Paso pursues plan to alter state formula for housing

The city proposes building more homes, but only if it gets more funds; planners reject the idea

By Leah Etling
letling@thetribunenews.com

The city of Paso Robles wants to take more than its current share of new housing — and receive more tax revenue to pay for roads and water to serve the population growth that would ensue.

But a group of community planners in the county rejected the offer last week, saying it would require political changes too drastic to fathom.

The idea floated by the county’s fastest-growing city to change the way state housing allocation numbers are divided among local communities would have placed all the emphasis on where jobs are and none on where population is centered.

Historically, the numbers have been calculated using a formula that takes into account where jobs and population are in a 60-40 split.

“We’re willing to take extra numbers because we’ve got jobs, but only if we get extra money,” Ed Gallagher, Paso Robles housing programs manager, told the community planners.

The planners, members of the regional housing subcommittee for the San Luis Obispo Council of Governments, were meeting to discuss how to best allocate the state’s regional housing needs numbers — a controversial process that is intended to help counties deal with growth. The proposed overall state allocation will go before SLOCOG for approval this spring.

According to the state, in the next eight years, San Luis Obispo County needs to plan for 4,885 units, to be constructed in its cities and unincorporated areas.

That number is far more reasonable to officials than the mandate handed down seven years ago, which asked the county to plan for 18,000 additional homes.

Under the new numbers, San Luis Obispo would be assigned 1,556 homes; the unincorporated areas of the county, 1,215; Paso Robles, 630; and Arroyo Grande, Atascadero, Grover Beach, Morro Bay and Pismo Beach, a few hundred each.

Paso Robles’ proposal would keep the growth inside its city limits and discourage sprawl, according to a letter to SLOCOG from Ron Whisenand, community development director.

“Everybody hates the word ‘density,’ but what they hate worse than density is the word ‘sprawl,’ ” Paso Robles Mayor Frank Mecham said.

The city has been actively working on its long-term future, including encouragement of a “purple belt” (in reference to the farmland near Paso Robles that is planted in grapes) outside its limits so that agricultural production will continue as a buffer to development in the city.

Instead of letting development encroach on unincorporated and undeveloped parcels, Whisenand argued for housing close to urban centers that allow people to use alternative transportation methods to get to work.

“If we’re creating those jobs, shouldn’t we have a responsibility to house those people?” he asked.

According to SLOCOG, Paso Robles businesses employ 15 percent of working county residents, and the city houses 11 percent. The unincorporated areas of the county carry the bulk of the population at 41 percent, and 15 percent of the jobs. San Luis Obispo has 43 percent of the jobs and 17 percent of the housing.

As an incentive, Paso Robles suggested communities that receive the highest numbers of houses get more infrastructure funds to build roads and more property tax revenues from the county. It also proposed the county discourage growth outside city limits with “sprawl fees” and parcel-size criteria.

SLOCOG Planning Director Steve Devencenzi said those ideas were unrealistic. “Unfortunately, the things they’re saying are their conditions are things we can’t guarantee and don’t have control over,” Devencenzi said.

For example, changing the property tax revenue allocation structure would require state and local legislation.

At the meeting last week, he called the conditions “a poison pill.”

The city of San Luis Obispo also objected to the idea. In a statement, John Mandeville, the city’s community development director, called the proposal weak.

Changing the job-housing formula does not necessarily mean people will live closer to work, he wrote.

Also, most driving trips people make daily are not work-related, according to regional studies, and economics will drive new construction of homes, rather than incentives or penalties, Mandeville said.

Every planner at last week’s meeting, representing each of the communities that would receive housing allocations, voted against the Paso Robles plan except for Gallagher.

But the idea may not be dead yet. Devencenzi said the proposal will likely be a topic at a joint City Council and Planning Commission meeting in Paso Robles on Feb. 26.

“It’s going to keep getting addressed, whether we address it, other communities address it, or the citizens address it,” Whisenand said.