Benicia City Council has introduced an ordinance for transitional and supportive housing and emergency shelters that would bring the city into compliance with California mandates.
The Council also adopted an update of its Housing Element to assure there’s space for housing that is affordable to those in low-income brackets. That document is one of the state-required elements of its General Plan.
The decisions came at the Council’s Nov. 18 meeting, and while neither the ordinance nor the Housing Element require the city to launch any construction projects, the matters attracted some public concern.
Marilyn Bardet, a long-time advocate for investigation and cleanup of hazardous chemicals or articles in the Arsenal historic district, worried about putting transitional homes and emergency shelters there.
“To say we know what’s there — we don’t know everything,” she told the Council.
Jim Triplett, senior vice president of operations at AMPORTS, which operates the Port of Benicia, also had concerns about adding residences to the Lower Arsenal in particular. He told the Council he thought only work-live situations to accommodate artist workshops were allowed there.
Principal Planner Amy Million said the district has the potential for single- and multi-family residential development on upper floors in its office-commercial zones. Such uses are allowed under the city’s current zoning regulations, she said.
“We’re obligated by the state to allow transitional housing,” interim Community Development Director Dan Marks told the Council. Nor could Benicia add restrictions to limit such use, he said — it can go wherever other residential uses are allowed.
Mayor Elizabeth Patterson said the state has “called us to pass the ordinance.”
The Council’s introduction of the ordinance that night was the first of a two-step process. The matter will come up for a second vote at a future meeting.
The Housing Element was adopted by a single vote the same night, and it, too, raised concerns about the mix of residential use in the Arsenal, particularly near its industries.
Patterson raised the question of existing state law, the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and impacts on future residents, particularly from the noise generated in the industrial areas.
Some have complained they can’t sleep and their children are awakened, she said. “Is it possible to identify that without interfering with the adoption?” she asked.
But CEQA’s concern “is the impact of a project on the environment, not the environment on a project,” Marks said. Some of the Arsenal is designated in the city’s General Plan as residential, he said.
“I concur the uses create conflicts,” City Manager Brad Kilger said.
“I don’t believe the Housing Element is how to deal with it. The situation has been in effect for many, many years. The Council has tried to address it.”
Every five years, the state evaluates regional housing and decides how many very low-income, low-income, moderate-income and above-moderate-income homes are needed.
Currently, Benicia needs space for 94 of the lowest-income homes; 54 low-income homes; 56 moderate-income homes; and 123 above-moderate-income homes.
The state defines very low median income as less than $41,300; low income as between $45,500 and $65,000; moderate income as $69,350 to $99,100 a year; and above moderate income as more than $99,100.
Benicia isn’t required to get those homes built, consultant Lisa Wise said. However, it must assure that there is enough space available should a developer decide to modify existing buildings or erect new residences.
Benicia has more than enough suitably zoned areas to accommodate that construction, Wise said.
In response to public comments received while the Housing Element updates were being written, an optional new section was included devoted to housing for disabled people.
In response to a letter from AMPORTS attorney Dana Dean, the Housing Element also acknowledges constraints on putting emergency shelters in the Lower Arsenal.
Those parcels require discretionary design review approval, Dean wrote.
That would conflict with California’s emergency shelter requirements that no discretionary review can be required for those shelters, she wrote.
Two other new sections, one devoted to water and sewer for affordable housing and another that separates transitional and supportive housing into its own segment, were added to meet state requirements.
Another addition to the Housing Element is a program to monitor use of sites within the city limits.
“We looked at vacant and under-used land,” Wise said. “The city is pretty much built out.”
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MORE low-income housing? Are you kidding me? What about the area by the cemetery? The NICE “projects” we built at the bottom of Rose? 900 Southampton? Enough it enough. If you can’t afford to live in Benicia, then don’t.
Benicia should examine the quality, safety, and maintenance of its existing low income housing. I was recently shopping for a low end short term rental for a family member. The low income housing in many locations in the city has seriously decayed.
We ran into several issues looking for housing that directly affected us,. We found unsafe conditions for the elderly and those needing a wheel chairs, canes, and/or walkers.. We saw uneven steps, broken down or missing pavement, no handrails, owners unwilling to make simple accommodations such as a wooden ramp atop concrete steps. We saw doors for bathrooms too small to enter with a wheelchair. Simple amenities were often broken down or non existence. For example, my relative likes to garden. We found a rental that had planters, clearly designed and once used for this purpose. When we asked about them were told that they no longer let people use them because they were not taken care of. I looked at them. The wood was long rotted and there was no access to water, so of course people had trouble using them. We had several people tell us they could not accommodate disabled people because of the level of their property.entrance in relation to the street. Well if their properties entrances were built to code that would not be a problem. Note we saw these conditions in properties that were built after the ADA was the law of the land.
Properties that are dilapidated should be corrected or removed from the low income housing list. Owners are not legally allowed to reject the disabled but they should be held to account when they achieve the same results from lack of proper maintenance or failure to build to code. If an amenity exist it should be kept in good condition or completely removed to avoid the look of blight.
Another issue was the near obsessive requests to pay for a credit reports and the requirement for a income vs proof of ones ability to pay. While I am all for making sure that a renter is a good credit risk and can pay their rent. Our relative was rejected several times because she lives off a small SSD check and her savings. While her SSD alone was too low to afford rent her savings were more than enough to cover her expenses for years to come. Owners need to be required to examine a perspective tenant’s total ability to pay as the disabled and retired end up falling through the cracks. The city should offer to rebate this cost to owners who offer low income housing. This will take the burden of both the renter and the owner giving more people a chance to rent.
Finally, low income housing does not have to look terrible or be hard access. We saw a few locations where the owners and tenants had made simple efforts with things like barrels, arbors, broken concrete used for paths, dabs of color, or low maintenance plantings to make their properties welcoming. We found several low income complexes with no number for management posted or an office where we could inquire about vacancies. Not everyone has easy access to on line postings and one rarely sees such rentals in the papers anymore. Most low income people simply walk or drive by looking for signs and people to ask. You would think management would rush to fill vacancies and be easy to contact but the reality at some of these locations is that management is poor to non-existence. In a few cases, the tenants themselves had no idea who to contact. I am not sure how that can even happen.