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In California, development doesn't proceed gradually it explodes and it contracts for long periods.
Near the ballpark in a neighborhood called the East Village that previously was mostly just a neighborhood filled with warehouses and restaurant supply houses, what San Diego did was prepare the environmental reports for the entire neighborhood. If a project conformed to the general plan, then it would be approved quickly without subsequent review. When the last housing boom occurred the neighborhood was transformed quite rapidly. Stuff was rolled out at an incredibly rapid rate. The neighborhood has some advantages that the rail yards didn't have, a view of the ocean, San Diego bay, of Coronado and of Point Loma. The coastal micro climate also makes living in downtown San Diego especially pleasant.
But the scale of the projects in the rail yard is much smaller. More 4 to 6 story buildings and less 40 story buildings. In the last housing boom in Natomas, there were probably more apartments and condos built than units planned for the rail yards. The region is more than big enough to support this type of project.
I think the change will happen, I just think it will change the dynamics of the neighborhood. In San Diego the residents of the new high density housing were either older wealthy retirees or yuppies. While a lot of the neighborhoods close into downtown San Diego were fairly liberal, these new residents were a lot more Republican. Maybe it will be different here, but I have my doubts.
I do agree that this change will take years, might not happen until 2012 or later.
Good point about the Cali boom and bust cycle. Its well-taken.
My bet is at least 2020 or later. I just don't see people abandoning the suburbs unless the issues of the underclass and the ****-poor school system here are addressed, and I do not believe the lifestyle changes the global warming crowd wants to impose on us - taking away our cars and telling us where to live - are going to be legislated without wholescale revolt on the part of the electorate. Its pretty obvious the only way you can make higher density work is to force people to live that way because "GLOBAL WARMING IS HAPPENING."
The railyards project is going to fail. People are not going to move to downtown Sacramento in the 10s of thousands; there's simply not enough 20something fresh out of college singles, DINKs, and gay couples with power incomes to fill the kind of housing that's envisioned, and, if you put in "affordable" housing you simply make the problem of the underclass downtown even worse - typical Cali solution, continue to tax the middle class to death to pay for people that refuse to work.
The term 'affordable housing' is a very loaded one, but in Sacramento, 'affordable housing' means housing that a person making $40,000 a year can afford (living by themselves.) That's considered low-income. The vast majority of the affordable housing requirement is intended for people who make considerably more than one gets on welfare.
Besides, if 15% of the housing in the Railyards is affordable, that actually DECREASES the central city's proportion of low-income housing--currently about 17% of central city housing is low-income. The idea behind low-income housing is NOT "welfare housing," although it is inevitably painted with that brush--the idea is to allow people who work in a yogurt shop or a boutique (or a low-end state office job) downtown can also afford to live there. For that to happen, affordable housing has to be included. In fact, the most dramatic failures of Sacramento's condo-construction boom have generally been properties that didn't include low-income housing.
I don't think there are enough DINKs and gays either, in order to make the Railyards work there will have to be some accommodation for families. One big criticism I have of the current planning environment in Sacramento is that they simply assume that they can plan the central city without making any allowance for kids at all--largely because the folks running the show live in the suburbs, and the idea of children living in the central city is alien to them. If there are a variety of housing options, with a wide variety of price points, it might work.
As to bulldozing K Street because the Railyards are taking too long: The Railyards is just now getting off the ground after years of work. Starting fresh with K Street would mean starting a whole new multi-year planning process, figuring out how it is going to work, and then finding someone willing to do the work and the money to do it with--while simultaneously actively working to sabotage the Railyards project just as it is gaining real momentum and the first infrastructure work is being done! I find it hard to imagine a policy that would be more foolish, destructive or short-sighted.
As far as the rail yards I am skeptical as to if that will really be a success. I've seen a good deal of communites up and down the valley that have been bearing the burden of becoming the dumping ground of urban california (bay area) under the guise of 'affordable housing'. With real estate at the low end as low as it is, I really do not think there is much of a need to create affordable housing down town. I'm really not interested in seeing a mini natomas right downtown.
The Railyards is considered "a new growth area" subject to the city of Sacramento's mixed income ordinance. The mixed income ordinance creates two categories of set asides. 5% of the housing is set aside for what the ordinance defines as "low income households". Another 10% is set aside for "very low income households".
The income cap for single individuals on the very low income housing is $24,850.
Like the Railyards, Natomas was another "new growth community" subject to the mixed income ordinance.
The mixed income ordinance puts a floor, not a cap on the amount of low income housing in the development. There are other governments programs like section 8 vouchers that will bring additional low income people to the community.
Moreover high density housing projects tend to result in a lot more rentals and fewer owner occupied units. In Natomas, most of the high density housing projects are apartments, not condos. As seen in Natomas, the condos themselves may also be rented out. Renters as a group tend to be much poorer than owner occupants. That results in additional low income families outside the scope of the mixed income ordinance in the community.
The railyards aren't downtown San Diego. You don't have the coastal microclimate, you don't have the views of San Diego Bay. Laguna West was sold and won awards as a progressive smart growth community that would look and feel just like Land Park and East Sac. At the time the Natomas plan was hailed for being a mixed income/mixed use transit orientated community like midtown. We have seen how both of these smart growth visions turned out.
So far the first major tenant signed at Railyards is Pro Bass Fishing, a big box retailer.
Until I see otherwise, I am betting the Railyards is going to look and function a lot more like Natomas than midtown or Land Park.
There isn't any evidence that this community can pull off larger scale smart growth projects. The successes that it has had with smart growth have mainly came from fairly small projects, converting a former car dealership into lofts, stuff on that scale. I think there is a lot better chance for smart growth to work on a project the scale of redeveloping the downtown plaza instead of the scale of the Railyards.
The other issue is how well the railyards will compete with other high density infill sites being rolled out at the same time frame in the same general vicinity.
Cal Expo is land controlled by the state of California, that legally is outside the control of city planning process. Right now its apparent that Cal Expo is thinking the way to balance its books is by redeveloping a part of its land as high density infill. Because this land is controlled by the state and not by the city, if it chooses to Cal Expo can move much faster than the City in the approval process. There is an excellent chance that the Cal Expo infill will be built out at the same general time frame that the Railyards is being built out. This is a lot of high density infill in a fairly small area all coming out at the same general time frame.
The income cap for single individuals on the very low income housing is $24,850.
The income one receives on SSI is about $11,000, in other words, less than half of "very low income." People making $24,850 aren't on welfare, they're working retail or entry-level office or other service jobs. The proportion of housing that is affordable to the disabled, the retired and most on welfare is "extremely low income" housing, which only has to be 0.5% of new construction--assuming 10,000 new units, 50 have to be ELI units.
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There are other governments programs like section 8 vouchers that will bring additional low income people to the community.
This is not true. Housing Choice Vouchers (what used to be called Section 8) have maximum rent limits that are typcically about the same as the middle range of low-income housing. You can't use a Housing Choice Voucher to score a high-end loft apartment.
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Laguna West was sold and won awards as a progressive smart growth community that would look and feel just like Land Park and East Sac. At the time the Natomas plan was hailed for being a mixed income/mixed use transit orientated community like midtown. We have seen how both of these smart growth visions turned out.
In both cases, they tried to build a "transit-oriented" community without the transit. That never works, and it shows. The difference in the Railyards is that the transit is coming first--in fact, it's already there at the Amtrak depot, with more on the way. Also, unlike Laguna or Natomas, the Railyards are within walking distance of downtown. Thus, there are two major differences between the Railyards and places like Laguna or Natomas--they are starting out walkable and transit-oriented, while those two suburbs are too far from the center to be walkable and never got the promised transit.
About Bass Pro: I'm ambivalent about them myself, but the developer has made a case for their presence. They provide a retailer designed to showcase the recreational options that we do have--the river immediately adjacent to the railyards. Sure, we don't have San Diego's climate, but neither does anywhere else besides San Diego. We don't have an ocean view, but it's still kinda nice. Ever been up in a downtown office tower on a clear day? You can see Mount Diablo and the coastal range, the Sierras, and a rather dramatic expanse of the American River parkway, the Sacramento River and farmland, not to mention you can really get a sense of how big Sacramento is from up there--something our lack of hills prevents otherwise. Bass Pro facilitates the outdoor recreation that we can do right here in town, and provides a reason for those passing through on their way to recreate elsewhere to stop and shop--and maybe look around a while.
Sacramento's older neighborhoods are concrete proof that we can pull off larger scale "smart growth projects", back in the days that we called them "streetcar suburbs." In fact, even better models exist in Sacramento's past--the old "West End" waterfront district, demolished and replaced by Capitol Mall back when auto suburbs were all the rage, which featured mixed-use housing, mid-rise residential units, walkable neighborhoods, transit orientation--and yes, even low-income housing. Back then we just called that "cities."
As to Cal Expo: Even if the state suffers the massive brain damage necessary to be that stupid, they would face the same obstacles that Natomas and Laguna West failed to overcome--they don't have a direct transit connection, and they aren't walkable to downtown. Thus, trying to do smart-growth infill there is far more likely to look like Natomas than something just adjacent to downtown like the Railyards. They are more likely to fail for precisely the reasons you cited Natomas and Laguna as failures. And while they wouldn't necessarily have to work with Sacramento's approval process, neither did Laguna (outside the city limits) and Natomas pretty much ignored its general plan anyhow. But they still have to design and plan and figure out how it's going to connect to the existing city, and it will certainly require an EIR, if not an EIS. It's not as though they can just start grading next week and start slapping together houses by next spring.
As to Cal Expo: Even if the state suffers the massive brain damage necessary to be that stupid, they would face the same obstacles that Natomas and Laguna West failed to overcome--they don't have a direct transit connection, and they aren't walkable to downtown. Thus, trying to do smart-growth infill there is far more likely to look like Natomas than something just adjacent to downtown like the Railyards. They are more likely to fail for precisely the reasons you cited Natomas and Laguna as failures. And while they wouldn't necessarily have to work with Sacramento's approval process, neither did Laguna (outside the city limits) and Natomas pretty much ignored its general plan anyhow. But they still have to design and plan and figure out how it's going to connect to the existing city, and it will certainly require an EIR, if not an EIS. It's not as though they can just start grading next week and start slapping together houses by next spring.
Then again, perhaps without the need for "mixed income" housing they can actually build for people with jobs, real incomes and who actually own cars. That might keep it from becoming blighted as other "mixed income" areas are likey destined to end up; sooner rather than later.
The income one receives on SSI is about $11,000, in other words, less than half of "very low income." People making $24,850 aren't on welfare, they're working retail or entry-level office or other service jobs. The proportion of housing that is affordable to the disabled, the retired and most on welfare is "extremely low income" housing, which only has to be 0.5% of new construction--assuming 10,000 new units, 50 have to be ELI units.
Agreed we are talking about separate programs. The low income housing provided under the mixed income program is in addition to the low income housing provided under the Healthy Choices Voucher program. This is why the railyards is going to end up with more than just 15% low income families.
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Originally Posted by wburg
This is not true. Housing Choice Vouchers (what used to be called Section 8) have maximum rent limits that are typcically about the same as the middle range of low-income housing. You can't use a Housing Choice Voucher to score a high-end loft apartment.
You are assuming that all of the new housing in the Railyards is going to be lofts. It isn't. The Sacramento region doesn't have enough wealthy people to fill a project as big as the Railyards exclusively with lofts. There is going to be plenty of cheaper apartments in the mix too. Granite Bay is an expensive neighborhood, but not all of the housing in Granite Bay is exclusively mansions, you have more moderately prices homes and apartments too. Just less of them. Some of the housing in the Railyards are going to be apartments. Some of the landlords in the rail yards are going to take Housing Choice Vouchers.
Here are the payment standards for HCV's. These might not be spent in the lofts, but they are enough that some of them are going to be spent on apartments in the railyards.
Lastly there is a third set of poor people. Because of pride or ignorance there are going to be people who move in the area who should qualify under HCVs or the mixed income ordinance who still never-the-less are going to slip through the cracks and move into the neighborhood.
If more than 2% of the landlords in the Railyards end up taking HCV's or just rent to people who should qualify under various program but didn't file the paperwork because of pride or ignorance, you are going to have more poor people in the railyards than you will have in the downtown grid. There are pockets of poverty in the grid too. (Southside Park, Alkali Flat etc).
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Originally Posted by wburg
In both cases, they tried to build a "transit-oriented" community without the transit. That never works, and it shows. The difference in the Railyards is that the transit is coming first--in fact, it's already there at the Amtrak depot, with more on the way. Also, unlike Laguna or Natomas, the Railyards are within walking distance of downtown. Thus, there are two major differences between the Railyards and places like Laguna or Natomas--they are starting out walkable and transit-oriented, while those two suburbs are too far from the center to be walkable and never got the promised transit.
About Bass Pro: I'm ambivalent about them myself, but the developer has made a case for their presence. They provide a retailer designed to showcase the recreational options that we do have--the river immediately adjacent to the railyards. Sure, we don't have San Diego's climate, but neither does anywhere else besides San Diego. We don't have an ocean view, but it's still kinda nice. Ever been up in a downtown office tower on a clear day? You can see Mount Diablo and the coastal range, the Sierras, and a rather dramatic expanse of the American River parkway, the Sacramento River and farmland, not to mention you can really get a sense of how big Sacramento is from up there--something our lack of hills prevents otherwise. Bass Pro facilitates the outdoor recreation that we can do right here in town, and provides a reason for those passing through on their way to recreate elsewhere to stop and shop--and maybe look around a while.
Building high is really expensive. It was the cost vs the size of the available market that prevented the Towers project during the peak of the housing boom. That project tried to mix in offices, plus a hotel plus housing to make it work and it still didn't happen. High cost is also one of the reasons the properties on K Street zoned for high rises near the Darth Vader Building never got off the ground. There may be a few tall buildings, but I expect at best that most will be at best 4 to 6 stories.
Big box retail is inconsistent with being an urban neighborhood. If the first project signed by the developer is already inconsistent with the claim of the vision of the plan, I think we have clear evidence of what the plan actually means to the developer and what is going to happen to the plan when an opportunity outside the scope of the plan happens.
The Railyards doesn't just have transit built in the neighborhood before the housing. It also has excellent freeway access built in the area before the housing. In an region where 3% gets around in transit and 75% gets around in private cars, financially the car land uses are going to trump the transit land uses. This is why the first project is a big box. In Natomas the car uses always trumped the transit uses in the plan. The railyards have better freeway access than Natomas. In the downtown grid the streetcars predated the freeways. Here the extensive freeway network is already there. All of the freeways in the region converge on the area.
Look at the buildings built along the 50 corridor since light rail came to the area. The offices still gravitate to the freeways, not to the transit. In terms of land use, freeways cause auto related uses to out compete transit uses. The freeway provides access to more customers. In Folsom the desire to expand an automall trumped the proximity of the location to a pre-existing light rail station. The Railyards are actually a much better site for an automall than Folsom. I am not saying that it will happen there, but the temptation to do that type of stuff surely will be there. This is the type of stuff that was and is happening in Natomas, I see no reason that the Railyards should be any different.
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Originally Posted by wburg
Sacramento's older neighborhoods are concrete proof that we can pull off larger scale "smart growth projects", back in the days that we called them "streetcar suburbs." In fact, even better models exist in Sacramento's past--the old "West End" waterfront district, demolished and replaced by Capitol Mall back when auto suburbs were all the rage, which featured mixed-use housing, mid-rise residential units, walkable neighborhoods, transit orientation--and yes, even low-income housing. Back then we just called that "cities."
As to Cal Expo: Even if the state suffers the massive brain damage necessary to be that stupid, they would face the same obstacles that Natomas and Laguna West failed to overcome--they don't have a direct transit connection, and they aren't walkable to downtown. Thus, trying to do smart-growth infill there is far more likely to look like Natomas than something just adjacent to downtown like the Railyards. They are more likely to fail for precisely the reasons you cited Natomas and Laguna as failures. And while they wouldn't necessarily have to work with Sacramento's approval process, neither did Laguna (outside the city limits) and Natomas pretty much ignored its general plan anyhow. But they still have to design and plan and figure out how it's going to connect to the existing city, and it will certainly require an EIR, if not an EIS. It's not as though they can just start grading next week and start slapping together houses by next spring.
The state can exempt itself from city and county low income ordinances. Whether it chooses to do depends on how desperate Cal Expo is for funds that don't come from the state general fund vs who is in charge at the state Capitol. I could see it going either way.
Downtown hasn't had much success in luring or creating wealthy firms. The Intels and HP's went to Roseville and Folsom. The region is adding a lot of housing targeting the same general population in the same area, but that region hasn't shown a real strong ability to expand the employment base upwards. This is again why I think its going to be a lot more apartments than lofts.
Agreed we are talking about separate programs. The low income housing provided under the mixed income program is in addition to the low income housing provided under the Healthy Choices Voucher program. This is why the railyards is going to end up with more than just 15% low income families.
No, it's not. Look at the rent standards you linked to: the maximum rent threshold for HCVs is considerably less than the amount one pays for low-income housing units.
In order to be affordable to someone making the "low-income" threshold, the rent has to be about 1/3 of their pre-tax income. So a "low-income" person ($40K/year) can afford about $1000-1100 a month in rent. For someone making ELI income, about $720 a month. So, if the apartments you're talking about are affordable enough for someone with an HCV to afford, they're also within the price range of low-income housing--the number is a cumulative total, not additive. So if you've got an HCV and the highest your rent can be is $813 a month, you can only afford one of the low-income units.
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You are assuming that all of the new housing in the Railyards is going to be lofts. It isn't. The Sacramento region doesn't have enough wealthy people to fill a project as big as the Railyards exclusively with lofts. There is going to be plenty of cheaper apartments in the mix too. Granite Bay is an expensive neighborhood, but not all of the housing in Granite Bay is exclusively mansions, you have more moderately prices homes and apartments too. Just less of them. Some of the housing in the Railyards are going to be apartments. Some of the landlords in the rail yards are going to take Housing Choice Vouchers.
I'm pretty sure all of the housing in the Railyards is ging to be apartments. The high-end units will be called "lofts," although they won't actually be lofts unless Thomas Enterprises puts residential in a couple of the old Shops buildings, but "lofts" has become an euphemism for "expensive apartments." Some will be condominiums--for sale apartments. And others will be market-rate apartments, but only about 15% will be affordable to 40% of the rental market.
And yes, I absolutely do hope that there is a variety of housing types at a variety of prices. My point is that while those with HCVs will be able to use one to rent one of the 10% very-low-income apartments, they won't be able to use them in the 85% market-rate apartments, or even the 5% LI apartments.
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If more than 2% of the landlords in the Railyards end up taking HCV's or just rent to people who should qualify under various program but didn't file the paperwork because of pride or ignorance, you are going to have more poor people in the railyards than you will have in the downtown grid. There are pockets of poverty in the grid too. (Southside Park, Alkali Flat etc).
I never said there weren't pockets of poverty in the Grid--I live downtown and know the neighborhoods quite well. There is already MORE low-income housing in the central city than the rest of Sacramento, if the Railyards put in 15% low-income housing the percentage of low-income housing in the central city will actually drop.
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Building high is really expensive. It was the cost vs the size of the available market that prevented the Towers project during the peak of the housing boom. That project tried to mix in offices, plus a hotel plus housing to make it work and it still didn't happen. High cost is also one of the reasons the properties on K Street zoned for high rises near the Darth Vader Building never got off the ground. There may be a few tall buildings, but I expect at best that most will be at best 4 to 6 stories.
I can live with that. I'd expect projects along the lines of 1801 L Street, a very dense and very successful central city project--one that contains 20% low-income units, by the way--or 800 J Street which also has 15% low-income--both of which have ground-floor retail. It sounds like your idea of a worst-case scenario is a neighborhood moderately denser than Midtown. I can live with that, although it may disappoint Majin. The tall buildings will arrive when it's tall-building time.
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The Railyards doesn't just have transit built in the neighborhood before the housing. It also has excellent freeway access built in the area before the housing. In an region where 3% gets around in transit and 75% gets around in private cars, financially the car land uses are going to trump the transit land uses. This is why the first project is a big box. In Natomas the car uses always trumped the transit uses in the plan. The railyards have better freeway access than Natomas. In the downtown grid the streetcars predated the freeways. Here the extensive freeway network is already there. All of the freeways in the region converge on the area.
And the freeway is very handy for leaving the Railyards or coming to it--but utterly useless for getting from the Railyards to downtown. A lot of people moving to the central city are doing so because they are sick of long commutes--living in the central city eliminates the need for commuting, even for those who choose to still own a car for other purposes.
And while big-box retail has its problems, there will absolutely have to be some chain retail in the railyards, both to draw customers from the region and to serve the needs of the new residents of the neighborhood. It would be nice if they were all small local businesses, but odds are there will be chains like Target and Walgreens and whatnot playing a major role. Bass Pro is a big-box retailer, but it meets a need not currently met by local business in the central city.
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Look at the buildings built along the 50 corridor since light rail came to the area. The offices still gravitate to the freeways, not to the transit. In terms of land use, freeways cause auto related uses to out compete transit uses. The freeway provides access to more customers. In Folsom the desire to expand an automall trumped the proximity of the location to a pre-existing light rail station. The Railyards are actually a much better site for an automall than Folsom. I am not saying that it will happen there, but the temptation to do that type of stuff surely will be there. This is the type of stuff that was and is happening in Natomas, I see no reason that the Railyards should be any different.
Considering how most auto malls have been doing poorly lately, an auto mall in the Railyards is about as likely as a store that sells Pogs or Hypercolor T-shirts. That fad has already passed. I will agree that taxpayer-funded highways will always trump under-funded transit, largely because the lion's share of public transportation funding goes to highways and only a fraction to transit. Now, that's a larger issue--the main reason why car-centric suburbs are so popular is the massive public subsidy of freeways. So I won't bother going into the whole thing here--other than pointing out again that the freeway will be pretty useless for someone who lives in the Railyards and works downtown.
I realize that you and I have very different ideas about what constitutes a good neighborhood, x15, but to me, a neighborhood of 4-6 story mixed-use apartment buildings with a couple of towers, with a variety of incomes and rental costs, with some retail (big box or otherwise), transit access, and walking/easy bus distance from a major employment center, all sounds pretty great to me!
The low income housing isn't for people making $40,000 a year. I've known people who have been through some rough times, making around $20,000-25,000 a year, who inquired about renting low-income apartments. They were basically shown the door.
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