County records show more than 10,000 residential parcels without homes, but water shortages, infrastructure gaps, and development costs complicate the picture.
"72 percent of vacant residential parcels are owned by individuals, trusts, or other entities with mailing addresses outside Mendocino County." I am sure close to that number of **homes** on the coast are also owned by individuals, trusts, or other entities with mailing addresses outside Mendocino County. And many inland. I looked for an affordable home for many years before I found my current home. I looked up many of the vacant homes in the county and looked up the owners and wrote some of them letters. Real estate in many areas of the US, Canada, Australia, Hong Kong, Spain etc is used as a parking place for money by the very rich. Many of these sfh and condos in cities are not lived in or rented out. It's not like the traditional vacation homes owned by families- many these units are just not being used. At all. Meanwhile many of our young people and working people are having to move away. Or live in their cars. The coast especially has a severe shortage of workers.
The main problem is that real estate is a major investment class, larger than the global stock and bond markets combined. Affordable housing, which many claim to be a basic human right, is in direct conflict with real estate as an investment. Something which is a human right (housing, health care, education, etc.) can't be a for-profit enterprise. Also, for housing to be affordable it must be dense, within established communities, and not have value-adding amenities such as ocean views. So housing on the Noyo Headlands, for example, will never be affordable. Fort Bragg has several large lots suitable for affordable housing, but they have been kept off the market by investors. Back in 1879, economist Henry George proposed a land value tax that would encourage the development of these vacant urban parcels. He argued that private investors should not acquire the value that has been created by the public (roads, water, sewer, etc.), but only the value they created themselves by building something on the land. Another issue is water. Small community water systems would allow rural parcels to be developed without every lot having to drill their own well. Community road maintenance agreements would allow rural parcels to share the access and maintenance of private roads. There are many more issues, of course, but I think these are the main ones.
It may have been worth mentioning — all the current supes were given a chance to comment on our findings and none of them responded except for Ted Williams. His comments added a lot of comments and he and Buffey are aligned on next steps. Also, Eric Hart responded, but needed more time to study the issue.
Out of county investors holding vacant residential parcels is one part of the problem. Investors buying up existing homes, evicting tenants and converting them to short term vacation rentals, over 400 houses on the coast, is another, one the County has steadfastly refused to tackle.
Our elected officials act like innocent bystanders who, dang it, had the bad luck of being in office when these things happen. Wait! We can do something and that is to discuss the problems. At least until the election is over. Why do our problems exist for years only to get worse? Either no political will to actually address the problems or just lack of effort. Nothing has or will change until the voters decided that those, to paraphrase Einstein, who created the problems are not the ones to fix them.
IMHO, building custom homes one house at a time is for the well healed. Tract homes, for all their bad rap, are akin to Henry Ford's Model T, the car made on an assembly line, the car for the every man.
But there's a problem. Our County had such onerous "Inclusionary Housing*" burdens that no tract housing could be built hence no production home building crews were maintained or established. IE there are no assembly lines to build the Model T.
For this and other reasons, even if you have all the hookups and a lot to build . . . all free and paid for, you cannot build a home for the money for which you could sell it.
Don't expect to see houses built until that changes.
But . . .
Econ 101 to the rescue!
With the price of grapes and pot in the basement there is going to be a lot less cash in our local economy and that will cause a lot of folks to leave. And that might be the way our local housing crises gets "fixed". Not ideal.
Per the Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times".
*Credit Supervisor Williams on leading the charge on reducing to State allowed minimum the onerous Inclusionary Housing.
I don't believe in top down decision making. If folks want to live in the urban core, the urban core will fill in. If folks want to live outside the urban core it won't.
Mobile home parks get a bad rap and have a difficult time being built, but they sure do act as affordable housing for many. I some were built with decent lots and the individual lots sold to owner/residents only it would be a very inexpensive way to create affordable housing.
"72 percent of vacant residential parcels are owned by individuals, trusts, or other entities with mailing addresses outside Mendocino County." I am sure close to that number of **homes** on the coast are also owned by individuals, trusts, or other entities with mailing addresses outside Mendocino County. And many inland. I looked for an affordable home for many years before I found my current home. I looked up many of the vacant homes in the county and looked up the owners and wrote some of them letters. Real estate in many areas of the US, Canada, Australia, Hong Kong, Spain etc is used as a parking place for money by the very rich. Many of these sfh and condos in cities are not lived in or rented out. It's not like the traditional vacation homes owned by families- many these units are just not being used. At all. Meanwhile many of our young people and working people are having to move away. Or live in their cars. The coast especially has a severe shortage of workers.
The main problem is that real estate is a major investment class, larger than the global stock and bond markets combined. Affordable housing, which many claim to be a basic human right, is in direct conflict with real estate as an investment. Something which is a human right (housing, health care, education, etc.) can't be a for-profit enterprise. Also, for housing to be affordable it must be dense, within established communities, and not have value-adding amenities such as ocean views. So housing on the Noyo Headlands, for example, will never be affordable. Fort Bragg has several large lots suitable for affordable housing, but they have been kept off the market by investors. Back in 1879, economist Henry George proposed a land value tax that would encourage the development of these vacant urban parcels. He argued that private investors should not acquire the value that has been created by the public (roads, water, sewer, etc.), but only the value they created themselves by building something on the land. Another issue is water. Small community water systems would allow rural parcels to be developed without every lot having to drill their own well. Community road maintenance agreements would allow rural parcels to share the access and maintenance of private roads. There are many more issues, of course, but I think these are the main ones.
It may have been worth mentioning — all the current supes were given a chance to comment on our findings and none of them responded except for Ted Williams. His comments added a lot of comments and he and Buffey are aligned on next steps. Also, Eric Hart responded, but needed more time to study the issue.
Out of county investors holding vacant residential parcels is one part of the problem. Investors buying up existing homes, evicting tenants and converting them to short term vacation rentals, over 400 houses on the coast, is another, one the County has steadfastly refused to tackle.
There are so many stories worth covering. This is one of them.
Our elected officials act like innocent bystanders who, dang it, had the bad luck of being in office when these things happen. Wait! We can do something and that is to discuss the problems. At least until the election is over. Why do our problems exist for years only to get worse? Either no political will to actually address the problems or just lack of effort. Nothing has or will change until the voters decided that those, to paraphrase Einstein, who created the problems are not the ones to fix them.
IMHO, building custom homes one house at a time is for the well healed. Tract homes, for all their bad rap, are akin to Henry Ford's Model T, the car made on an assembly line, the car for the every man.
But there's a problem. Our County had such onerous "Inclusionary Housing*" burdens that no tract housing could be built hence no production home building crews were maintained or established. IE there are no assembly lines to build the Model T.
For this and other reasons, even if you have all the hookups and a lot to build . . . all free and paid for, you cannot build a home for the money for which you could sell it.
Don't expect to see houses built until that changes.
But . . .
Econ 101 to the rescue!
With the price of grapes and pot in the basement there is going to be a lot less cash in our local economy and that will cause a lot of folks to leave. And that might be the way our local housing crises gets "fixed". Not ideal.
Per the Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times".
*Credit Supervisor Williams on leading the charge on reducing to State allowed minimum the onerous Inclusionary Housing.
What's your opinion on density in urban cores?
I don't believe in top down decision making. If folks want to live in the urban core, the urban core will fill in. If folks want to live outside the urban core it won't.
Mobile home parks get a bad rap and have a difficult time being built, but they sure do act as affordable housing for many. I some were built with decent lots and the individual lots sold to owner/residents only it would be a very inexpensive way to create affordable housing.