Encinitas postpones action on housing fee

North County Times – Escondido,CA,USA
ENCINITAS — The Encinitas City Council on Wednesday
postponed a decision on a developer’s offer to pay a fee instead of
building required low-cost housing. …

ENCINITAS — The Encinitas City Council on Wednesday postponed a decision on a developer’s offer to pay a fee instead of building required low-cost housing.

“I’m simply not ready,” said Councilman Jerome Stocks. “I feel like I’d be picking a number out of my hat. I don’t feel informed enough to make a decision.”

Joining Stocks in requesting an additional month to analyze the offer were council members Dan Dalager and Teresa Barth. Mayor James Bond voted against the continuance and Councilwoman Maggie Houlihan abstained from voting.

City planners told the council that city laws require the developer of a planned, 34-home project on Quail Gardens Drive to build three homes for low-income families.

They recommended that Pacific Coast Communities, a Carmel Valley-based developer, pay fees ranging from $657,000 to $925,000.

The company’s president, Steven Baldwin, told the council that he had made his offer of $408,000 more than a year ago, and he hoped to sell the houses he plans to build.

City ordinances require that any subdivision of 10 or more homes reserve 10 percent of the dwellings for “very low-income” families.

The homes must be made available as rentals for 55 years to families who earn no more than half of the median income in the county, which in 2006 was $74,500 for a family of five.

“I don’t want to be in the rental business,” Baldwin told the council.

The city’s inclusionary housing ordinance has no framework for assessing fees paid in lieu of providing low-cost housing. The city would use the fees to buy or rent homes elsewhere in Encinitas, planners said.

Planner Kerry Kusiak told the council that Baldwin had requested consolidating the low-cost dwellings into a single building, but city zoning laws would not allow that.

John Nabors, a consultant of Baldwin’s, blasted the city analysis that presented the proposed fees.

The report should have compared in-lieu housing fees to those of nearby cities that have studied the issue carefully, he said.

“We don’t need to have one staff report determine your policies,” Nabors said.

Houlihan told her colleagues the council needs to establish “realistic” fees.

Accepting the developer’s payment would not add to the city’s stock of affordable housing and would not move Encinitas toward meeting state housing requirements, she said.

“I find it insulting that someone wants to build here and offers us $400,000 for the project,” she said. “You can’t even buy an acre for that. Our community is taking all of the impacts and not getting any of the benefits.

She said she would support an in-lieu fee structure similar to that of Laguna Beach, which requires a $47,000 payment for each market-rate home that is built.