Last Friday, May 30, the County of San Mateo hosted a forum entitled, “Livable Communities for Successful Aging.” The focus was creating mixed-generation, mixed-use, mixed-income developments and neighborhoods for the Baby Boom generation. The county and cities need to start planning now for the active retirees of tomorrow to find the living choices they want in the market here in San Mateo County. The county’s population is going to have a significantly higher percentage of seniors by 2025, including the over-80 cohort.
Supervisor Adrienne Tissier was the convenor of the forum. A panel of experts included consultant Dena Belzer from Strategic Economics; Richard Berger, economic development director for the City of Daly City; and Lydia Tan, executive vice president of BRIDGE Housing. They reviewed the county’s changing demographics and the transit-oriented developments needed to serve them.
Robert Ogilvie of Public Health Law and Policy reviewed the positive public health implications of developing livable, walkable communities with access to transit and services.
Architect Dan Ionescu of DIAP provided the keynote address during lunch, emphasizing that Silicon Valley is a world-class address, lacking world-class planning. Strategic regional planning would help San Mateo County achieve better results in this arena.
Yesterday, at the 2nd annual HEART executive briefing and luncheon, before a capacity crowd of 200, HEART launched the Opening Doors in Our Community homebuyer assistance program.
We’ll get the press release up on our website soon, after we clean up after yesterday’s event.
In addition we raised the additional $25,000 we needed to meet a $50,000 challenge match grant from Cargill and DMB Associates. So you could say we raised another $100,000 for HEART yesterday!
San Mateo County Housing Director Duane Bay has pledged to contribute 10% of his federal housing subsidy — namely, the home mortgage interest tax deduction — to the Housing Endowment And Regional Trust.
HEART works closely with Duane and his staff at the Department of Housing. We are so grateful for this generous donation, the gesture, and his public testimonial on behalf of HEART.
You can read his guest editorial in the San Mateo Daily News here:
The home mortgage subsidy accounts for about 75 percent of all federal and state subsidy funds coming into the county annually to make homes more affordable.
How this housing subsidy is used is up to each recipient. So this year, because my family’s housing situation is just fine, we’re donating 10 percent of our housing assistance to the Housing Endowment and Regional Trust, the countywide housing trust fund.
In April 2008, I’ll be appearing on Comcast Newsmakers, appearing as part of CNN Headline News for Comcast subscribers on the Peninsula. Here’s an upload on YouTube.
Here’s the upcoming schedule — see you at 3:22 AM, I’m sure!
Apr 19, 2008 4:52 AM
Apr 21, 2008 3:22 AM
Apr 21, 2008 7:22 AM
Apr 21, 2008 9:22 AM
Apr 22, 2008 3:22 AM
Apr 24, 2008 7:31 AM
Apr 25, 2008 12:23 AM
Apr 26, 2008 12:34 AM
Apr 26, 2008 3:34 AM
Apr 26, 2008 11:04 PM
Apr 27, 2008 2:49 PM
Apr 29, 2008 1:59 AM
Apr 29, 2008 1:11 PM
Apr 30, 2008 7:07 AM
Apr 30, 2008 3:07 PM
The National Low-Income Housing Coalition has just published its annual “Out of Reach” report measures the fair market rent for a two-bedroom apartment compared to the local median income, and once again San Mateo County is among the most expensive jurisdictions in the nation.
This year, San Mateo County slipped from 2nd to 4th most expensive jurisdiction in the nation, tied with Marin and San Francisco Counties. The three counties are tied because they are grouped together into one statistical area by the federal government, whose data was used to create the report.
According to the Coalition:
For each jurisdiction, the report calculates the amount of money a household must earn in order to afford a rental unit at a range of sizes at the area’s Fair Market Rent, based on the generally accepted affordability standard of paying no more than 30% of income for housing costs. From these calculations the hourly wage a worker must earn to afford the Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom home is derived. This figure is the Housing Wage.
The “housing wage” required to afford the fair market rent for a two-bedroom apartment in San Mateo County was $30.62 per hour.
Only Honololu, Nantucket, and Orange County, Calif., were more expensive relative to incomes than the trio of Bay Area Counties, the study found.
Update: The San Mateo Daily Journal carried a story based on the Housing Leadership Council’s press release: County fourth most expensive in which to rent. Bay City News also picked up the story and it appeared on CBS5.com and other news sites.
Reporting on the outcome of the Threshold 2008 civic engagement project, the San Mateo Daily News reports:
When a team of Stanford researchers polled a random sample of 238 San Mateo County residents about the local housing crisis, the general response was: “What housing crisis?” Just 38 percent believed there was a need for more housing in the area….
But … [after] an intensive, two-day seminar on housing issues at Canada College… 68 percent said they’d support building more housing in the county. And the majority said those new homes should be densely concentrated in already developed areas - even if it means taller buildings in their neighborhoods.
At Samceda’s awards luncheon this week, featured speaker Stephen Levy said that the current correction in the housing market is restoring affordability, but there is a ways to go.
Levy is the founder and principal of the Center for the Continuing Study of California’s Economy, www.ccsce.com.
Levy addressed the topical question, “Boom or bust?” He noted that prices went up significantly higher over the last several years than both the consumer price index and median incomes.
Levy also noted that local prices are still out of balance compared to the rest of the country. Currently the prices here are three or four times the national average. In his opinion, the Bay Area could sustain prices double the national average, based on the area’s economic vitality and local amenities, but not the high level we’ve seen for almost the last decade.
He does believe we’re getting through the price correction faster this time than California did in the early 1990s. He thinks it will mostly be over by the end of 2008 or early 2009 (if I wrote that down correctly). There will be some pain for individual families, but prices still need to be lower for the sake of even more families and the employers.
John was selected as a finalist for his efforts to invite investments in and philanthropic contributions to HEART from the business community, and for leading the effort to create a homebuyer loan program.
Congratulations go to Andy Ball, CEO of Webcor Builders, who was chosen as this year’s Bohannon Award winner. In his acceptance remarks, he noted that the “R” in Webcor stood for their co-founder Miller Ream, who was the first chairman of Borel Private Bank & Trust.
Congratulations, too, to the winners of several other Samceda awards of excellence, particularly to the Sub-Regional Housing Needs Allocation process! Duane Bay, San Mateo County Housing Director, and Rich Napier, executive director of the City/County Association of Governments, accepted on behalf of all 20 cities plus the County who participated in the “sub-region.”
Ron Leuty has a story in the San Francisco Business Times this week about Genentech’s gift to HEART. You have to be a print subscriber to read the whole thing, but there is a preview available here.
“In San Mateo County, the Housing Trust - called HEART - is increasing its corporate engagement to expand its loan and grant programs to help more families. These are models worthy of support and expansion, rather than reports restating the problem.”
We heartily agree — pun intended. We’re grateful to the Leadership Group for their support and advice over the years.
By the way, there is one report we highly recommend: San Mateo County’s own Housing Needs Study. It was commissioned by the City/County Association of Governments and co-funded by them, the San Mateo County Department of Housing, and HEART.
The Department of Housing created a highly readable, visually attractive summary that is available online as a PDF document: CLICK HERE.
