HOUSING – REAL SOLUTIONS AND FALSE SOLUTIONS

A crucial responsibility of the City Council is to recognize and support real solutions that will create truly affordable housing, while also protecting the small-town character of Ojai. If you are told that I am against affordable housing, please be skeptical. While I certainly am opposed to new developments that heavily burden our community and its resources, while doing little of merit for the low-income renters they claim to help, I fully believe that other paths will provide housing for our renting friends and neighbors that is affordable in reality, not just in name.

We need only look to our neighbor, Ventura, to see what will not work for Ojai. Over the past twenty years or so, Ventura has adopted a build-it-out model, hoping to achieve housing affordability by simply adding more housing units, most noticeably in the form of multi-story apartment buildings. As a result of that aggressive building rate, Ventura has dramatically changed its character, impacted water and traffic, and yet that community has not achieved any meaningful gains in housing affordability.

Like other communities, Ventura has followed the developer-led model of housing “affordability.” That model attracts for-profit builders because it allows for a massive rate of return to them on their investments. Unfortunately, that rate of return is borne by the community itself, and the developments do very little for the low and average-income renters they claim to help. Under the developer-led model, developments overwhelmingly result in full market or near market rate units, with very few units being anywhere close to what anyone would describe as truly affordable.

The numbers are telling. Under this private developer model, a full 80% of a development can be a sky-is-the-limit maximum market rate; only 20% must be “affordable,” with most of that percentage share being “moderately affordable.” If you do not feel that $3,600 a month for a family of four is a “moderately affordable” unit, then you do not want this kind of housing “solution” in Ojai. We can do better.

These expensive “affordable” units are not what Ojai needs. Just as such units are sitting vacant in Ventura because they are not affordable, we should prioritize our very few buildable lots for developments that will be affordable in reality. Stated another way, if we are going to impact our water supply, bring more cars and people to Ojai, and degrade our air quality even further, we should ensure that such developments do something real for the low and very low-income earners, including service works and our senior citizens.

To those who claim that the more supply the better, and that we should build, build, build, we should think about who will buy or rent the overwhelming number of market and near-market rate units that will not be available to the low-income renters who cannot afford them. These units will be purchased by out-of-towners who want a second home where they can get away from the big city and enjoy a slice of living in our little oasis of small-town living. They pay all cash and well over the asking price, and many local buyers can’t or won’t compete.How long until all the locals are bought out and we have a shell of a town?

Even if the build-it-out approach had some impact on actual rental prices, how much housing must we build for this to occur? Will building 1,000, 5,000, or 10,000 new homes in Ojai (80% of which will be full market rate) result in reduced housing costs for anyone in Ojai? Does it have to be 25,000? How much will ever be enough under this model?

The crucial question, then, is how do we balance meeting the needs of our community while protecting the things that make Ojai livable? Do we owe private developers the 40% return on their investments they have come to expect?

If you have been watching or hearing about events at City Council, you may have noticed that there is a clear divide between those who believe that it is important to preserve Ojai’s small-town character, and those who think Ojai is a relic ready for a big-city makeover. If you are in the former category, then I think you need me on City Council. To be clear, I don’t plan to engage in senseless and futile litigation with developers. But I also won’t be blackmailed into abandoning a winnable legal argument because of the threat of a lawsuit – developers threaten lawsuits as a way to get to build.

Remember, too, that a developer who buys property in Ojai does not have the right to build whatever they want.In fact, if a developer’s plan for a parcel is consistent with its zoning, the City Council typically does not even get involved in that process. It is only if the developer is asking for entitlements, enhancements to the property that automatically make it a more valuable investment, that such a project would come before the Ojai Planning Commission and City Council.

Think about that. A developer buys a property at a price that reflects the current zoning of that parcel; the developer then asks the Planning Commission or City Council to enhance the value of that parcel (often exponentially) by rezoning it, or by allowing things not previously allowed. That’s a tremendous benefit to a developer who bought the property at a lower price because of the limitations on what can be done with the property; now we as a community are asked to increase the value of the property by allowing activity not previously allowed. Before we do that, the Planning Commission and City Council must ensure that the requested entitlements work for our community. This is especially true with large developments that will increase our population, impact our water supply, and bring more cars to the valley. I feel we should be careful about when to grant such enhancements, prioritizing projects that actually create units that existing Ojai residents can afford.

In the 10 months that I have been in office time and again I have supported our renting community. I am proud to have supported local renters by protecting them against no-fault evictions and steep, unaffordable rent increases. I’m proud to have supported the legitimate, truly affordable housing projects that have come to City Council, including a project advanced by Habitat for Humanity. I’m also proud to vote to ensure that housing is prioritized for residents by keeping short-term vacation rental investors out of our residential neighborhoods.

I am not against building housing in the City of Ojai. I do think we need to be smart and take every opportunity to maximize the affordability factor of everything that we build. Otherwise, all we have done is build out our few remaining lots with high-rent housing, and there is nowhere left to create truly affordable housing.

If you want someone on the City Council who will work to maximize housing affordability, then you need me on City Council.

THE VITRIOL

There is a small group of people that is very angry that I won the election over their chosen candidate. A splinter group of the local democratic club [unaffiliated with the official Democratic Party] had a slate of pro-development candidates they wanted to install on the City Council. Despite a tsunami of propaganda from the club in support of their slate, three of their four candidates lost. Some in this group also include special interest, high-rent housing developers, real estate speculators, and vacation rental investors who do not support our vision for Ojai. Instead, they hope that Ojai will be built out as large as possible resulting in the loss of Ojai’s small-town character and charm, not to mention our quality of life.

As a result, they have engaged in a smear campaign, not only against me, but against the shared vision of Ojai the Ojai voters have chosen. Though we have been seeing this nationally for a few years, it is disheartening that this conduct has made its way into the valley. I will not participate in these toxic, negative and false debates as I do not think it is healthy for our democracy nor for the amity and goodwill as Ojai has shared as an Ojai community for decades.

Paid for by the Committee to Oppose Recall of Andrew Whitman 2024