10 X 10 Plan

Defined as 10,000 new, safe, decent, accessible, and affordable homeowner and rental units in world class designed, master planned growth areas and revitalized apartment and urban neighborhood developments, documented by the City of Fresno in approved master plans, permitted, under construction, or completed by the end of 2010, affordable for a range of very low through moderate income families

Fresno will become one of the best cities in the world to raise families, do business, and have fun - by:

Growing Up – Building high, compact, and thoughtfully enough to preserve irreplaceable farmland and other natural resources for future generations

Growing Smart – Creating attractive, well-designed urban environments for good living, business, tax base, energy efficiency, and environmental health

Growing Affordable – Ensuring all our residents live in safe, decent, accessible, and affordable homes and neighborhoods throughout the city

Growing Healthy and Prosperous – Pursuing innovative ideas and partnerships with all the people, institutions, and sectors that make great cities characterized as healthy, thriving places with strong and diverse economies

Starting with . . .

The Mayor appointing a “10x10 Blue Ribbon Panel” to establish and support public-private-community-based partnerships to take action in five interdependent implementation areas:

• Smart Growth Plan Implementation
• Urban Reinvestment, In-Fill, and Transitional Housing Developments
• Expanded Affordable Housing Resources and New Financing
• Innovative Local Government Planning, Incentives, Regulations, Permitting, and Enforcement
• Coordinated Regional Land Use and Transportation Policies – Blue Prints and Regional Constituencies

• Housing is a “root issue” - related to student academic performance, attracting and supporting business and economic development, recruiting teachers, firefighters, and police officers, and attracting knowledge workers.

• “The Coming Storm” – Talking Points

What this storm is already doing here in the Fresno area:

• Washing out the ability to attract and retain skilled workers, knowledge workers, and professionals

• Submerging the hope for residents to get a stake in the Valley through asset development and homeownership

• Flooding Sprawl—un-smart growth; loss of farmland

• Generating air pollution and all the diseases that come from that

• Negatively affecting the education of our youth
  
  

• The Lost Housing Dream:

Is there a house in Fresno for us to buy?

• Highly Unlikely - Very low income (below 50% MFI) = 1,835 houses available in 1999 versus 41 in 2005 = 98% reduction in availability

• Unlikely - Low income (50-80% MFI) = 2,874 houses available in 1999, versus 261 in 2005 = 91% reduction in availability

• Maybe – Moderate income (80-120% MFI) = 3,664 houses in 1999 versus 1,377 = 62% reduction

• The (Affordability) Problem

  • Median Fresno home price in 2000 was $104,201 now $313,500 (Ken Neufeld)

  • Since 2000, Fresno home price increases have averaged 28.4% per year – while median family incomes have averaged 6% increase per year

  • Affordability index has dropped from 54% in 2000 to 17% today substantially reducing the number of households that can buy a median priced home

  • In 2000 median rent for two-bedroom apartment in Fresno was $404 per month and now is $782 per month = 93% increase versus a median family income increase for the same period of 42% (6% compounded for six years)

Smart Growth Plan Implementation - Strategies

• We Will Take Field Trips: Visit, inspect, touch, feel, smell, learn about, and form a sense of “shared experience” of the attributes and criteria that constitute good examples of world class smart growth, mixed income, mixed use, and affordable development projects in California

• We Will Implement the General Plan with Higher Designed Densities to Increase Affordability through a specific operational definition of smart growth (influenced by good examples and definitions such as the one adopted by the American Planning Association - APA) that will guide targeted Smart Growth projects for new growth and urban reinvestment areas:

Smart growth means using comprehensive planning to guide, design, develop, revitalize and build communities for all that:   have a unique sense of community and place; preserve and enhance valuable natural and cultural resources; equitably distribute the costs and benefits of development; expand the range of transportation, employment and housing choices in a fiscally responsible manner; value long-range, regional considerations of sustainability over short term incremental geographically isolated actions; and promotes public health and healthy communities. Compact, transit accessible, pedestrian-oriented, mixed use development patterns and land reuse epitomize the application of the principles of smart growth . . . In areas with intense growth pressure, development in newly urbanizing areas should be planned and developed according to Smart Growth principles. (APA Board Ratified - April 15, 2002)

• We Will Utilize Growth Areas within the City’s Sphere of Influence to Implement Smart Growth Projects

• We Will Identify Existing Urban Areas to Implement Smart Growth Projects
  
  Urban Reinvestment, In-Fill, and Transitional Housing Developments - Strategies

• We Will Investigate Specific Examples of Urban Reinvestment, In-Fill, and Transitional Housing Examples such as Hermosa Village in Anaheim, and many others around California

• We Will Utilize and Adapt the Details of World Class Case Studies We Find of urban reinvestment, in-fill, and transitional housing developments that may apply to existing urban Fresno areas and conditions, and can be used to guide local master planning, attract champions, and generate formation of specific project partnerships and coalitions, plans, funding, and actual development in:

• Downtown Fresno

• Southwest Fresno – South of FWY 180

• West Central Fresno – North of FWY 180

• Central Fresno – Jefferson, Lowell, Tower, etc

• South Central Fresno – including Winchell, Butler, Orange, etc

• Northwest Fresno – including Pinedale, etc

• Northeast Fresno – including El Dorado Park, etc.

• Southeast Fresno

• East Central – including airport area

• We Will Make and Keep Commitments to Provide Specific Resources and Support to Proposed Affordable Housing Developers and Developments –such as:

• Specific projects including those sponsored by private, nonprofit, and faith-based organizations

• Yosemite Village - HOPE VI in Southwest Fresno

• El Dorado Park Revitalization

• Kings Canyon Blvd. TOD with Senior Affordable Housing

• Habitat for Humanity

• Self-Help

• We Will Secure Expanded Financial Development Resources, such as:

  • Implement a Housing Trust Fund

  • Implement a Land Trust Fund (for land banking)

  • Promote “green building” methods to reduce costs and generate new resources for affordability

  • Unify the budgets and project programming processes of various housing programs and agencies

  • Work to retain existing subsidy housing

  • Establish Housing Enterprise Zones with 10 year declining property tax abatement

  • Expand the percentage and utilization of RDA set-aside funds for new affordable construction

  • Lobby for expanded CDBG, HOME, and other federal housing funds

  • Lobby for expanded Low Income Housing Tax Credits

  • Discuss with developer, contractor, and labor groups ideas for reducing all costs of affordable housing

  • Expand and/or develop new down payment assistance and other home ownership programs?

  • Expand and/or new rent assistance and other rent programs?

• We Will Secure Planning, Urban Design, and Developer Resources by:
  

  • Taking Field Trips: Visit, inspect, touch, feel, smell, learn about, and form a sense of “shared experience” of the attributes and criteria that constitute good examples of world class smart growth, mixed income, mixed use, and affordable development projects in California
    
  • Providing advanced training in contemporary urban planning, urban design, smart growth, and affordable development for City staff
    
  • Expanding the local base and recruit successful affordable housing developers and urban design professionals from other geographic areas from around the state and across the nation

   

• City Planning – We Will:

  • Adopt and require compliance with Smart Growth Plan Implementation and the General Plan

  • Proactively pre-zone lands in conformance with Smart Growth Plan Implementation and the General Plan

  • Adopt and enforce minimum density standards in all residential development.

  • Formulate and adopt a new zoning ordinance oriented to form-based zoning

  • Formulate and adopt a new Housing Element to the General Plan in 2007 confirming and expanding the bold goals and strategies outlined for “10x10”

• City Incentives – We Will:

  • Reduce and de-concentrate poverty in Fresno by providing real incentives for creating mixed income neighborhoods that include affordable developments that meet Smart Growth design standards

  • Fast track City review and approval for affordable developments that meet Smart Growth design standards

  • Adjust certain City zoning, processing, and impact fees for affordable developments that meet Smart Growth design standards

  • Encourage school districts and other governmental agencies to reduce fees for affordable development

  • Provide density bonuses that factually and demonstrably incentivize affordable developments

  • Exempt from further environmental reviews affordable developments that meet Smart Growth design standards

  • Streamline permitting processes for all development generally and specifically for affordable developments that meet Smart Growth design standards

• City Enforcement –We Will:

  • Promote city-wide landlord/tenant “rights, responsibilities, and recourse” education programs

  • Provide comprehensive, pro-active code enforcement (with tenant protections from retaliatory evictions) in order to protect the safety and health of all Fresno tenants

  • Consider placing into receivership the noncompliant properties of unresponsive landlords until such properties clearly meet health and safety codes as has been done in Ontario, CA.

• We Will Think and Act Regionally by Fully Engaging a Broad and Diverse Base of Fresno Constituents in the Regional Blue Print Process about to begin in the San Joaquin Valley:

The eight San Joaquin Valley COGs, along with the Great Valley Center, have successfully submitted a joint application to Caltrans to initiate a Blueprint process for our region. The program will provide funds for regional collaborative decision-making and adoption of a “blueprint” for local growth that will: (1) foster a more efficient land use pattern that (a) supports improved mobility and reduced dependency on single-occupant vehicle trips, (b) accommodates an adequate supply of housing for all incomes, (c) reduces impacts on valuable habitat, productive farmland, and air quality, (d) increases resource use efficiency, and (e) results in safe and vibrant neighborhoods; (2) provide consumers more housing and transportation choices; (3) improve California’s economic competitiveness and quality of life; (4) reduce costs and time needed to deliver transportation projects through informed early public and resource agency involvement; and (5) secure local government and community support, including that of under-represented groups, to achieve the resulting comprehensive vision through including innovative computer models and public involvement activities. While the Blueprint is intended to help California’s regions plan for future growth and quality of life through the integration of transportation, housing, land use, economic development and environmental protection, it is not meant to supersede local jurisdictions’ land use authority. Local agencies would determine how their jurisdiction would accommodate the regional vision. The San Joaquin Valley Regional Blueprint is anticipated to work hand-in-hand with the Governor’s recently established California Partnership for the San Joaquin Valley, which is charged with providing recommendations to improve the economic conditions of the San Joaquin Valley. The San Joaquin Valley Regional Blueprint would be a visualized representation of the goals expressed in documents such as A Landscape of Choice and the individual Regional Transportation Plans. However the San Joaquin Valley Regional Blueprint effort would allow an articulation and graphic representation of a Valley Vision. This program will contribute to the vision of improved quality of life within California by addressing future growth on a twenty-year horizon through the integration of transportation, housing, land use, environmental resources, other infrastructure, and services. This integration will result in a more efficient and effective transportation system and land use pattern to achieve the three outcomes (3Es) that define quality of life - prosperous economy, quality environment, and social equity (more equal opportunity) - for all Californians. The program will incorporate the goal that the region as a whole and each jurisdiction, to the extent possible, should strive to “take care of our own” by planning for and being prepared to accommodate a sufficient housing supply to match natural population increases and workforce needs for all income categories.

• We will Lobby the State and Federal Governments to Financially Reward Local Jurisdictions that Regionally Plan and Act Together

• We Will Participate in and Support the Valley Affordable Communities Initiative (HUD), and the Governor’s California Partnership for the San Joaquin Valley