Clovis has long resisted affordable housing mandates. The debt will soon double | Opinion

What do Clovis city leaders have against poor people?

For a long time, Fresno County’s second-largest city has flouted California housing laws mandating local municipalities provide for a specified number of homes that are affordable to low-income residents.

So blatantly that the city got sued for its lack of compliance and lost. In May 2021, a Fresno Superior Court ruling ordered Clovis to add more than 4,400 low-income units to its housing element within 120 days.

Rather than go along with Judge Kristi Culver Kapetan’s decision — even begrudgingly — the city quickly filed an appeal. (The plaintiffs have also appealed a portion of the ruling.) And now, with the case tied up in court, city leaders continue to show their disdain toward individuals and families that can’t afford a $500,000 house or $1,250 in monthly rent.

The latest display occurred during the Nov. 14 Clovis City Council meeting when a debate over a proposed development on the city’s northern outskirts veered into a group moan about affordable housing.

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For no reason, really. Because in traditional Clovis style, zero low-income units are planned for the 1,000-acre tract of single-family homes near Shepherd Avenue and the Big Dry Creek Reservoir.

Still, if there were any concerns of that possibility, council members were quick to assuage them.

After Councilmember Vong Mouanoutoua brought up the fact that “Gov. (Gavin) Newsom has already called us out” over affordable housing, fellow Councilmember Drew Bessinger said the proposed development is not located within the Regional Housing Needs Assessment overlay “so neighbors won’t have to worry about high density.”

“Worry” being the operative word. As if residents should be fearful of anything but single-family homes.

After that, outgoing Councilmember Bob Whalen lamented that “even” the city’s Heritage Grove and Loma Vista growth areas are subject to state affordable housing mandates.

“There is hardly any place where you can feel secure that there won’t be affordable housing,” concluded Whalen, the recently elected Fresno Superior Court judge.

As if the presence of an apartment complex whose tenants pay lower rents is reason to be scared.

Clovis: wealthier & whiter by design

Clovis didn’t become wealthier (by household income) and whiter (by skin color) than Fresno by happenstance. It did so by design. By enacting exclusionary housing policies that made it nearly impossible for low-income people, who by percentage tend to be people of color, to live there.

Clovis has fewer than 600 units that fit the state standard for affordable housing, including roughly 150 built over the last decade. Next up are Butterfly Gardens, a 75-unit supportive housing development that held its ribbon-cutting ceremony this week near Willow and Ashlan avenues, and a 59-unit complex called The Jefferson approved for Loma Vista.

Those figures don’t get the city aren’t anywhere close to the 4,425 low-income homes it was supposed to zone and plan for between 2010 to 2023 in accordance with state mandates.

Clovis city leaders may believe they can dodge their responsibilities forever. But the longer they do, the larger the deficit grows.

Like other local municipalities, Clovis is busy preparing a new housing element — a requirement of every city’s general plan — for the years 2023 to 2031.

Over the next eight-year RNHA cycle, the California Department of Housing and Community Development has assigned Fresno County with building 58,294 housing units of various income categories.

Clovis’ share is 8,977 units, as determined by the Fresno Council of Governments. Of those 8,977 units, 2,926 (32.6%) must be affordable to people whose incomes are less than half of the county median and another 1,549 (17.3%) affordable to people whose incomes are between 50-80% of the county median.

City’s affordable housing debt to double

That’s a total of 4,475 affordably priced units that must be zoned within the Clovis city limits by 2031. On top of the 4,425 from previous housing elements, the ones that were the subject of the 2021 court decision.

So while Clovis leaders continue their stubborn resistance to making the city more affordable, the accumulated debt will soon double.

“The law requires what it requires,” said Fresno attorney Patience Milrod, who represents plaintiffs Desiree Martinez and Maria De Jesus Sanchez in the ongoing suit.

“It’s not leadership to pretend you can evade those requirements for decades, which is exactly what has taken place.”

Not every vacant corner in the city makes sense for a housing project. However, Clovis did have several parcels along Shaw and Herndon avenues that were perfectly suitable (i.e. major roads with public transportation, near shopping centers and freeways) and allowed hotels to be erected there instead. Or business parks, car dealerships and mini storage rentals. Anything but affordable places for people to live.

Those were intentional choices made by city leaders. Choices that went against not only state mandates but Clovis’ shared regional responsibility to provide more than just market-rate housing. But when the spigot that delivers housing and transportation funds from Sacramento gets shut off, it’ll be residents that bear the brunt.

“Clovis should face its decades-long legacy of income and racial discrimination,” Milrod said. “They wouldn’t have the demographics they have, in this region, unless their housing and zoning policies weren’t racist.”

Despite city council turnover, it seems highly unlikely Clovis leaders will be ready for such a conservation any time soon. They can’t even discuss affordable housing without further incriminating themselves.