Hapless and Shameless: the Big Lies Behind ‘Housing Action Plan 2.0’

By Mat Wahlstrom

On Tuesday, December 12, the City Council will be pressured to approve the same “Housing Action Plan 2.0” amendments to the “Complete Communities Housing Solutions,” without changes, that the council rejected less than a month ago amid community uproar, due in part to lack of any data presented to demonstrate what it has accomplished so far.

And all for no better reason than that our current “strong-arm mayor” form of government enables authoritarian refusal to take “no” for answers rendered in democratic process.

This is reason enough for the council to reject them, and I encourage you to tell councilmembers that. (It’s Item #335 on the agenda.)

But in case you want to know more:

Originally pushed through and approved in 2020 at the height of the COVID pandemic, “Complete Communities” was and is a textbook example of disaster capitalism, cashing in on crisis by kneecapping regulations to increase profit, allegedly to incentivize housing production — under the pretense to provide 40% inclusionary very low to moderate income housing in all projects approved under it.

But of course “Complete Communities” never did that. It pulled a hat-trick by allowing developers to calculate that 40% required “affordable” units based on the *pre-bonus* underlying zoning that already exists — not the actual number of units that result in any project from the elimination of height and density restrictions it allows.

Whereas the State Density Bonus Law and other legislation allow for exceptions to local regulations regarding land use, they require that no less than eight to fifteen percent of *all* units that are built in a project under them, without exception, actually are lower-income affordable (defined as 50-60% of the Area Median Income) and are part of that actual project.

And has been shown, this has meant massive projects that may only include 3.4% affordable units and even fewer low-income affordable.

So “Complete Community” projects already produce fewer affordable units than otherwise required by state law while allowing more exceptions from existing land use requirements. And HAP 2.0 would allow to developers to instead choose a “moderate income option,” whose affordability is defined at the moderate-to-high 80% to 120% level of the Area Median Income, to get out of having to provide any lower-income affordable units at all.

I know this is a lot of numbers, but a family of four making $140,150 (120% of the AMI) would qualify for these moderate income units.

In addition, HAP 2.0 would allow developers to get out of having to provide even these paltry numbers of affordable housing as part of their projects. Instead they could pay a pittance that would go into a never-never land fund for “future affordable housing projects” in poorer areas, further giving lie to the idea that Complete Communities was ever about diversity, equity, or inclusion.

So in a nutshell, this plan that was intended to “affirmatively further fair housing” as required by state law has not demonstrated that it has; and the amendments proposed would insure it never does.

We need to insist that the HAP 2.0 amendments to Complete Communities be rejected entirely and that the city finally provide actual numbers to demonstrate what has been delivered to date, so that new amendments can be drawn up to ensure we see actual affordable housing materialize.

Otherwise, we’re just further encouraging the demolition of existing affordable housing to replace it with micro-unit studio apartments renting for over $2,700 a month.

It’s time to put the brakes on this runaway gravy train.