Beware of ‘affordable housing advocacy’ that blocks SLO County home building | Opinion
The Tribune’s recent editorial on Nipomo’s Blacklake Golf Course project highlights a central problem in California’s housing crisis. Officials who delay or block housing in the name of subsidized housing are praised as “true affordable housing advocates,” while those who actually vote yes on housing are criticized for not doing enough.
This mindset, often framed as principled concern for affordability, has real consequences. Endless conditions and delays are treated as moral victories, while real housing production is discouraged. Communities pay the price.
The Blacklake proposal referenced in the editorial was not a massive development. It primarily involved rental units connected to the golf course, making it more of an economic development opportunity than workforce housing, as Supervisor Heather Moreno correctly noted. Still, it would have produced housing units.
The developer also acknowledged that contributing to the affordable housing fund might be required, and county staff confirmed that affordability would be analyzed as the application moved forward.
Yet when the board was asked to vote merely to initiate the entitlement process, not approve the project, Supervisors Bruce Gibson and Jimmy Paulding voted no. Their stated reason was the lack of guaranteed focus on subsidized housing, even though county staff confirmed that issue would already be part of the review process.
Delaying a project over a condition that is already under consideration is not responsible policymaking. Frankly, it feels more like political posturing. In the editorial, The Tribune Editorial Board suggested that in voting no and attempting to delay the project Gibson and Paulding were showing developers they “mean business.” In reality, they showed that when it comes to people investing in new housing in our county, Gibson and Paulding are closed for business.
Recent denial of Pismo Beach project
This was not an isolated incident either. Just weeks earlier, both supervisors voted against authorizing an application for a project in Pismo Beach with roughly 100 units, 20% of them affordable, including potential senior housing.
This time, despite its location near major roads, shopping, the freeway and existing neighborhoods, Supervisor Paulding argued against the housing — not for affordability concerns — but because he believed the site was unsuitable and lacked adequate infrastructure. If that site, surrounded by those uses, isn’t suitable, where is?
We have seen it enough now to know what is really happening. When affordability is included, lack of infrastructure becomes the excuse. When infrastructure is addressed, missing community fit becomes the excuse. The pattern goes on and on and is unmistakable.
No project will ever lack a pretext for a “no” vote from Supervisors Paulding and Gibson. They have yet to meet an argument against housing they did not find sufficient. The specific argument they made regarding the Blacklake project also relies on a dangerous false narrative that only deed-restricted affordable housing helps local residents. The evidence is clear that housing at all income levels reduces pressure on the market. Many young families and professionals buying market rate homes today are also the ones paying the highest property taxes and helping fund the infrastructure critics claim is being overburdened.
Gibson and Paulding choose ‘political theater’ over action
San Luis Obispo County faces a multi-million dollar deficit, and the latest economic forecast identifies housing as the region’s top issue. Even so, Supervisors Gibson and Paulding continue to choose political theater over decisive action.
As a community we need to come to terms that some officials are housing advocates in name only. Their actions are performative rather than productive. We must stop pretending otherwise. In fact, former President Barack Obama has urged Democrats to confront what he views as performative advocacy, as he has done himself. In remarks to a group of Democratic operatives and donors, Obama said, “I don’t care how much you say you love working people. They can’t afford a house because all the rules in your state make it prohibitive to build,” directly calling out the kind of pretend housing support on display during the supervisor’s discussion of the Blacklake project.
We must acknowledge that as traditional NIMBY arguments lose credibility, they are often repackaged as concerns about location, size, timing or housing type. The result is always the same. No housing gets built. Future housing gets deterred. At Blacklake, housing units were on the table. Supervisors Gibson and Paulding voted against them, just as they did with two other housing projects the month before. Just as they almost always do.
Those projects only moved forward because Supervisors Peschong, Moreno and Ortiz-Legg voted yes. Just as they continue to do. The record is clear. Three supervisors support housing. Two support the idea of housing. And while ideas can be great, people cannot live under the idea of a roof. Michael Massey if the founder of Generation Build, a housing advocacy organization.