Fees stifle affordable housing in county

Too many regulatory hoops stand in the way of creating affordable housing in Calaveras County.

A few dozen attendees of a stakeholders’ workshop ad-dressing the upcoming update to the county’s general plan housing element reached that consensus after hashing over the topic for two hours Thursday in San Andreas.

The stakeholders — consisting of county officials, local builders and concerned residents — split into four groups after hearing a presentation from county consultant Rik Keller on the scope of the update, scheduled for a January 2010 completion.

West Point area resident and former Planning Commissioner Holly Mines spoke on behalf of one of the groups.

“The regulatory constraints make it very hard to ... move on a project and complete it,” Mines said.

Permit fees, school fees, road impact mitigation fees and benefit basin fees add up to too much cost for builders to be able to provide affordable housing, argued Bob Mulvany, representing the Calaveras County Taxpayers Association.   

Other problems identified by the groups were a lack of affordable housing for seniors in close proximity to vital services and residents’ unfamiliarity with communities beyond their own in other corners of the county.

People identify with West Point, Valley Springs, Copperopolis or their town and not with Calaveras County as a whole, Mines said.

Keller added that the element update will focus on additional concerns such as the building slump, unavailability of infrastructure and lack of local government funds.

His figures showed the drastic decline in median home prices and number of sales in recent years.

The median price was at $300,000 in the first quarter of this year, down from a 2004 peak of $400,000, the presentation showed. The number of sales fell from 400 in the last quarter of 2008 to 100 early this year.

When the last update occurred in 2005, he said, a main problem was that the median income level could not afford the median home price.

 Today, prices have come down but incomes have slumped, too, Keller said.

A second workshop is scheduled for August and the public will get the chance to provide input there and at an upcoming planning commission/Board of Supervisors joint meeting and public review periods.