Ventura County cities are behind on affordable housing goals, ahead on high-income housing

New housing units permitted in Ventura County last year were mostly for moderate-income and above moderate-income units, as many Ventura County cities remain behind on their affordable housing goals. 

California cities and counties are required to plan for certain numbers of housing units for different income levels. According to 2019 building permit numbers, the county is not permitting enough low-income and very low-income housing units to meet the region's estimated need. 

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In annual progress reports submitted to the state last month, jurisdictions provided the number of very low-income, low-income, moderate-income and above moderate-income housing units they permitted in 2019. The reports measure each jurisdiction's progress toward their Regional Housing Needs Allocation. This is a state-mandated process that sets the number of housing units at each income level that each jurisdiction needs to plan for during specified periods. 

The current planning period runs from 2014 to 2021, and with less than two years left in the seven-year period, no Ventura County cities are even halfway to their very low-income and low-income housing allocations.At the same time, many cities are meeting or even surpassing their moderate-income and above moderate-income goals.

Market-rate units are more profitable for developers

Some cities say this is because it isn't profitable for developers to build lower-income units. 

"The easy answer is that the developers that construct housing units obviously want to maximize profits, so to do that it is easiest to sell at market rate, and in Ventura County market rate typically falls into the above moderate-income category," said Joe Vacca, director of Community Development for the city of Camarillo.

"That's why it's so challenging to actually get affordable units because in Ventura County, because it is very, very challenging to construct housing units at market-rate construction rates that pencil out and are available for sale or rent to low-income and very low-income individuals," said Vacca, who added that affordable units typically require a subsidy or partnership with the city or an affordable housing organization to pencil out. 

Camarillo is 24 percent and 27 percent of the way to its very-low-income and low-income housing goals, respectively. The city has exceeded its moderate-income goal and is 91 percent to its above-moderate-income goal. 

In Simi Valley, the city is 13 percent and 1 percent to its very-low-income and low-income housing goals, but 63 percent to its moderate-income goal. The city has exceeded its above-moderate-income goal. 

Eric Chen, associate planner for Simi Valley, also says the large gap between lower-income housing and moderate-income housing can be attributed to the types of projects developers are interested in. 

'What's a city to do?'

Jurisdictions are only required to plan for growth, while developers must come in and build the units. If cities demonstrate that they've planned for their allocated units, there isn't much of a penalty if those units are never actually permitted. 

"There's really no recourse because it's not the city's responsibility to build," said Kome Ajise, executive director of the Southern California Association of Governments, which determines the methodology for allocating housing units to jurisdictions in six counties.

Ajise stressed that cities can't permit units unless developers ask for permits. 

"Cities need to be judicious in permitting whatever requests are out there, within the bounds of their rules and regulations, but if nobody's requesting a permit then what's a city to do?"

Lucas Seibert, community development manager for the city of Ojai, stresses that cities aren't required to take extra steps to increase development. Ojai has issued zero permits for very low-income and low-income housing units since 2014, in spite of an RHNA allocation of 87 needed very-low-income units and 59 needed low-income units. 

"It is not a requirement for us to look to increase those units; we've met the requirements from the state,"  Seibert said.

Seibert says the city won't meet its housing goals by 2021, and added that the city set aside eight or nine additional sites throughout the city to potentially use to accommodate the needed units. But so far, the sites haven't been seriously pursued, and some have challenges associated with development. 

"Has there been interest? Yes. In terms of people pursuing them? No. There's always interest in vacant land, but it's whether people want to pursue it," he said. "With a lot of cities that have vacant land that is continuing to dry up, a lot of times they're vacant for a reason, and there's usually challenges with developing a lot of these pieces."

Balancing community opposition, need for housing 

Santa Paula is about 1 percent of the way to its very-low-income goal and 7 percent of the way to its low-income goal. The city has also only permitted six of its needed 241 moderate-income units and one of its needed 555 above-moderate units. 

Nevertheless, Santa Paula planning manager Jeff Mitchem is "cautiously optimistic" that the city can meet its housing goals in the next two years. In the past, he says community pushback may have played a role in preventing more housing but says the city has evolved on this in recent years. 

"I'm of the opinion that politically and culturally and socially everybody here gets it, we have a housing problem and we need more housing," he said. 

"With the last election we got slightly more compassionate housing advocates in decision-making positions. . . I don't see any lurking opposition on the dais politically or in the public," he continued.

In Camarillo, Vacca has noticed an increase in opposition to new housing developments in recent years.

"Generally speaking, I think the city council is very supportive of affordable housing and housing projects. However, within the last three or four years the community has been more vocal towards housing projects, and a lot of the input that we receive is that they don't want more housing units," said Vacca. "We've done our best to balance input from the public against the needs of the community."

According to Ajise, projects can still get through in spite of community opposition, if the city chooses to support the project. 

"Obviously, there are issues with NIMBYism... That can be a political problem for some cities in trying to get projects permitted and we can't discount that," he said. "With some patience some of those projects tend to go through after it's been fought by people that may not want to see it built, if a city stands by it then it gets built."

But, he says this also raises the cost of building those units for developers, and extends the timeline of the project. While projects are tied up in public hearings, the cost of labor and materials increase over time. 

ADUs, increased density are possible solutions

Some local jurisdictions are making relatively strong progress on their affordable housing goals. Ventura County, which is responsible for permits in unincorporated parts of the county, is 65 percent to its combined very-low-income and low-income allocations. Jennifer Butler, a long-range planner for the County of Ventura Resource Management Agency, attributes much of the county's recent success to an increase in accessory dwelling units (ADUs). 

A survey of ADU owners found the majority of them charged lower-income rates, which allows the county to count roughly 60 percent of new ADU permits toward the low-income housing allocation. Permitting activity for ADUs in unincorporated parts of the county has more than doubled since a 2017 state law prompted a new county ordinance that makes it easier to obtain ADU permits. 

In Camarillo, the city's density bonus ordinance has been instrumental in creating low-income housing. 

Vacca says the majority of affordable housing units recently created in the city came from the density bonus ordinance, which allows developers to build housing that is more dense than the zoning would typically allow, if they include affordable housing units in their market-rate projects. 

In Santa Paula, getting closer to affordable housing goals will likely mean different types of development, with an emphasis on infill and multifamily development in the city's downtown area. 

"We're an isolated little town, with a river, mountains and agriculture pinning us into a built-in condition so the typical development of expanding into orchards for single-family subdivisions didn't work because nobody would buy them, nobody here could afford them," said Mitchem. 

Now that the city has "marching orders" from the state to build affordable housing, this will likely include multifamily developments on vacant inner-city parcels. 

This will allow the city to build more units, more quickly than if it focused on low-density single-family homes on the edges of the city, potentially inching the city closer to the over 1,200 units it needs to permit in the next two years to meet its RHNA allocation. 

Erin Rode covers housing, real estate and development for The Star. Reach her at erin.rode@vcstar.com or 805-437-0312.