Oxnard Issue What should be done about overcrowding in Oxnard?

Residential overcrowding has become a serious problem in Oxnard as soaring land prices dry up the supply of affordable housing. Almost half of the households in the city

are considered low-income, and there were about 6,500 overcrowded households, which are defined as residences with more than one person per room. What is the solution?

Marco Antonio Abarca Attorney, California Rural Legal Assistance Migrant Unit There is a General Plan coming out now, and it has to reflect the community. But only three of 22 people on the General Plan advisory committee are Latinos. I think this overcrowding problem is a Mexican-Latino

issue. You have to have some contributions from that community. As it is now, there is no contribution. If you look at the General Plan, you see a real favoring of interests--big developments, big new condos and houses--and the problems of farm workers are ignored. Unless we make moves right now, you’re going to see farm worker poor turn to urban poor. I’ve lived in different parts of the United States. I’ve traveled all over Latin America. Some of the poorest housing I’ve seen is here in Oxnard. I have clients who are farm workers who say they may be very poor in Mexico but at least they have space. There are funds out there for farm worker housing that should be tapped. This county has two or three beautiful farm worker housing developments. Cabrillo Village is beautiful and the housing they have in Fillmore is tremendous. That is the sort of future we should have. I think in the past a lot of what Oxnard has done has been to say, well, we have too many farm workers here, let’s just distribute them to Ventura, Camarillo or Fillmore or anywhere else. No one wants to have them in their own back yard. But the reality is that farm workers are here in Oxnard. It’s an Oxnard problem that has to be solved by Oxnard.

Sal Gonzalez Oxnard housing director The simple answer is we need additional housing for those families in overcrowded conditions. Additional funds will have to be made available to the city. At the moment, the city of Oxnard has limited

resources and can’t build the level of housing needed to accommodate many of the people who need it. That’s true for almost any city. They need additional resources from the state as well as the federal government to be able to build more housing. We also may want to review our own community’s expectations as to the amenities we require for housing that is going up in the community. We are requiring three-car garages. We also require that single-family housing come with pre- landscaped front yards. We may also want to review the types of development fees that we are assessing and the types of infrastructure fees that we are also requiring. Who pays for off-site improvements like streets, curbs and gutters and utilities? The developers pass it on to the buyer. For a long time we kind of operated with the philosophy that the developer should pay for this or that, but the end result is that the buyer ends up paying for it. We also require payment for potential impact on traffic, schools and other impact fees. When someone in the city moves from an existing house to a new one, I don’t think it’s appropriate to charge an impact fee because they are here already. These are some of the things we have control over.

Rodney Fernandez Executive director, Cabrillo Economic Development Corp. The City Council needs to exercise some leadership and quit talking about the issue as though it doesn’t exist. Oxnard has a lot of overcrowding and a lot of need for both low- and moderate-income housing.

It’s not being built because the City Council doesn’t want to do it for whatever reason. There has to be a change in the political will of the City Council. Once the City Council says we’re going to do this then there are a couple areas in terms of policy they can address. Through the General Plan, which is being updated, they can begin to establish priorities for affordable housing and designate certain parts of the city as key areas for it. In their dealings with developers, they need to establish policies that all developments of scale need to provide a mix of housing. Also, one program being used in other jurisdictions is a trust fund. By using different resources the city over time can begin to build up a fund that can pay for the subsidies needed to build low-cost housing. The city can more creatively use its block grant funding. In the past the city has used this money basically for parks and public works instead of housing. It also could recognize Cabrillo Economic Development Corp. as an agent and work collaboratively with us and other for-profit developers to do affordable housing. We’ve been knocking on the door for five years and we’ve not really had any opportunity to work with the city.

Tony Grey Chairman, Oxnard Planning Commission I agree it’s a problem. On the Planning Commission we’ve received reports that show it’s certainly a problem, and it’s being addressed by the City Council. The staff has been asked to look into the seriousness of it and come up with some recommendations. As for solutions, our General Plan is addressing this exact situation--the proper planning for the number of dwelling units that should be built in the city of Oxnard to provide for the housing needs of the population in different economic levels such as itinerant farm workers, handicapped, seniors and those of low and moderate income. All of us know that the reason many people share one dwelling unit is because they can’t afford to rent an apartment, let alone buy a house because of the soaring cost of the housing units. The only solution we can offer, and we’re attempting to do as a Planning Commission, is in our General Plan. The city of Oxnard can’t afford to subsidize low-income homes other than offering incentives to developers to develop a certain percentage of their project for low- or moderate-income people. Certainly we have to look to federal grants and federal assistance as well when it comes to providing housing assistance. All of the city officials are really concerned about this problem and we’re looking for some answers.

George Lauterbach President, Oxnard Chamber of Commerce and partner in Dial Services The issue has been somewhat ill-defined when we talk about low-income and affordable. I think the real problem is taking care of our own so that they can get their first place to buy and start building equity.

It’s come to a point that the American dream is not a reality any more because young people can’t get into the housing pipeline. The average home is in the $250,000 to $300,000 range. The problem as I see it really has to do more with availability than a lot of other things. The conflict we have here is the prioritization between preserving agricultural land or using that land to build housing for people. I don’t think I would be the one to encourage or advocate this, but if we opened up the farm ground and started building housing, the housing prices would drop like a rock. Everyone thinks about the migrant farm workers who come from Mexico and don’t have a place to live. That’s a true concern. But over the years there have been programs for the poor. The point I’m trying to make is the group we’re forgetting about is our own kids. As a practical solution, the government has the right to control land use through zoning. The city can establish areas where the zoning is set so that it’s known to everyone up front that this property will be zoned for affordable housing. Also, there’s probably a good $50,000 in fees that have to be paid. You could defer those fees. Or, you could say as long as this stays in a low-income mode, these fees are exempted.