VC cities reach compromise on housing needs assessment
'We're all equally unhappy' mayor says
By Kyle Jorrey kjorrey@theacorn.com

Dubbed The Great Compromiser, 19th century American politician Henry Clay defined a compromise as a situation where "both parties were left unsatisfied."

This is exactly how City Manager Mike Sedell and Mayor Paul Miller view the recent agreement reached by all Ventura County cities concerning the Southern California Association of Governments' regional housing needs assessment.

"I guess you could say everybody is equally unhappy," Miller said in an interview. "And that's what we wanted to achieve. We all got had."

When Simi Valley and several other cities in the county took exception to SCAG's preliminary total housing needs report that came out in November, calling it imbalanced and unrealistic, the need to address the report became clear.

By state mandate, SCAG prepares the assessments for the regions of Ventura, Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside, Orange and Imperial counties and nearly 200 local jurisdictions every five to six years. The document defines the housing need allocation for each member government in Southern California.

The findings of that report, which dictated that Simi must add at least 5,086 new housing units by 2014 to meet future demand, were at the heart of a meeting held earlier this month of all the city managers in Ventura County.

The goal of that meeting was to agree on a set of adjusted numbers that would be sent for approval to the Ventura Council of Governments, which in turn, would include those numbers in SCAG's final report.

At that meeting of managers, Sedell explained, the group underwent the time-consuming process of reallocating the construction needs so as to not change the bottom line- some cities agreeing to take on more units, others taking less.

"Basically every manager tried to work toward a number their city could live with and that they could recommend to their city council where . . . the SCAG allocation was still met for the region," Sedell said.

"We worked around the room, each of us trying to find a place we could live with, not be comfortable with, but live with," he continued. "Then we recommended it to the (VCOG) board."

Last week, said Miller, who represents Simi on the Ventura Council of Governments, the board gave its approval to the adjusted allocations, which now have Simi's construction need set at 3,735 units instead of 5,086.

"Those numbers are much more realistic now, there's no question about that," Miller said.

Sedell explained what's at the heart of the regional housing assessment.

Cities "don't have to meet those numbers in growth- it's not saying we're going to have that much growth in the city," Sedell said. "What we have to do is, we have to be able to show the state that there is potential for us to meet these numbers in a seven-year period. We can show that now. We could not show that with SCAG's numbers."

The new number will be used to guide city planners, who are currently working on updating the Simi Valley General Plan.

Sedell said that until the state starts factoring local land use, zoning or growth control policies into its housing needs formula, it will remain at odds with most cities and counties over the issue.

"It's government versus government in a classic matchup, and that's a very frustrating position to be put into," Sedell said. "Until something changes, every five to seven years we'll have this battle. But at least we can say now we're good for the next five."