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Affordable Housing? Only in Your Dreams
Published Saturday, September 9, 2000

I told you in my column of July, 1999, that there wasn’t any affordable housing in Western Nevada County. It’s a year later, and nothing has changed. If you’re not worried, you ought to be, because that’s bad for the county and it suggests that bad times are coming.

Why? It should be obvious, but I’ll point this out to those who live under rocks or work in government: the lack of decent, affordable housing (to buy or rent) is linked to attracting and keeping decent businesses here. I mean, go figure. The businesses employ people who need a place to live. No housing, no employees, no business, and the county is down the septic system.

Even those who extol the virtues of tourism and eco-business for Nevada County will recognize that motel clerks, kayak salespersons, and woodcarvers need to live somewhere. The cardboard shack so popular in Honduras won’t cut it here.

Don’t think for a moment this county builds affordable houses. It builds old-age homes and mini-mansions. Other than that, realtors recycle 1970s and 1980s homes at inflated prices.

What, you may say, is the cause of this aberration in planning for the county’s healthy future? First, government stupidity. Second, colossal greed. Third, cowed developers.

Aren’t you tired of County government substituting symbolism for results? Let me bring dispel some government misdirection, propose some new housing truths, and then get on to a solution.

  1. Habitat for Humanity is not a solution. It’s one lonely house on Ridge Road. Jimmy Carter would be appalled.


  2. Sweat equity projects are not a solution. Eden Ranch is in trouble, and the recovery is worse. Last Saturday’s Union had an ad for lots in Eden Ranch, offered for $72,900 for 1/3 acre. Are you kidding?<


  3. Alternate housing is not a solution. While it’s nice to live in a lean-to or in an RV next to the big house, this is hobby housing and doesn’t address the big issue of affordable housing.


  4. Permitting unpermitted houses is bull. That’s a revenue generation plan, not affordable housing.


  5. Mitigation fees are bogus. Developers just pass them on to the homebuyer. It is society’s job to accommodate new housing, and everyone should pay for infrastructure through property taxes.


  6. Rural life does not exist here. Rural life is what my dad’s family left during the Dust Bowl. What we want and need is a recreation of small town living, no appearance of sprawl, somehow combined modern amenities, with a chance for fatcats to build small estates in the hills.


  7. We don’t have to build "slurbs" (sleazy suburbs). Is no one capable of designing a decent housing development? I have seen plan books for award-winning 1000 square foot homes, and they work! I hardly think Morgan Ranch is an eyesore, so I know we can do this.

How about a solution that will house about 4000 people? I’ll spell it out for you:

  1. Over the next five years, let’s build 8 tracts, each containing 120 homes. That’s 960 houses, built to for young families of 2-4. Site these developments well off the road, and, for heaven’s sake, keep a screen of trees.


  2. To save the developers some money, let them build 620 square foot, 2-bedroom/1-bath houses (exactly the size of the 1951 home I occupied in Hawthorne, CA). Put the houses on 1/10 acre.


  3. Sell these houses at a decent price. Even at $100/sf to build and an obscene $33,000 for the lot, that ought to produce a good affordable house and a fair profit.

This proposal is more concrete than any I’ve heard coming out of the Board of Supervisors. The former pro-development Board of Supervisors wanted to approve the upscale 300-home Dark Horse project without an EIR. The current no-vision Board of Supervisors wants to approve nothing.

A few of you remember the Nevada County Dark Ages. In late 1957, Nevada City was a ghost town. Most of Commercial Street was boarded up. Grass Valley was just about as bad.

Let me suggest to you that a New Dark Age is coming. A county without affordable housing will have no businesses, no jobs, and no young people.

Can the bad old days come back? You bet!

Barry Schoenborn is a technical writer, and a 12-year resident of Nevada County. His column appears the second Saturday of the month. barry@wvswrite.com is his e-mail address. The opinions of columnists are not necessarily those of The Union.

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