Opportunities and parterships for economic vitality incuding workforce housing.

By Gary A. Nemeth

Working together with our community, business partners, City and County Government, we can find a solution to the availability of workforce (affordable) housing that we all can participate in.

Charles Darwin said; "It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."

I believe that to find solutions to the concerns of workforce (affordable) housing we as a community must be willing to change. Affordably workforce housing is one of the biggest stumbling blocks to our business community. I have found by talking to business owners and employees, that there is very little affordable workforce housing. I have been investigating this problem for some time, and this does effect our seniors, entry market home buyers, and those looking for affordable housing.

While a member of the Planning Commission I attended a seminar put by the League of California Cities, the presentation was about neo-traditional housing and offering a density bonus. Growing up in Kansas City I did not know that our family was ahead of the curve because we lived in this type of neighborhood. Few in our development community took advantage of this option. I have brought forward the idea of inclusionary zoning and affordable housing in the 2003 General Plan but that alone is not enough. We all have read news articles of the problems our business leaders face in attracting a strong employee base because of the cost of housing. Businesses are leaving our community and taking their economic base with them in hopes of finding affordable workforce housing.

I have been researching one very workable solution that would involve all of us, not just leaving the burden to the development community. When any property is sold, there is a real estate transfer fee, and that fee is divided 50/50 between the City and County. The current fee is $0.55 cents per $500.00 of assessed value and everyone pays the same. As it has been explained to me using the example,if property sells for $300,000, the amount of the fee is $330.00 (50/50 split = $165.00 to Paso Robles and $165.00 to the County). The FY2002/2003 fee received by Paso Robles was $168,598. Budgeted FY 2003/2004 is $100,000 and the estimated 6/30/2004 is $160,000. Our County receives the same amount.

Santa Barbara County is attempting to amend Sections 11911(d), (e) and (f) of the Revenue & Taxation Code and the change would apply to Santa Barbara County. The fee would be raised to $1.10 per $500 in valuation. The same $300,000 property, would now have a fee of $660.00. If we join Santa Barbara Counties effort and are successful, the results would be that Paso Robles and San Luis Obispo County still split the original $330.00, but the additional increase ($330.00) would go to the Housing Trust Fund in Paso Robles which can only be used for the creation and maintenance of affordable housing (workforce housing). The beauty of this is that everyone participates, not just the development community, and it provides a fund to draw from to create workforce housing. There are also other safeguards in the bill and it would still need to be passed by the voters.

I am attempting to have a group from Santa Barbara come to Paso Robles for a workshop to present what is happening in Santa Barbara and how this can help our situation. Hopefully we can convince our Board of Supervisors and our Council that this is a worthwhile project and can join Santa Barbara in their attempt to amend Section 11911 (d), (e) and (f).