Are the State Housing Numbers Really Fair?

By Andrew Carter

One thing that's been lost in Tribune editorials on the state housing mandate is the question, are the numbers really fair? The San Luis Obispo City Council doesn't think so. The San Luis Obispo Council of Governments (SLOCOG) doesn't think so. And neither do I. Here's why.

State Housing and Community Development (HCD), in formulating its housing mandate, starts with population projections from the state Department of Finance (DOF). The problem is DOF has historically overestimated future population growth in San Luis Obispo County. This has been the case since the mid-80's. And instead of lowering its County growth projections to better match actual trends, DOF recently raised them. This means HCD is using inflated growth numbers, so the HCD housing mandate is inflated as well.

What's particularly troubling with DOF projections is that those numbers show the state exporting the sprawl of Southern California and the Bay Area to the Central Coast over the next twenty years. Between 2000 and 2020, DOF predicts Los Angeles, Orange, and Ventura counties combined will grow by 21%. DOF also predicts the nine-county Bay Area will grow by 21%. DOF says San Luis Obispo County will grow by 56%. That's a problem.

Using DOF projections, HCD originally told SLOCOG that San Luis Obispo County needed to add 22,460 housing units between January 2001 and July 2008. As a point of reference, 102,275 housing units existed in the County on April 1, 2000. After negotiation, HCD reduced its housing mandate to 18,035. In large part, this reduction was due to factoring in population projections developed by the County Planning Department. County Planning projections are significantly lower than DOF's. If HCD had fully utilized County Planning numbers, the County would have received a housing mandate of just 6,000 units.

Since SLOCOG started the negotiation process willing to accept a mandate of 10,360 units and later increased that number to 13,892, SLOCOG is willing to address our current housing crisis and the need to plan for realistic housing growth. But SLOCOG doesn't want to plan for unnecessary in-state migration and sprawl.

What's interesting about the negotiation process is the differing degrees to which HCD has been willing to reduce housing mandates when dealing with other councils of government. The Monterey Bay area, for instance, received a 48% reduction from HCD during the negotiation process. San Luis Obispo County received a 20% reduction. What does Monterey Bay know that we don't?

Finally, there's one HCD nuance that particularly hurts a college community like ours. HCD doesn't count traditional dormitories as housing. Unless individual dormitory units have kitchens, they're considered "group quarters." And group quarters don't count against the HCD mandate. So if Cal Poly built a dozen traditional-style dorms tomorrow, it wouldn't matter to HCD. Go figure.

I realize this discussion of numbers is particularly mind-numbing, but this is the way the HCD process works. If you follow the numbers, however, I think only one conclusion can be reached. HCD's "fair share" allocation of the state housing need to San Luis Obispo County is hardly fair at all.