A Better Commute: The Link Between Housing And Transportation

At the NHC-CHC Policy Forum held April 27, 2006 in Los Angeles, Session I focused on housing and transportations in California and across the country. Haya El Nasser of USA Today moderated the panel which included Martin Wachs, now with the RAND Corp., who described research finding by NHC's Center for Housing Policy and others showing:

• Over 50% of the typical American household's budget is spent on housing and transportation costs - thought typically more than one-half of household income across lower income households (both renters and homeowners);
• Multi-family households are growing faster than other household configurations and data from Los Angeles and San Francisco indicates movement over the last 5 years of working households toward the inner suburbs and central city (rather than outward to the suburbs) to cope with the housing-transportation cost burden.
• The housing cost burden for working households in California far outweighs the transportation cost burden.

Katherine Perez, former Director of the Transportation and Land Use Collaborative and now with Forest City Development, called attention to the competing goals of transportation agencies, city planners, and housing developers in grappling with the challenges of transit-oriented development - where ironically, the cost for providing commuter parking can compromise the level of housing affordability that can be achieved. Garry Gallegos, Director of San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG), described the successful passage in 2004 of a 10-year sales tax measure for transit development along infrastructure corridors and the on-going efforts to attract new housing to over 200 suitable sites identified across the county.

Session II, moderated by UCLA Law School Dean Mike Schill, looked at specific examples of transit-oriented developments where proactive public sector planning and talented non-profit and for-profit developers are demonstrating the advantages of a genuine housing-transportation linkage. Pasadena Mayor Bill Bogaard describe the decades-long planning process in his community that has given rise to the successful Gold Line from Union Station LA to eastern Pasadena and beyond - but cautioned that engendering housing affordability at the same time has been difficult.

Eden Housing Director Linda Mandolini struck the signature note of the morning session calling attention to how successful TOD's are 'by design, not by accident'. Eden's Ohlone-Chynoweth Commons, an award-winning 194-unit family apartment development, emanated from the wise planning of the San Jose Light Rail Master Plan (with specific plans and density thresholds), the transit authority's site identification efforts, as well as financial incentives from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.

Finally, Percy Vaz, President of AMCAL Housing, described his firm's successful 3-year effort to transform a contaminated 10-acre industrial property into a new mixed-income community adjacent to a new light-rail station in Los Angeles. Today, the $100 million 'Avenue 26' project is comprised of 534 housing units, including 165 condominiums, 267 family apartments, 102 senior apartments, and mixed-use retail. Mr. Vaz stressed that what made this exceptional project work was a proactive public sector (public approval and government approvals in 7 months), innovative private sector financial investment (via tax credits and a new private urban investment fund), and a productive working relationship with a local non-profit development partner, W.O.R.K.S.

At the Awards luncheon, California Department of Business, Transportation and Housing Director Sunne Wright McPeak exhorted us to urge our legislative leaders to included housing among the November bonds in the near-term and to embrace her department's "20-10-40" housing proposal (i.e., 20-year land supply; 10-year zoning; 40% affordable). As part of the inauguration of CHC's California Housing Hall of Fame, inductees including Arnold Sternberg, Senators John Burton and David Roberti, Related Companies of California's Bill Witte, and the Federal Home Loan Bank's Jim Yacenda urged CHC's 'big tent' membership to sustain Prop. 46 program funding this year and bring to fruition the dream of a state housing trust fund over the next 2 years.

We are especially grateful to the presenters and the moderators at the April 27 Policy Forum who provided compelling data and provocative examples of sound planning, design, and execution in California today.