SOAR’s Effect on Housing Supply Questioned

Perhaps the most incendiary issue regarding the SOAR growth-control measures on the fall ballot is whether they would spawn a housing shortage in Ventura County, lifting home prices beyond the reach of working families and preventing today’s children from buying houses here tomorrow.

The subject is timely: Southern California home prices, already more than 50% above the national average, are red hot and rising.

Ventura County home sales over the first seven months of this year were up nearly 30% over the same period in 1997, and median home prices have jumped 9% over the past year to $231,000--their highest level since 1991.

The National Assn. of Home Builders recently ranked Ventura County as one of the least affordable metropolitan areas in the nation, 161st out of the 191 communities surveyed, with only 58% of homes within the reach of families making the $63,000 yearly median income.

Demand for housing now exceeds supply, and is so high that people from Ventura to Thousand Oaks are lining up to buy homes that have yet to be built, or paying well above the listed price for houses minutes after they go on the market.

Opponents of SOAR, which stands for Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources, fear the growth-control measures would only make matters worse.

They say the consequences of SOAR come down to simple economics: Limiting the land that can be urbanized in a county so near to Los Angeles would inevitably raise real estate prices.

Those who already own homes may profit from pulling up the drawbridge, they say, but their sons and daughters would wind up paying the price.

“Let’s not lock up the county for the next 20 years and let the elitists say, ‘I’ve got mine, the hell with the rest of you,’ ” said Penny Bohannon, president of the Ventura County Economic Development Assn., which strongly opposes SOAR. “We believe in controlling growth, but this is not the way to do it.”

SOAR proponents say their measures would have little effect on the housing market because the measures would only hold elected leaders to existing growth blueprints unless voters said otherwise. Known as general plans, the blueprints still leave room for about 60,000 more houses and apartments by 2020, the year most of the constraints would expire.

To say those 60,000 new homes do not represent enough growth is to imply that Ventura County must follow in the overgrown footsteps of Los Angeles and Orange County, SOAR leader Steve Bennett argued.

“They built lots of housing in Orange County--they nearly paved the whole place over--and their prices are just as high as Ventura County,” Bennett said. “Housing in a coastal area in California is always going to be high. The issue here is whether you want housing with agriculture and open space, or housing with more houses.”

Seeking to draw the line on urban sprawl, a countywide SOAR measure would prevent politicians from rezoning farmland and open space outside cities through 2020 without voters’ approval. SOAR measures in Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley, Camarillo, Oxnard and Santa Paula would block the cities from expanding beyond certain borders unless voters give their approval. Another SOAR measure will go before Moorpark voters in a special election early next year.

Several city planners say SOAR would do little to alter the course of their communities.

“Two things will happen if SOAR passes,” Camarillo Planning Director Tony Boden said. “It will focus on development within cities, which is where development should be happening anyway, and it will put the focus back on in-fill properties that were not considered for development before. SOAR is pretty much in keeping with the general plan. It doesn’t change it.”

Because the city SOAR measures contain exemptions allowing council members to expand borders slightly to provide low-cost housing, SOAR backers say the measures would not worsen the county’s already chronic drought of dwellings for the poor and working class.

But SOAR foes say such statements ignore the realities of real estate economics. In addition to their concerns over housing, they worry that high land prices would make Ventura County less competitive in the frenzied battle to lure and keep employers in the area.

Ventura County commercial and industrial land is now cheaper than comparable property in the San Fernando Valley and many parts of Los Angeles, and some believe that has led firms to expand and move here.

“Prospective employers are going to say, ‘We don’t know if we can do this or that in Ventura County,’ ” said former U.S. Rep. Robert Lagomarsino, a member of the anti-SOAR Coalition for Community Planning. “If a business is on the fence, trying to choose between Ventura County and somewhere else, this might be the thing that leads them to go somewhere else.”

Indeed, some economists believe SOAR would eventually drive real estate prices up. The UC Santa Barbara Economic Forecast Project, which tracks the Ventura County economy, is planning to conduct an in-depth analysis of the measures in coming months, and has yet to reach specific conclusions on their impact.

But analysts with the UC Santa Barbara project believe SOAR will have a significant effect on housing in the long run--and would immediately affect business perceptions about the county.

“As an academic, it makes me very nervous to talk about these things,” Mary Riddel, the project’s senior economist, told a group of business leaders in Thousand Oaks last week. “But as economists, we have to recognize that curtailing supply without curtailing demand is eventually going to affect prices.”

Growth Projections for County Differ

It is far from easy to ferret out the facts in the highly politicized atmosphere surrounding SOAR.

But data suggest future growth pressures on Ventura County, now home to an estimated 738,000 people, will be far greater than local growth plans--the same plans that SOAR is looking to lock up well into the next century--are prepared to handle.

There is a major shortfall between the population level the county is now planning for, according to the growth projections done by a coalition of local agencies, and the population the state is expecting in the county.

In a nutshell, the state Department of Finance is predicting about 1,023,000 people will live in Ventura County by 2020, based on such trends as the rate of births and deaths, in-state migration and immigration to California. But local agencies are predicting only 915,000 will live in the county by the same date--simply because that is how many housing units they are planning to allow.

The difference--108,000-people--would fill a city the size of Simi Valley.

“That could be an indication that there will be some pressures to build in higher densities [inside cities] or in the unincorporated areas in Ventura County,” acknowledged Steve Wood, the county planner who maintains the population forecasts.

“The San Fernando Valley is built out, so this county might be the next logical place to feel those pressures,” Wood said.

Moreover, data suggest Ventura County is already facing a housing crunch because of a slowdown in construction earlier this decade--a gap that should widen during the next few years.

While Ventura County gained 11,800 families over the past three years, only 7,200 permits to build new apartments and houses were issued over the same period--a 4,600-home imbalance, according to Regional Financial Associates, a Pennsylvania-based firm that advises builders on where construction is needed.

The trend for Southern California as a whole is much bleaker, with a shortfall of more than 140,000 housing units, according to Steve Cochrane, the firm’s director of regional forecasting. And estimates for the near future look even worse, he said.

“This is an indicator that the market is really under-supplied right now,” Cochrane said. “The new supply is not matching the new demand. One suspects housing prices would be increasing in Ventura County and all of Southern California, and that is exactly what is happening right now.”

With home prices and rents already on the rise, providers of low-cost housing throughout the county fear SOAR would make matters even worse for the working class.

Nearly every city in the county is now saddled with an affordable-housing shortage. Land zoned for apartments is extremely hard to find, and building low-cost housing on these sites is difficult because of “not in my backyard” opposition from neighbors.

If SOAR measures are approved and prices rise, cities would have to make low-cost housing a bigger priority--and ante up more cash--to prevent serious social consequences, housing advocates say.

“We all want to regulate urban sprawl,” said Dan Hardy of Many Mansions, a Thousand Oaks-based housing organization. “I agree with not building in open space and agricultural land. But I think it’s going to make it harder to meet housing goals.”

Already, in fact, the state Department of Housing and Community Development has expressed concerns in a letter to Thousand Oaks officials about SOAR’s potential to prevent cities from meeting state requirements to provide housing at all income levels.

As a result, state housing officials are examining all cities with SOAR measures on the ballot to ensure they can accommodate their fair share of the housing burden.

SOAR proponents say such worries are unfounded, and possibly motivated by political pressure from powerful construction lobbyists.

But opponents say the state’s interest in SOAR validates their fears that housing problems are inevitable under growth-control measures.

Urban Growth Border in Portland Cited

To bolster their contrary views on the housing debate, both sides point to the same place: Portland, Ore.

Although many Northern California cities have passed so-called urban growth boundary laws restraining expansion, most have only done so in recent years.

In contrast, Portland and its ring of suburbs have been surrounded by a state-imposed boundary for nearly 20 years--a constraint developed specifically to avoid Los Angeles-type sprawl.

Nicknamed “The Great Wall of Portland,” the 364-square-mile border, which encompasses 24 cities and 1.8 million people, is widely considered the most successful experiment to control urban growth in America.

It is so successful that Metro, the regional agency that oversees it, has become a mecca of sorts for urban planners from as far as Poland and Japan.

Forests and farms outside the boundary look the same today as they did 20 years ago. Inside, vacant lots have made way for trendy townhouses and high-density apartments, while abandoned warehouses have been converted into microbreweries, cafes and art galleries.

Downtown Portland is more vibrant than ever. The surrounding “Silicon Forest” area is home to such corporate heavyweights as Intel and Nike. And rather than building freeways ever outward into an endless suburban horizon, officials are increasingly opting for light-rail lines.

“Some people are playing on fears, calling it the Manhattanization of Oregon, and that is just not accurate,” said Mary Kyle McCurdy of 1000 Friends of Oregon, an environmental group that has become fiercely protective of the boundary.

“It’s a trade-off. Maybe you get more high-density housing in your neighborhood, but you are only minutes from the wilderness.”

But the area’s newfound cachet has not come without serious side effects--and controversy.

Raw land prices within the boundary have skyrocketed by as much as 400% in some areas. Gentrification of inner-city neighborhoods has forced government to subsidize an increasing amount of housing for the poor. Farmers inside the boundary are rapidly becoming extinct.

Neighborhood opposition to increased housing densities has boiled over in many areas. The allure of suburban living is leading many families over the Columbia River into Washington.

And Portland home prices have gone from among the cheapest of any city in the Pacific Northwest to the fifth most expensive in the country, according to the National Assn. of Home Builders.

Responding to growing pressure, Metro officials have decided for the first time to expand the boundary slightly. But some critics say that is not enough.

Bill Sizemore, the Republican nominee for governor of Oregon, advocates abolishing the state boundary system altogether. He considers it his third-biggest issue, behind only education and taxes.

“Urban growth boundaries don’t work,” Sizemore, an anti-tax activist, said in an interview. “They only deal with half the problem. They can effectively halt urban sprawl, but the result is increased densities in existing communities. As much as citizens dislike sprawl, they feel even stronger about developing every piece of green space in their neighborhoods.”

Sizemore’s stand against urban-growth boundaries, however, is not helping his uphill battle against popular Democratic incumbent John Kitzhaber. Sizemore is trailing badly in the polls, his aides are deserting in droves, and other Republicans are urging him to get out of the race, according to Oregon news reports.

Sizemore is finding out what Kelly Ross of the Portland Home Builders Assn. learned long ago. After working on three losing ballot drives to undo the state boundary system, he has grudgingly accepted that people like it.

A recent poll commissioned by the group showed that while 52% of respondents believed the Great Wall of Portland has increased housing costs, only 19% wanted to tear it down.

“We just have to face the facts,” Ross said. “It’s very frustrating to a lot of developers, but I don’t think the political mood has changed at all. If anything, people would probably support even stronger measures.”

About This Series

County Report: The SOAR Debate is a four-part series examining the consequences of the Save the Open Space and Agricultural Resources initiatives on the fall ballot across Ventura County.Today’s story looks at the effect the growth-control measures could have on housing availability and prices. Future stories, running on consecutive Sundays, will explore SOAR’s impact on landowners and politics.

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Setting Growth Limits

The 364-square-mile urban-growth boundary encompasses Portland and 24 surrounding cities in three counties. It is the area in which all urban development must be contained, leaving 1869968492 (BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

By the Numbers

Growth pressures on Ventura County appear greater than the area is now prepared to handle. The Ventura Council of Governments, a coalition made up of the county government, the 10 local cities and other area agencies, has prepared the following forecast based on general plans,or blueprints for growth. The estimated county population for 2020, 915,000, differs significantly from the state growth forecast for the area, 1,023,000. The state projection is based on trends such as birth rates, migration and immigration.

Population

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City 1990 2000 2010 2020 Camarillo 52,303 61,501 6,810 71,838 Fillmore 11,992 13,748 16,030 18,367 Moorpark 25,494 31,045 43,091 50,947 Ojai 7,613 7,980 8,170 8,592 Oxnard 142,216 152,062 169,523 187,087 Port Hueneme 20,319 25,289 28,381 33,350 Santa Paula 25,062 30,806 34,437 38,016 Simi Valley 100,217 118,722 131,205 140,452 Thousand Oaks 104,352 117,786 129,860 132,953 Unincorporated 86,873 97,745 109,040 118,501 Ventura 92,575 99,415 107,437 115,460 County Total 669,016 756,189 843,984 915,563

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Dwelling Units

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City 1990 2000 2010 2020 Camarillo 18,731 22,778 25,500 27,554 Fillmore 3,528 3,951 4,684 5,448 Moorpark 7,915 9,523 13,218 15,628 Ojai 3,130 3,381 3,583 3,785 Oxnard 41,247 44,593 50,304 56,014 Port Hueneme 7,481 9,579 11,130 13,130 Santa Paula 8,062 10,235 11,857 13,187 Simi Valley 33,110 39,182 43,302 46,354 Thousand Oaks 37,765 42,864 47,394 48,523 Unincorporated 30,163 34,521 38,225 41,418 Ventura 37,346 39,766 42,975 46,184 County Total 228,478 260,373 292,172 317,225

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Employment

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City 1990 2000 2010 2020 Camarillo 27,977 32,893 36,310 39,728 Fillmore 2,572 4,206 7,360 7,640 Moorpark 6,870 9,852 12,358 15,045 Ojai 5,095 5,310 5,524 5,738 Oxnard 51,190 63,060 73,716 84,372 Port Hueneme 14,871 16,496 17,830 19,162 Santa Paula 9,577 10,577 11,577 12,577 Simi Valley 31,689 40,390 61,440 82,490 Thousand Oaks 53,273 68,036 83,951 89,947 Unincorporated 28,228 32,232 37,399 39,288 Ventura 56,195 68,820 79,199 89,579 County Total 287,537 351,872 426,664 485,567

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