Skip to main content
Loading…
This section is included in your selections.

A. Need for Affordable Housing. The City Council has found that persons of very low and low income are experiencing increasing difficulty in locating and maintaining adequate, safe and sanitary affordable housing.

B. Housing Needs and Impacts Created by Nonresidential Development. Pursuant to the Sonoma County Workforce Housing Linkage Fee Study published by Economic and Planning Systems, Inc., in December 2001, the City Council finds that the construction or expansion of nonresidential development is a major factor in attracting new employees to the City of Sebastopol and the County of Sonoma. A substantial number of these new employees and their families seek residence in the City and County and place a greater strain on an already impacted housing stock. Current residents of the City and County may be priced out of their current homes as prices escalate due to increased housing demand. Current and new employees who are unable to find affordable housing in the jurisdictions in which they work are forced to commute long distances. This situation adversely affects their quality of life, consumes limited energy resources, increases traffic congestion and has a negative impact on air quality. Employers have or will have problems attracting a labor force because of the shortage of housing affordable to many workers.

C. Means of Meeting Affordable Housing Demand. Increasing the production and availability of affordable housing is problematic. Prices and rents for affordable housing remain below the level needed to attract new construction. At the same time, escalating land costs and rapidly diminishing amounts of land available for development hinder the provision of affordable housing units solely through private action. Federal and State housing finances and subsidy programs are not sufficient by themselves to satisfy the affordable housing needs associated with employment resulting from nonresidential development. Programs and activities to expand affordable housing opportunities can be accomplished through public/private partnership action. It is the purpose of this chapter to establish a feasible means by which developers of nonresidential development projects assist in: (1) increasing the supply of very low- and low-income housing and (2) increasing the supply of housing in close proximity to employment centers.

D. Imposing Housing Requirement on Developers Whose Projects Create the Need. It is appropriate to impose some of the cost of the increased burden of providing housing for very low- and low-income people necessitated by such development directly upon the sponsors of a development, and indirectly upon the occupiers. The imposition of an affordable housing unit/fee requirement is an appropriate means to accomplish the purpose of this chapter. In calculating the affordable housing fee/unit requirement, the City Council has taken into account other factors in addition to the simple calculation of contribution. These include impact of the unit requirements and in-lieu fee on construction costs, special factors and hardships associated with certain types of development, and legal issues.

E. Rational Relationship Between Affordable Housing Need Created and Fee/Unit Requirement. The unit requirements and housing fees contained in this chapter are designed to create a rational relationship between the amount of housing need created by the land use and the housing unit requirement or the size of the fee taking into account the effect of such unit or fee requirement on providing affordable housing opportunities and the economic feasibility of imposing such requirements.