Letters: ‘Local control,’ a euphemism for exclusivity

The principal at my daughter’s school, Paul Ecke Central, told me that he’s expecting fewer kids in the future because young families are getting priced out. I pulled up the census data, and sure enough, compared to more economically diverse cities, Encinitas is missing new families and young kids.

This is a threat to the community character we all strive to protect. By not providing less expensive starter homes and rentals, families are moving out or looking elsewhere, and our community is becoming exclusive to the rich, tourists, and retirees.

“Local Control” is the campaign focus of Ehlers, Shaffer, and O’Hara, running for mayor and District 1 and 2 City Council seats, respectively. Their rallying cry to ‘wrest back control of our city from the State” is really a disingenuous euphemism for exclusivity.

But exclusivity is not a value we want to represent. California state law requires us to develop in a way that meets the housing needs of residents of all income levels. And that’s the right thing to do.

We want those who work in our town — teachers, service industry workers, city employees, farmers in our last remaining agricultural parcels  —to be able to live here if they desire.

This may be the most important task our new council will lead over the next few years. Our current Mayor, Tony Kranz, Deputy Mayor Allison Blackwell and District 2 candidate Destiny Preston have the ability, the desire, and the qualifications to get this done.

It’s human nature for residents to be wary of new development, but when the “NO” voices become overwhelming, we stagnate. Some state housing laws are clunky because of their one-size-fits-all nature, but we can be creative to get housing that’s affordable by design. Here are some suggestions for how to get there:

• Focus on new housing in commercial areas, minimizing impacts to open space, existing residences, and residential infrastructure.
• Foster small-scale developments in unused lots, focusing on small homes, and streamline small development permit reviews.
• Continue championing ADUs.
• Eliminate or modify costly minimum parking mandates. It is important to have access to a car to effectively engage in our economy, but when the city mandates the creation of off-street parking based on archaic formulas, we lose opportunities to house people.
• Repurpose underutilized publicly owned property to build mixed-income communities.
• Preserve existing affordable housing by protecting residents in mobile home parks and establishing limits on the rate at which park owners can raise rent on land.

The “Local Control” mantra may sound attractive, but in execution, it would have the opposite effect. Here’s why:

1. We’re not going to get the state to overturn housing laws—other cities have rebelled and lost, incurring significant taxpayer-funded legal fees (which could be better spent in our neighborhoods). A State crackdown means the potential to lose more control over where and how housing is built.
2. We already have control over where and what types of housing we build, as exemplified by the local tools mentioned above.
3. Proposition A, which is championed as a local control measure, actually makes it harder to build truly affordable housing.

Instead of wasting energy and taxpayer funds fighting State law, let’s utilize the control we have and craft ways to actually address our housing affordability challenges. Because if we think we’re going to lock our community in amber, it will change out from under us, and we’ll be left with only old rich people as our neighbors. I trust Tony Kranz, Allison Blackwell, and Destiny Preston on housing. Vote for them in November.

Aaron Hebshi
Encinitas