Opinion: Housing mandate a welcome mat for disaster
April 3, 2006 12:00 AM
Resistance to the state's housing mandate is not futile. To save our
community, our only choice is to change these wrong-headed laws that
are destined to destroy our quality of life.The
current Sacramento mentality is that Californians must continue to
develop housing and densify our communities in order to accommodate any
and all who wish to live in our state. This faulty logic will
incrementally destroy our livable environment, which makes Santa
Barbara one of the most desirable places on Earth. It also will place
undue pressure on many important, finite resources, such as water,
electricity, transportation systems and agricultural land to name a few.The
South Coast of Santa Barbara County is a unique location in that we are
bounded on one side by a mountain range and the other by the Pacific
Ocean. The "walls of our box" are quite visible.More
importantly, we have a population of citizens who are well-known for
having a keen respect for our environment, and an understanding of the
various ways we can cause harm to it.It is our responsibility to
create a community that serves its citizens, maintains an acceptable
level of public health and welfare, and does all this in complete
harmony with our natural environment.Despite the pro-development
approach embraced by Sacramento politicians, we have no responsibility
to build enough housing to accommodate everyone who chooses to live
here.To save our community, we must persuade our local elected
officials to represent our best interests. Rather than surrender, we
must seek and support true leaders who are willing to stand up for us
and protect us from laws designed to overcrowd and destroy our
community.I suggest the following approach to effectively resist current and future housing mandates:•
Negotiate with state housing and community development to get the
current mandatory number lower. It has been lowered in the past. With
an honest effort, it can be lowered again.• Assign the county's
lobbyist to focus efforts on eliminating the entire state housing
mandate for future housing elements (the next mandate period starts in
less than two years).• Encourage our local legislative
representatives from the Assembly and Senate to work in our best
interests. Laws must be enacted that allow communities to control their
own growth, under local plans.• Direct county planning and
development to create a needs assessment that will show that Santa
Barbara County cannot support the ever-increasing state mandate numbers
for high-density development. Compile current information on all our
natural resources to support this effort: water supply, air quality,
wastewater treatment processing and impacts on the ocean. Calculate
accurate impacts of future growth: traffic gridlock, noise pollution
and degradation of emergency services.• Direct county counsel to
prepare a strategy to resist the existing mandate. Current requirements
by the state are in direct conflict with our local coastal plan, the
county's general plan, and the California Environmental Quality Act.Despite
the rhetoric, there is no requirement that the state housing numbers
include affordable units. The state's assumption that building dense
condos will automatically create affordable housing does not work in
our area where land is so expensive. The end result of the state
housing mandate for the South Coast is an ever-increasing number of
high-density, high-priced condominiums, accompanied by a minimal,
ineffective number of affordable units. To effectively address this
issue, we must focus our efforts solely on a strategy to create true
affordable housing for our existing workforce.We must understand
that our water supply is limited and that electricity doesn't appear
out of thin air. Our region and its current inhabitants can only
survive if we embrace the reality that resources are finite, and that
our remaining open space is limited and must be preserved.The
state housing mandate is a result of a pro-development lobby, a special
interest group of builders with a single focus. Sacramento has
surrendered to this pressure. We must not. We must insist that people
come before profit, and that our highest priority should be to shape
our community in a way that best fits our needs. Our duty is not to
give up and accept what some say is inevitable. Our duty is to speak
out and work for change, not just for ourselves, but for generations to
come.Joe Guzzardi is a candidate for 2nd District county supervisor.
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