HELP is of no help to Humboldt
4/13/2006
My Word by Richard Salzman
Eureka Times Standard
In response to Kay Backer's My Word of March 22, Getting Humboldt leaders to lead: Kay Backer is a paid professional spin doctor from Sacramento. Hired by local developers, she is paid to badger county government and bamboozle the public. She feigns concern for our families by shedding crocodile tears about so-called affordable housing here in Humboldt County.
It's ridiculous that Kay Backer is even treated as a legitimate voice in our local affairs just because Rob Arkley and HELP summon her to town for a meeting, or to send off an e-mail full of accusations and threats to the media. She represents nothing other than a handful of developers. Are there even five people who will admit to being a member of HELP?
It's absurd that those who pay her (they call themselves HELP but really should be called HELP-Yourself) are implying that the reason they want to build more houses is because they want to see home values drop. When has any developer ever wanted to see any housing prices drop? Do you want to see the value of your home decline?
In the Sacramento area, where Ms. Backer lives, homes are being built at an astounding rate. Strangely enough, housing prices there are still shooting up and now routinely cost about half a million dollars. Is that what Ms. Backer's backers have in mind as affordable housing?
Now Rob Arkley is threatening to use his money to sue the county unless planning officials buy into HELP's fabricated projections of housing needs. Isn't that called blackmail?
I have no objection to developers making money off constructing houses. But it's an outrage to be told that the reason they want permission to build more -- and forever change the essentially rural character of Humboldt County -- has anything to do with stopping people from moving out of town, lowering home prices or anything other than their search for higher profits.
Where will Kay Backer's concern for our community be the day after her paychecks stop coming in? Will she still be shouting HELP or just go on to her next lucrative public relations campaign?
Showing posts with label HELP. Show all posts
Showing posts with label HELP. Show all posts
Thursday, April 13, 2006
Tuesday, August 31, 2004
Affordable Housing, or Starter Castles [TS My Word]
Affordable Housing, or Starter Castles
Tuesday, August 31, 2004 - Eureka Times-Standard
My Word
by Richard Salzman
As the county updates its General Plan, a small vocal group of developers (HELP) say their Plan H would make housing more affordable in Humboldt. While all proposals deserve careful consideration, the Alliance for Ethical Business finds HELP's claim overly optimistic at best -- and perhaps outright dishonest.
These developers and Realtors want the county to assume a 2 percent annual population growth as an antidote to rising housing costs. Plan H calls this a "conservative" rate of growth -- even though it would quadruple the current county target. What's more, it neglects to mention that all of California has a projected growth rate of only 1.19 percent.
When we look at what 2 percent annual growth would really mean to Humboldt County, can we imagine another 80,000 new residents, stuffed mostly between Rio Dell and Trinidad?
In fact, only 18 of California's 58 counties aim for a growth rate of 2 percent or greater. According to HELP's friends at the California Association of Realtors ( www.car.org these high-growth counties, such as Fresno, Kern and Riverside, also have the fastest-rising housing prices, from 24 to 30 percent in the last year. Meanwhile, slow-growing Marin's home prices increased only 9.4 percent.
Developers in once-rural Sonoma have actively encouraged growth and urban sprawl. The results, aside from notorious traffic congestion? Average home prices now exceed $514,000, up $70,000 in the last year. Greater growth does not automatically lead to affordable housing.
Most authorities agree the California housing market is due to cool off. Mortgage rates are bound to rise as the Fed bumps up the prime-lending rate. Northern California foreclosure rates jumped as much as 26 percent in some counties. And that same California Association of Realtors reports that the statewide Housing Affordability Index dropped to 19 percent in May, its lowest level since 1989. So, depending on your point of view, Humboldt County has reached the top (or bottom) of the housing market crisis.
To grow Humboldt County at anything approaching the rate urged in Plan H, developers would have to keep stoking outside investment -- creating an overheated local housing market. This would cost taxpayers like you and me millions in subsidized infrastructure, while primarily benefiting developers.
Although claiming to be "anti-sprawl," HELP also is demanding that the county set aside more than 40 square miles of what is now prime agricultural or timber production land for housing in the next 20 years. That's an average of almost a full acre per unit for over 18,000 units. What HELP means by affordable housing isn't what the average Humboldter means by affordable -- HELP is more interested in "starter castles" costing a million or more.
Besides, no amount of regulatory reshuffling can alter Humboldt County's geographic isolation or flatten our rugged, earthquake-prone topography to accommodate uncontrolled growth that HELP advocates.
AEB (Alliance for Ethical Business) finds it self-serving, unethical -- and perhaps dishonest -- for HELP to seek an unrealistic, unacceptable level of population growth based on the false claim that it will alleviate Humboldt's current housing crisis. Do we need higher housing costs, increased taxpayer obligations and unwelcome urban sprawl just to fatten the wallets of developers? That's not HELP, that's "help yourself."
Tuesday, August 31, 2004 - Eureka Times-Standard
My Word
by Richard Salzman
As the county updates its General Plan, a small vocal group of developers (HELP) say their Plan H would make housing more affordable in Humboldt. While all proposals deserve careful consideration, the Alliance for Ethical Business finds HELP's claim overly optimistic at best -- and perhaps outright dishonest.
These developers and Realtors want the county to assume a 2 percent annual population growth as an antidote to rising housing costs. Plan H calls this a "conservative" rate of growth -- even though it would quadruple the current county target. What's more, it neglects to mention that all of California has a projected growth rate of only 1.19 percent.
When we look at what 2 percent annual growth would really mean to Humboldt County, can we imagine another 80,000 new residents, stuffed mostly between Rio Dell and Trinidad?
In fact, only 18 of California's 58 counties aim for a growth rate of 2 percent or greater. According to HELP's friends at the California Association of Realtors ( www.car.org these high-growth counties, such as Fresno, Kern and Riverside, also have the fastest-rising housing prices, from 24 to 30 percent in the last year. Meanwhile, slow-growing Marin's home prices increased only 9.4 percent.
Developers in once-rural Sonoma have actively encouraged growth and urban sprawl. The results, aside from notorious traffic congestion? Average home prices now exceed $514,000, up $70,000 in the last year. Greater growth does not automatically lead to affordable housing.
Most authorities agree the California housing market is due to cool off. Mortgage rates are bound to rise as the Fed bumps up the prime-lending rate. Northern California foreclosure rates jumped as much as 26 percent in some counties. And that same California Association of Realtors reports that the statewide Housing Affordability Index dropped to 19 percent in May, its lowest level since 1989. So, depending on your point of view, Humboldt County has reached the top (or bottom) of the housing market crisis.
To grow Humboldt County at anything approaching the rate urged in Plan H, developers would have to keep stoking outside investment -- creating an overheated local housing market. This would cost taxpayers like you and me millions in subsidized infrastructure, while primarily benefiting developers.
Although claiming to be "anti-sprawl," HELP also is demanding that the county set aside more than 40 square miles of what is now prime agricultural or timber production land for housing in the next 20 years. That's an average of almost a full acre per unit for over 18,000 units. What HELP means by affordable housing isn't what the average Humboldter means by affordable -- HELP is more interested in "starter castles" costing a million or more.
Besides, no amount of regulatory reshuffling can alter Humboldt County's geographic isolation or flatten our rugged, earthquake-prone topography to accommodate uncontrolled growth that HELP advocates.
AEB (Alliance for Ethical Business) finds it self-serving, unethical -- and perhaps dishonest -- for HELP to seek an unrealistic, unacceptable level of population growth based on the false claim that it will alleviate Humboldt's current housing crisis. Do we need higher housing costs, increased taxpayer obligations and unwelcome urban sprawl just to fatten the wallets of developers? That's not HELP, that's "help yourself."
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