Morgan Hill city officials and developers will face off again Wednesday, blinking as the dust settles after the affordable housing initiative debacle.
The contentious initiative to reduce affordable housing in Morgan Hill ended with a thud Aug. 8, when a county judge ordered the measure off the November ballot at the city's request.
Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge James Kleinberg announced his decision just over 24 hours after a hearing on the injunction. The initiative's proponent group Citizens for a Balanced Community did not appeal. The deadline to appeal was Aug. 13.
Both sides say they're looking forward to meeting again to reach a compromise on the issue.
The initiative was constructed after nearly two years of the developers approaching the city again and again, asking for more and more concessions and changes to its housing policy to help them through the housing crisis. The initiative would have taken away the Morgan Hill City Council's ability to modify the part of the growth control system that dictates how the city allocates affordable housing while removing the developers' incentive - points rewarded through the system's competition - to provide such housing. The initiative would have decreased the affordable housing maximum from 30 percent to 20 percent. The actual amount of affordable housing built yearly in the city is in the low 20s.
Kleinberg agreed with city officials' assertion that the changes would put them at odds with state housing law.
Mayor Steve Tate said the city is familiar with the housing crisis and its impacts, and the city has already made adjustments to the below-market-rate program to accommodate developers.
"The city... remains interested in analyzing the underlying issues that keep approved projects from moving forward," Tate said in a statement. "We remain willing, beginning with the placement of this matter on the agenda for the City Council meeting on Aug. 27, to work with the community and the homebuilders to consider how other revisions to the (below market rate) requirements might address those underlying concerns."
City Manager Ed Tewes said the Aug. 27 meeting would include a staff report that apprise the council "to what extent if any would further changes to the (below market rate) program would affect (developers') feasibility to move forward."
Tewes said the meeting would provide a jumping off point that would lead to a series of options for the council on this issue.
Councilman Larry Carr said one of the first things he'd like to see, as both sides approach the drawing board again, is "clarification of the facts."
"We need to agree to a common set of facts to deal with," Carr said. "There were lots of things that were said (during the initiative movement). The numbers are the numbers, but you can talk about them in different ways, and that's obviously a strategy that some may have. So I think we need to talk about the truth in the numbers. The numbers don't lie."
Carr also said he regretted the descriptives thrown around by the other side about affordable housing dwellers. During the initiative process, its backers made unsubstantiated claims about affordable housing's ill effects on crime, test scores and even retailers' decisions to locate in Morgan Hill or not.
"Those poor choices of words were a detriment," he said. "I don't believe most people in Morgan Hill believe those things (about below-market-rate homeowners). We need to talk in an open, fair fashion."
Councilwoman Marby Lee said she didn't blame the developers for taking the route they took.
"I was a little disappointed they went ahead. I don't know that changing the whole structure of the (below-market-rate homes) program was the solution for a temporary economic climate," she said. "We had made a lot of progress, but that's past us, and I would like to pick up and continue discussions."
Lee wasn't the only one accentuating the positive in the situation.
Home builder Rocke Garcia is looking forward to working with the city again.
"That's absolutely fantastic," he said upon hearing of the agendized item.
He added: "We've lived in the community for way too long" to have hard feelings.
"We're part of the community, and we are going to continue to be," he said. Garcia said the entire industry is hurting, and one of the issues that needs to be addressed is affordable housing.
The Citizens spent more than $76,000 to gather signatures and place the measure on the ballot, and during the three-month debacle made unsubstantiated claims about affordable housing's effect on Morgan Hill.
Tewes said the city spent more than $100,000 in lawyers' and consultants' fees to combat the initiative, including producing an election report analyzing the initiative.
This report, which included a letter from California's Department of Housing and Community Development Deputy Director Cathy Creswell saying the initiative would hinder the city's ability to meet state law regarding affordable housing, played a major role in Judge Kleinberg's decision.
Natalie Everett Natalie Everett covers education and city issues for The Times. Reach her at (408) 779-4106, ext. 201, or neverett@morganhilltimes.com.
Although the Morgan Hill Times does not have any obligation to monitor this board, the Morgan Hill Times reserves the right at all times to check this board and to remove any information or materials that are unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable to the Morgan Hill Times in our sole discretion and to disclose any information necessary to satisfy the law, regulation, or government request. The Morgan Hill Times also reserves the right to permanently block any user who violates these terms and conditions. All threats to systems or site infrastructure shall be assumed genuine in nature and will be reported to the appropriate law enforcement authorities. Submission of any comments will be considered permission to use online or in print.
