Building between the lines

Infill is considered the biggest weapon against sprawl. So why is everyone in an uproar about it?

The neighborhoods around Cal Poly’s planned faculty and staff housing say that the proposed housing density is too high and that it won’t be compatible with their single-family homes.

Some neighbors around a planned development of seven homes on one acre of land in the Alta Vista neighborhood near Cal Poly say the project is too dense, and not compatible with their neighborhood.

A man hoping to create a high-density, boarding house type of development on his land is told by city staff that it would go over the city’s density limit, and that neighbors would surely oppose it.

San Luis Obispans say they’re adamant that they don’t want sprawl to eat up the open space and ag lands that ring the city. But when it comes to actually allowing for higher density or infill development, the "smart growth" alternative to sprawl, residents get much less enthusiastic–especially when that increased density happens in their neighborhood.

Meanwhile, the housing shortage in SLO continues to reach crisis proportions, and a glut of commercial building has left a jobs/housing imbalance that few can ignore. Residential growth has crept along at about .5 percent a year, only half of the 1 percent growth cap, while commercial construction has averaged 7 percent for the last several years–one and a half times the 5 percent in five years cap for commercial development.

Action for Healthy Communities, a coalition of social service agencies, business owners, environmentalists, and others have identified the lack of affordable housing as one of the top concerns facing the county. Surveys have found families going without health care and other necessities to pay rising housing costs.

The Economic Vitality Corporation of SLO County, which works to bring new business to the area, has also pegged the lack of affordable housing as a major weakness for attracting business into the area.

And while the city of San Luis has a few more areas within city limits where it plans on building large new subdivisions, it is the small parcels within existing neighborhoods, either undeveloped or ready to be redeveloped, that are seeing resistance from neighbors.

It is resistance that housing advocates say must be redirected if SLO does not want to become like Santa Barbara, where a housing crisis ignored 20 years ago has created Third World living conditions for the city’s poorest residents; or San Jose, where even middle-income residents like teachers and police officers cannot find housing within their city.

SLO has already seen residents forced out of town for affordable housing, trading ownership for long daily commutes and lower quality of life.

How, then, to deal with the disconnect between what people say they want, and their concerns when they get it?

Everyone in the city of SLO must take responsibility for easing the housing crunch, said Carlyn Christianson, a founding member of Action for Healthy Communities.

"Community means everyone," Christianson said. "This is our problem, not ‘their’ problem. There are certain inevitabilities we’re all going to have to face."

SLO is a city, she reminded. A small city, but a city none-the-less. And if residents want to be able to drive out of San Luis and know where the city ends, that means building like a city.

And that means higher density.

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Orval Osborne, a local business owner and planning commissioner, approved the controversial McCollum Street project, which will allow for seven two-story homes on a flat, odd-shaped acre of land in the Alta Vista neighborhood between McCollum and Fredericks streets.

The project has the closest neighbors, and Residents for Quality Neighborhoods, a neighborhood advocacy group, up in arms. They characterize the development as too dense, with not enough parking, yard area or open space, with possible drainage problems, and that isn’t compatible with the surrounding neighborhood.

Gordon Balla lives next to one of the houses planned for the acre. Balla has many issues with the new development, but density is one of his top concerns. "This is seven homes on less than an acre," he said. "We have so much documentation that this is a bad project that it will be a travesty if it gets through."

But city staff thinks the project will be an improvement to the neighborhood, with a smart design, new sidewalks and curbs, and a small park for residents. Osborne said the project meets all current zoning regulations, even if it is higher density than the existing homes. The neighborhood is zoned R-1, the lowest density residential zoning. R-1 allows for a maximum of seven homes per acre, on flat ground. Because much of the land within the Alta Vista neighborhood is hilly, zoning has averaged four houses per acre.

But with a flat piece of land such as the one now being developed, maximizing density makes sense on every level, Osborne said, from the housing crunch perspective to the fiscal realities of building housing. Noting that the original project was pared back, Osborne said that given the crunch, maximizing density is "only logical." He also noted that the Alta Vista Neighborhood Association supports the project.

He said he understands residents can get used to the views and space of living next to an empty lot for years and years, but if they don’t own that lot, they’re going to have to accept when it’s finally built out.

Christianson agrees. She lives with an empty lot kitty corner to her house off of Los Osos Valley Road. "I ask myself sometimes, what if they built a two-story apartment building right there? I wouldn’t like it, it would block my view of the lake, the mountains. But I understand that it’s desperately needed. I think we’re all going to have to sacrifice a little for the good of the community as a whole."

She said representatives of social service agencies, who deal with families who can’t find housing, or give up health care or other basics to afford housing, and even some business owners, would like to see even higher density developments in the future. Right now, the city has a limit of 55 people per acre.

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That density limit precluded local business owner Brad Schwan from re-creating one of the most successful high-density housing projects in the city–the Establishment, a former boarding house on Osos Street near the railroad tracks. The two-story building rents out 19 private rooms, with communal living and dining areas, for some of the most affordable rents in the city.

Schwan, who owns a lot between Campus Bottle and a fraternity house on California Street, had a local architect draw up plans for a similar building, with three stories and 19 rooms, underground parking, and a rooftop deck. But he was shut down cold when he found out about the city’s density ordinance.

With the 55 person per acre limit, Schwan could only build a 10-room building, which didn’t pencil out for him financially. He is amazed that the city won’t allow his building. "It’s already high-density, it wouldn’t disturb the neighbors. It seems like the optimal place. And the city needs affordable housing so badly."

He has a couple of options, according to Rob Strong, a planning consultant who was SLO’s community development director from 1974-1977.

Schwan could petition for a general plan amendment to have his land rezoned from residential/commercial to R-4, the highest residential density zoning allowed, which is 24 units per acre. Or, if he was feeling really ambitious, he could fight to have the maximum number of people per acre upped from 55.

Schwan admitted that he’s probably going to do neither.

"I’ve fought the city before, and it’s just not worth it," he said.

Strong agreed that the political will probably isn’t there on the city council to up density levels, which were reduced during the General Plan revisions in the 1970s.

"I can take responsibility for some of the density reductions and design requirements that were added to the plan," Strong said. "But there’s nothing magic in those numbers. They could be changed." And given the changed housing climate, Strong said they probably ought to be.

"We’d have to be careful where those densities are applied, of course," he said. "Downtown is a perfect place to follow the guidelines of compact, urban form, but I haven’t seen many examples of it yet."

In addition to density, however, are resident concerns. Ron Whisenand, the city’s development review manager, said city staff really liked the idea of another Establishment-type project, but that Schwan’s parcel just wasn’t large enough. He also warned that Schwan would run into deep resistance from neighbors over the project, even though it would about other high-density apartments and fraternity houses.

Another lot owner across the street, Whisenand said, wanted to build an eight-bedroom house on his large lot, but the neighbors came unglued, and essentially killed the project.

"Even if Brad could comply with the density requirements, there would be concerns from neighbors. In neighborhoods like that, with high concentrations of students, neighbors have experienced too many sleepless nights. They’re going to get involved."

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The student factor is almost always the major underlying concern of many neighbors to potential high-density projects. Residents in neighborhoods adjacent to where Cal Poly plans to build faculty and staff housing worry that even if students aren’t allowed into that neighborhood, the new development will drive out old homeowners in their own neighborhood, making room for more student rentals.

As far as the McCollum Street project, even though they’ve been pushed as starter homes for young families, there’s nothing to preclude them from becoming student rentals, says Cydney Holcomb of Residents for Quality Neighborhoods.

"These are four-bedroom homes with an additional room called a ‘play area’, that I understand will be going for about $450,000 apiece," Holcomb said, "That’s pretty expensive for a young family. And once one of these becomes a student rental, they’ll all go."

She is quick to avoid placing blame on students themselves for their invasion into neighborhoods surrounding Cal Poly, and hers was just one of a chorus of voices laying much of the housing crisis at Cal Poly’s institutional feet.

While Christianson said the university should be applauded and encouraged for finally taking steps to relieve some of the tension that’s built up from not building a single unit of student housing for the last 30 years, "Their refusal to deal with the student population has had a major effect on our housing market."

Like many, Christianson wishes the university would deal with the current crunch, rather than only building for future enrollment increases. Action for Healthy Communities will keep pressure on both Cal Poly and Cuesta to deal with the housing shortage, she said.

But pressure is all they can exert. Osborne added that the city of SLO has no say over what Cal Poly does, housing or enrollment-wise. "I see letters to the editor all the time, asking the city to stop Cal Poly. The city can’t do anything."

Strong thinks the city, and the county, are going to have to partner with Cal Poly and Cuesta to begin easing the housing crisis. But the city is going to have to employ a certain amount of vision if it wants to come out the other side of the crunch in a compact, urban form, rather than sprawled out, with communities like Atascadero and Arroyo Grande picking up the slack.

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SLO could start with more zoning for apartments, housing advocates say.

"The city has very limited water supplies," said Osborne. "I think we need to place a moratorium on office building, take the existing water supplies, devote them to R-4 development, and build as many apartment buildings as we can."

The need for apartments is "beyond crisis," Christianson said. "We’re a city, let’s keep it looking like a city, with apartment buildings and parking garages [instead of ground level parking]." There are plenty of people to fill the apartments, she said, from singles, to small families, students, and seniors. "We can keep it compact, with less traffic and better air quality."

Osborne said he’d like to see the downtown at least five stories high, like the old Anderson Hotel on the corner of Morro and Monterey streets. "We need more neo-traditional housing, built the way it was before the car, high density, walkable, connected by rail or other public transportation. Downtown could easily go to five stories."

Building the center of the city up would not only offer some potentially breathtaking views for apartment and condominium dwellers, he said, but would also take pressure off of building in outlying areas.

The Copeland project is another place Osborne sees opportunity. Instead of allowing Court Street–which Osborne hopes will be at least three stories–to be developed first, he said, the city should insist on the mixed-use development planned for Palm Street.

"People loved this project mainly for the housing that was going to be built downtown. Now it looks like that might not happen." The city should insist on it, he said, or consider sending the project out to bid.

"We could still give them first crack, but I really resent the recent demands they’ve made, ‘build the Marsh Street parking garage or else,’" he said. "The city needs to do what it needs, not kowtow to some developer, no matter what he’s done in the past."

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But in our free market economy, developers only build projects that they can sell at a profit. And with a white-hot economy for the last several years, what buyers want are single family, detached homes, said one developer, who asked that his name not be used. "The willingness to accept anything less has been minimal," he said.

But the days of building single family homes within the city limits are coming to an end, he said. There are only a few more areas where entire subdivisions can be built, then that’s it–infill development will be what’s left.

There have been other roadblocks to building high-density housing. Expensive construction-defect lawsuits against condominium builders in the 1980s practically ground condo building to a halt in the state, and today it remains almost prohibitively expensive to build and insure condos. Architects for the Copelands say that’s one reason they’re having trouble making the housing component work in the Palm Street project.

People are going to have to get used to living closer together, the developer said, or the community is going to become more polarized. "We’re going to have nothing but older residents and college students," he said. "It distorts the fabric of our community. When we don’t have a range we lose involvement in the community, in service organizations, youth sports, churches, etc."

That distortion is already happening, Christianson emphasizes. The SLO Chamber of Commerce recently hired a woman who spent six weeks living in a tent in Morro Bay while she tried to find housing. She finally gave up, resigned the position, and moved back home.

"And this is the Chamber of Commerce, not some minimum-wage job," she said.

She warned people who have the "I’ve-got-mine-and-if-you-can’t-afford--to-live here-then-don’t" mentality:

"It’s understandable, but it’s very short-term thinking. Even rich people need services," she said, alluding to the whiff of classism that pervades the above argument. If you want teachers for your kids, police to patrol your streets, wait staff to serve you dinner, Christianson said, you’re going to have to put them somewhere, or pay them more.

What the city of SLO needs as much as housing is vision. Not just from city leaders, but residents, too–residents who realize that the days of four single-family houses per acre are probably over, that everyone is going to need to accept part of the burden for a housing crisis that’s not going to go away.

San Luis Obispans have a choice. In 30 years, we could be Orange County, or the East Bay, where people commute for hours back and forth to work from tract homes on the edge of nothing but strip malls. Or, we could be like Portland, Ore., or Seattle, Wa.–cities that have grown up, not out, and that have hundreds of affordable apartment buildings, and consistently rate at the top of livability indexes.

It’s up to us to decide. Æ

Staff writer Tracy Hamilton can be reached at [email protected]