom, the Santa Rosa City Council turned down Safeway's request to build a new store on Mendocino Avenue unless affordable housing units are included on-site. And when Safeway tried to avoid the requirement by submitting their plans for a 55,000 square foot store to the Santa Rosa Planning Commission without housing included, they were rejected. When Safeway appealed to the City Council, the mega-corp was told to revise their plans to include the required housing, and try again.

Keith Woods, Executive Director of the Santa Rosa Chamber of Commerce, recognizes the risk in this get-tough policy. "It can go one of two ways. Either new businesses will get the message that Santa Rosa means business, or some firms may decide to go someplace else. We will have to wait and see."

The idea that businesses may leave Sonoma County for greener pastures doesn't seem in the game plan of the Telecom industry, which is centered in the area and has enough roots to remain in place. But unlike Safeway, which hires the uneducated and pays them poorly, compared to the needs of the high-tech workplace, there is a concern about attracting the workers they need. And with the housing crunch in Sonoma County causing the best and brightest to think twice about coming or staying, the solution is to provide what people need. So what Safeway is doing under pressure, the Telecom industry is doing voluntarily.

The Sonoma County Manufacturing Group is committed to what they're calling 'Workforce Housing'. Petaluma, the second-largest city in the county and the fastest growing in terms of technology, is particularly interested in this concept. The Petaluma Chamber of Commerce and the City of Petaluma have started a 'new housing task force'. In June, there were 11 houses for sale in Petaluma, a city of 60,000, for any amount of money.

And because the cities of the county have imposed urban growth limits, the idea of building and housing must be re-evaluated. Jane Hamilton, the Manager of Community Relations at Advanced Fibre Communications, says, "This is causing us to rethink our transportation and land use planning. We're looking at things like including housing with office centers now. It's helping us make changes we've needed to make for a long time.The cities will be working in conjunction with the companies to implement their needs, and those of the community. Santa Rosa has proposed to double the fees for developers that don't want to include enough affordable housing in their proposals. Implementation of that proposal would net the city 12 million over the next five years. Another proposal would include a housing impact fee on all commercial development, which would net another 3.5 million. The mayor is looking into re-zoning some areas of the city to allow higher-density housing and mixed-use projects.

"We are committed to bringing some significant resources to this problem, so not only Advanced Fibre employees have someplace to live, but also other people who can benefit from affordable housing. We want to make affordable housing happen, and have others get involved in the effort as well."

Now all the city governments and business planners have to do is convince the people already living in these cities that they should allow higher density housing in their midst. That could be the hardest barrier of all; the haves are resistant to giving anything to the have-nots, increasingly so in this county. When the smallest house starts to look like a goldmine, nobody wants a development near them that could bring down the pie-in-the-sky values.

The battle continues, but the outcome is a given -- we have to take up less space on the planet, if we want to live in Paradise.