From: Frederick Allebach
To: CityCouncilListPublic; Osburn, Gabe; Jones, Jessica; Basinger, Megan; Nutt, Jason Cc: [email protected]
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Public comment for agenda item 15.1 Pro-housing designation program application, 8/4/26 Santa Rosa City Council meeting
Date: Friday, July 31, 2026 9:04:19 AM
Fred Allebach
7/31/26
Public comment for agenda item 15.1 Pro-housing designation program application, 8/4/26 Santa Rosa City Council meeting
My motivation with this comment: I want to see something good, just, and fair for Santa Rosa lower-income housing.
I would like to see the City get the pro-housing designation but would also like to see the City show more sincere effort and determination to address the affordable housing (AH) issues of its 40% disadvantaged community population (DAC). Not just have this be another grant pursuing exercise to meet a score, check boxes but not really stay focused on AH needs.
Star Trek. The Council needs to be like Captain Picard and say to staff, “make it so”, so the City gets the housing it needs. Direct it. The Council is missing the boat to not recognize that producing, protecting and preserving more lower-income housing is top priority. Let’s hit a few solid policy doubles and triples, and a home run or two to wear the pro-housing badge with pride and honor.
Three Ps. If the current economy makes low-income housing production too hard this year and
next, concentrate on protections and preservation. For example, a strengthened and updated mobile home park closure and conversion ordinance with teeth, as per Legal Aid policy points. If the Three Ps are boxed in by lack of money and political will, how are we going to ever say we are pro-housing if our main line is: sorry, we don’t have the money, sorry that doesn’t pencil, sorry we can’t offend the landlord class? Somebody has to call BS on circular arguments about why we can’t do anything of substance on housing for all the people below market rate.
The staff report does list positive accomplishments and I support them, the missing middle overlay for example.
Credit where credit is due.
One of the City’s top current priorities should be DAC issues. You don’t need a poll to know the City has serious DAC, cost burdening and cost of living (COL) issues. These core issues center on housing being at 30% of household income. If 40% of Santa Rosans are struggling with housing costs, being pro-housing means directly addressing that shocking fact.
The Santa Rosa housing and COL crisis data is in. It’s incontrovertible. Yet somehow this does not result in a feeling any urgency by the Council. Why would this be? Districts. White residents are killing BIPOC residents (the majority of DACs) for overall voter registration.
Council District representation focuses on the priorities of those who vote, not on residents who clearly have the greatest socio-economic needs but whose disadvantage has systemically and structurally reduced their power. This leaves 2.5 Council members representing Districts 1, 5, and 7, the bulk of the City’s concentrated, structurally segregated DAC population on the west side, downtown, and along Santa Rosa Ave. Yet DAC issues are simply not a consistent theme in the comments and votes of these members. You wouldn’t know from comments on the dais.
Otherwise, equally disadvantaged Tracts and Block Groups in Districts # 3, 4, and 6 are left to twist slowly in the wind, especially Rincon Valley and two northwest Tracts focused on by Health Equity Rising. This leaves Districts 2, 3, 4, and 6 to effectively ignore DAC issues in their comments and votes. The members who have majority DACs don’t consistently advocate and the members with majority white, single family zoned voter registration , they focus on other
issues.
Council members are the shepherds of the whole city, not just a Balkanized district. In housing, a whole-city view is called for to address long-term city structural segregation.
Leadership, political will, and studying and mastering the details is called for, not just being spoon-fed by staff and giving easy, simple answers that show little investment in the housing topic.
Ministerial housing ordinance back-burnered by the Council.
It’s easy enough to see that Council members are not pro-housing if they passed on the one staff housing recommendation at the Transit Oriented Communities study session, more scared of NIMBYs, less willing to risk NIMBY wrath than to act on ways to force more housing.
Neighborhood character, neighborhood compatibility: code for modern redlining and segregation.
The City appears reluctant to act on housing ordinances with teeth even though the Housing Element and AFFH law (Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing) call for decisive action to address racial and class segregation and the lower-income and most serious portions of the housing crisis. Maybe a concerted effort to show HCD (state Housing and Community Development) how the City is not performing to AFFH standards will spur some action? If we want a pro-housing designation from HCD, let’s be more than performative, let’s do it right and head into the segregation and opportunity hoarding issues straight on.
Planning and Economic Development Staff can read the tea leaves. There is not clear and forceful direction to pay attention to equity and DAC issues, so staff doesn’t. (Credit to upper-tier staff Jessica Jones and Amy Nicholson for meeting with me.) That’s my call on the anatomy of why Santa Rosa doesn’t appear very liberal or progressive; this is a snapshot of Bay Area liberalism, strong on environmental issues, weak on equity and social justice leadership. Only act and lead when there is money. When there is no money we are left with a lot of words and precious few actions. An inventory of City equity plans overall shows a strong reliance on conditional words and language (such as “reach out to…) that imply and require no effective action.
The Green Checkmate rules. The UGB is sacrosanct, no pushing the edge and NIMBYs fight all dense infill, checkmate. Market rate housing outstrips AH; the essential worker population is segregated and displaced. There’s no room at the inn for those that serve the inn.
The pro-housing designation process has a mandatory public comment/ public engagement requirement to score points. Up to this point, I give the Council an F for public engagement.
Now, when points can be scored and money can be got maybe some member will respond to my comments and my requests to meet.
What is the value of and incentive for a public comment process if Council and directorial staff rarely respond to engage housing equity-centered public comments? Credit to Megan
Basinger for being accessible.
Santa Rosa RHNA underproduction. Santa Rosa has a serious, substantial backlog of Very Low-income housing. This is where the bulk of the housing crisis is. From the RHNA website and calibrated by Planning staff two months ago, at approximately half way through the 6th Cycle, plus the 3rd – 5th cycle, the total RHNA production deficits are:
Very Low (VL) minus 3394
Low minus 532
Moderate minus 1598
Above Mod
minus 506
Inclusionary ordinance. A 15% inclusion is not going to help the massive Very Low-income housing deficit. Much more aggressive action is called for to be pro-housing in the area of the clear greatest need. The inclusionary ordinance is paltry compared to the housing need resulting from long-term RHNA Very Low-income housing underproduction. The inclusion needs to be 20% at least if not 25%. If “not penciling” is cited as a reason why not, we need objective, audited evidence from developer books, not anecdotal statements.
VMT. A lot of verbal hay is made over vehicle miles traveled (VMT), and walkable development, local shopping, but if VL-income housing is not proportional to the needs of the essential workforce that keeps the city running, then guess what? Much of the Very Low- income cohort will be displaced (or even more highly cost-burdened, becoming homeless) and driving from Lake County in older beater, more polluting cars they can afford. If members are serious about GHG and climate mitigation, a number one solution is to fix the VL-income housing backlog. For that a more aggressive inclusion will be needed plus aggressive push for 100% AH projects that serve all but the Above Mod, market rate class.
Local, walkable shopping has to serve the income cohort that lives in the area. The Oliver’s on Montecito does not serve the large low-income Latino cohort that lives in the apartments all along there. More Grocery Outlet!
100% AH pipeline. 100% AH is currently on a major downswing for low-hanging fruit funding.
The current City housing pipeline shows little funded 100% AH but lots of market rate ready to go. One thought, the Sonoma County Land Trust seems to have plenty of funds, always buying some new property. The County is looking to Santa Rosa to lead on housing and infill. How about a lobbying campaign by Mayor Stapp and City Manager Nutt to shake the tree and get similar funding to buy land for VL-income and mixed-income projects? Call it the Santa Rosa Equity Trust; the money is here, we need a full cost accounting, triple bottom line sustainability frame to justify the donations and get help for the social pillar of sustainability, which in the Bay Area, keeps coming up light.
Economic vitality and Specific Plans. It appears there is tension between the clear and pressing housing needs of the City’s 40% DACs* and the desire to stimulate economic vitality with more spending and tax/fee revenue that comes with increased market rate housing. The market rate tends to be mostly white, upper middle class, low density zoned, like the 2000- unit Todd Creek annexation pipeline project in the South Santa Rosa Specific Plan (SSRSP.) *This cohort needs government resources because of long-term systemic inequities, see The State of Black Opportunity 2026
In the Downtown Station Area Specific Plan (DSASP) area, there is already a lot of poverty but if the City serves those needs to the level necessary to mitigate, it won’t create the downtown economic “jumpstart” hoped for from market rate income people who might move there. The DSASP seems very light on addressing displacement compared to the SSRSP.
In the DSASP and the SSRSP, the likelihood of gentrification and resulting displacement of the essential worker class (mostly BIPOC community), is high. If 100% AH production is not going to meet current housing needs then strong housing protection and preservation measures need to be in place that will actually work.
The SSRSP is cited as a long range plan for the pro-housing designation, yet the Preferred Alternative says the City “may” enact anti-displacement measures. That’s it?!@% With major gentrification and displacement risk likely, “may” is not strong enough especially when the Council directed staff to pay attention to SSRSP equity issues.
To conclude. The City can do way better to show determination and dedication to meet core housing crisis needs. The pro-housing designation
process is an opportunity to double down. The
HCD mandatory public engagement piece remains to be seen how seriously staff and Council will engage the public. I am Co-Chair of the Santa Rosa-SoCo NAACP Branch Housing Committee. Engage me. Let’s see how a pro-housing designation for the City will benefit Black and other city BIPOC communities who also happen to be DACs as well. How can we move the housing policy needle in way that serves the objective and demonstrable needs of 40% of city residents? The data is in and has been in for a long time. What remains IMHO is the political will to stay focused on and act on it. Only then can we say we are pro-housing and deserving of that title.
What’s needed is definitive action that takes the pro-housing bull by the horns, not carefully- worded statements that are more apparent than real and obligate little.
"We don't know where we're going but we have to stick together in case somebody gets there." Ken Kesey