Ojai City Council District 4
Pro-housing challenger who supports housing from multiple angles including church property and transit-oriented development.
Becker is aiming to unseat incumbent Suza Francina. Francina’s responses to the YIMBY questionnaire were generally pro-housing, for example expressing sadness that so many people who work in Ojai commute from other cities, and supporting fourplex legalization. But she’s presided over extremely slow growth in Ojai (where only 15 to 16 new homes are allowed to be built each year), and throughout her campaign has condemned the sorts of large developments needed to address the housing crisis:
Developers benefit greatly from the affordable housing law when they build large developments and only a small percentage are actually affordable. Their developments take a ton of water and increase traffic, but don’t increase the sustainability, diversity, and resilience of the community in a meaningful way. Advocacy for 100% affordable developments, of small size, accomplishes more than a massive development where only 15% of the units are affordable and 85% are market rate.
Francina also opposes short-term rentals, which provide extra income for homeowners and needed extra flexible housing supply---for example, many of my grad school classmates from outside the US used Airbnb. There’s no reason for short-term rentals to displace long-term residents if more housing is allowed to be built.
Becker, on the other hand, supports housing from all angles, as demonstrated both in her VC YIMBY questionnaire and in a phone call I had with her.
VC YIMBY endorsed Becker:
Becker started off her questionnaire response by saying, “There is a housing crisis. I know, I see it daily…This crisis will not only affect every individual but also our City’s financial health, and the health of our businesses. Let’s make smart decisions that give Ojai a chance to continue to be livable and healthy.” From lobbying Sacramento to allow housing on church property, to proposing housing developments near transit, to advocating reduced fees on low-income housing, Becker has supported housing from many angles, and would bring that perspective to making Ojai more inclusive.