In appointing their newest member, the Ventura City Council only pretended to care about housing

On Saturday, the Ventura City Council held a special meeting to appoint someone to the seat of former District 4 Councilmember, now District Attorney, Erik Nasarenko, until the election in November 2022. They selected Jeannette Sanchez-Palacios, a concerning choice for housing (more on that below), but nearly selected a straight-up NIMBY, in a process that revealed the disinterest of many councilmembers in addressing Ventura’s housing challenges.

Ventura followed a similar routine from earlier this month, when Oxnard filled now-Supervisor Carmen Ramirez’s seat. We sent a questionnaire to all applicants for the Oxnard seat, and after receiving five responses, we endorsed Gabe Teran, who ended up getting the appointment.

We also sent a questionnaire to all fourteen Ventura applicants; however, only one, design consultant John Silva, completed it. While Silva’s responses were strongly pro-housing, we didn’t feel we had enough information about the full set of applicants to make a formal endorsement.

Thankfully, the Ventura City Council voted to ask each applicant about housing in their interviews; here’s what they asked (in addition to opening and closing statements):

• “Our community is facing a housing crisis, worsened by the current pandemic. What will you do to address rising rents and protect renters from eviction?”
• “What do you think are the top three to five priorities for the city, and what will you do as a councilmember to achieve them?”
• “Circumstances outside the city’s control can and have impacted dramatically the city’s budget. What approach will you take as a councilmember to balance the budget to address the issues?”

These questions revealed significant differences between the applicants on housing (watch the video here).

Several applicants acknowledged the role of the shortage. The first to speak, John Lory, said, “The more supply there is, the lower the rents will be, and they will increase at a lower rate.” And the final applicant, Dan Lyon, said, “We need to look at a way to increase the supply of affordable rental housing,” suggesting infill and repurposing existing properties.

Brad Golden and John Silva supported housing development

The strongest pro-housing interview response came from Brad Golden, a manager at a real estate insurance company; here’s his full response (**emphasis mine, **all quotes lightly edited for clarity):

Rising rents are not new to our community and California, but specific to the pandemic, our government has placed eviction protections for Covid-related hardships through the middle of this year. I believe they’ll likely extend that and I hope they do. We also have city and county tenant protections during Covid, and I hope that continues as well. Ventura extended protections for tenants to the commercial side, and I know that’s helped quite a bit too, and we the Chamber of Commerce have been active in that role. Prior to Covid, California capped rental increases at 5% plus cost of living, so no matter what, we have a rent control in place, and I know that’s helped with tenants as well.

But we have to remain balanced for the landlords and owners as well. Over-regulating market-driven economics cannot lead to neglect of properties in the long run. Bottom line, Covid or not: we need to work on supply and demand for housing. We need to streamline the development process and build a diversified housing stock.

Golden also emphasized housing development in his list of top three priorities for the city, which included:

• A pandemic response plan
• Economic stimulation, including “an efficient development process”
• Diversified housing stock, including being “flexible with our General Plan coming up,” a point he also brought up in terms of budget sustainability

Silva’s interview response on the housing question didn’t offer specifics, but his response to our questionnaire indicated support for policies like raising height limits near transit and legalizing fourplexes in many areas.

Jenny Lagerquist opposed housing development

The starkest contrast to Brad Golden’s pro-housing views came from Jenny Lagerquist, an engineer, who gave the following response to the housing question:

This is a complex question. Because of the pandemic, the issue is not specific to rents and renters, I believe homeowners and business owners are feeling the same pressures. I think everyone needs to share in the solutions. So how do we propose a way forward, allowing everyone to keep their spaces and run their businesses and provide a roof over their family’s heads.

First, we should be looking to stay in federal grants to help protect homeowners, business owners, and renters from eviction. The state did just pass an aid package to assist those hit hardest by the pandemic, so we could help educate and guide residents to this information. And then we can look at what can the city provide, are there other types of aid, local grants, temporary rent control? Affordable housing is a very complex issue and many different facets have to be considered: on transportation, some studies have shown that people actually do want to live within a reasonable commute, so the more mass transit or public transportation that’s available, the easier to renovate or build affordable housing. Just building affordable housing without proper planning is not always the answer. Affordable housing policy can actually favor owners over renters, and we need to continue to provide a balance. It also has a long history of segregation and racism and can be expensive to build based on labor and supplies, and again transportation issues have to be addressed. Developers need incentives to build and renovate low and moderate private rental market housing. Right now, most incentives are for luxury housing, especially in a state like California. The private sector won’t build more unless the incentives change, so maybe tax credits for that kind of growth. Assistance to the low income bracket is always required, and we should be studying and seeking out grants and available funding.

Lagerquist clarified her anti-development stance in the second question, saying:

The number one priority for the city is to always try to retain the uniqueness and authenticity of Ventura. The Council has to scrutinize any development plan and encourage redevelopment of deteriorating spaces. It would behoove the council to require developers of any type of growth or expansion or rebuild or renovation, etc., to share with the cost of infrastructure and public needs. The city alone should not burden those costs. City planning should clearly demonstrate preservation of the city’s assets and aesthetics. I think water is a tremendous issue, we have to require and encourage conservation imposing permanent restrictions if needed.

Her statement that “My focus again is certainly on preservation and maintaining Ventura” aligned with her application pledge to “promote only smart growth.” Transit, funding, and water sustainability are good, but Lagerquist invokes all as classic excuses to avoid allowing development. Ventura can’t change state and federal policymaking around grants, but they can decide whether to allow new homes to be built, which would generate tax revenue to provide their own assistance programs and expand transit. Singular focus on aesthetic preservation is antithetical to that goal.

Jeannette Sanchez-Palacios ignored the housing shortage

Jeannette Sanchez-Palacios, district director for Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin, mostly avoided answering the housing question, though she did consider it a “huge issue” that Ventura has renters, and recommend building more single-family housing:

I’ve thought about this because recently I met with a group of renters here in the city of Ventura, and let me tell you, they were all women. We know that this pandemic has impacted a lot of our minority communities. And especially women, it has driven out of the workforce, or their partners out of the workforce. And some of the women, I heard stories they were renting one room in a bigger house that they share with their teenagers. Or one of the other women there, she had just had surgery, and wasn’t working, didn’t have sick days or paid leave, so she wasn’t sure how she was going to pay rent. So this issue is very prevalent in the city of Ventura as I did my research I found that close to 19,000 renter households exist here in the city of Ventura. That’s approximately 46% of all the households in the city, almost 50%. And so for me that’s a huge issue to look at. Luckily, federal and state governments have been protecting renters. We have a new program, the emergency rental assistance program, and I think as city leaders, it’s incumbent upon us to help our residents reach these resources that are being made available to them.

The other thing that came to mind was the community land trust programs that can get families into single family housing and in addition can help drive down the cost of rents and home prices. I think this one in particular is very important because these programs can also potentially be an avenue for the city to fulfill the Regional Housing Needs Assessment numbers, a.k.a. the RHNA numbers, which are a state mandate. The city has to look at that as we move forward and ensure that we can meet those numbers.

This response notably omits mention of our housing shortage, except to the extent that she supported obeying state law. But her past offers more insight into her housing views. When Sanchez-Palacios ran for city council in 2016, she was endorsed by Neighbors for the Ventura Hillside, a NIMBY group defined by its Ventura Vision:

We will grow slowly and sustainably (meaning we will respect our water supplies and our constraints such as traffic). We will protect our environment and open space. We will preserve our rivers, beaches and natural environment. We will insist on the highest quality of architecture and design. We will maintain our small town atmosphere.

Despite the group’s name, they primarily oppose dense infill developments. They’ve since endorsed some of the most well-known NIMBYs in Ventura, such as former councilmember Christy Weir, whose website advocates “limits on ‘high density’ and mixed use development to prevent over-urbanization.” (We endorsed Weir’s opponent, Doug Halter, in his successful November 2020 run.) Sanchez-Palacios didn’t only accept the endorsement of Neighbors for the Ventura Hillside, she recorded two promotional videos with them.

Councilmembers nearly appointed the most NIMBY of the applicants

The Ventura City Council selected their appointee in a two-stage process. First, each councilmember selected their top two applicants, and the two receiving the most votes advanced to the next round. In the second round, each councilmember selected their top applicant of these two, and the applicant with the most votes was appointed.

In the first round, councilmembers Halter and Jim Friedman voted for Golden and Silva, while the others — Lorrie Brown, Mike Johnson, Deputy Mayor Joe Schroeder, and Mayor Sofia Rubalcava — voted for Sanchez-Palacios and Lagerquist, advancing them. In the second round, Friedman and Schroeder voted for Lagerquist and the others voted for Sanchez-Palacios.

No councilmembers mentioned housing in their decisions.

Any elected official knows what statements like those from Lagerquist indicate about housing stances, yet all but Doug Halter voted for her in either the first or second round. Christy Weir may have voted for Lagerquist over Sanchez-Palacios, and if the more pro-housing opponents of Schroeder and Johnson (whom Neighbors for the Ventura Hillside also endorsed) had won in November, they might have appointed Silva or Golden instead. NIMBYism begets NIMBYism, but so too can YIMBYism beget YIMBYism.

Sanchez-Palacios suggested she may run for election in November 2022. Her NIMBY alliances and disinterest in addressing the housing shortage are concerning, but until then, we’ll be pushing her to pursue the strong housing policy Ventura needs.