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Add Mutual Housing California to the list of agencies that want to make sure the city of Sacramento does the right thing when it comes to disposing of its surplus land.
In a July 9 letter to Mayor Darrell Steinberg, the Environmental Council of Sacramento and the Sacramento Housing Alliance asked whether the city is complying with the Surplus Land Statute of 2014 that requires governmental agencies to make affordable housing a priority when land disposal notices go up.
The evidence suggests that it is not.
“In short,” the letter said, “the law requires all public agencies to offer surplus land to ‘housing sponsors’ – that is, affordable housing developers,” if the sponsors are interested in the land, have requested notification about its disposal, and are ready to enter into negotiations.
Regrettably, ECOS and SHA officials said they had to write this letter to Steinberg when they found out that only one of the seven lots that the city had recently sold went to an affordable housing non-profit. The other six went to for-profit builders, including one in Oak Park in which the city rejected a sale to an affordable housing developer that wanted to build a 130-to-195-unit project.
ECOS President Ralph Propper and SHA Policy Director Veronica Beaty wrote that the Surplus Land Act maintains that at least 25 percent of housing in such projects be classified as affordable. The authors also said that priority should be given to whomever can build them the “most” affordable, and that the city, if it wants, could even sell the land to affordable housing developers at a discount.
“ECOS and SHA strongly encourage the City of Sacramento to donate land to affordable housing developers to meet our region’s affordable housing and environmental goals,” the letter said. It concluded: “(T)he City of Sacramento and its leaders have the tools to help solve the affordable housing crisis and protect our residents from displacement, homelessness, and poverty. Please use them.”
We agree. The city can do better.