The Goleta Planning Commission on Monday took a significant step toward developing more below-market rate inclusionary housing for rental apartment projects. 

The commission approved the proposal on a 3-0 vote, with commissioners Katie Maynard, Bill Shelor and Jennifer R. Smith in the majority, and Commissioner Ed Fuller abstaining.

Commissioner Robert Miller was absent.

Fuller asserted before the vote that asking property owners to subsidize rents for tenants was tantamount to charity.

“This would be akin to requiring restaurants to serve 20 percent of their meals at affordable prices to people who then could afford them, including extremely low and very low, ” Fuller said. “Or to requiring attorneys to only bill 20 percent of their billing hours to very low and extremely low persons.

“This just doesn’t make sense to ask one particular producer to bear what we believe is a good for society.”

The proposal, which now goes before the full City Council, calls for developers who want to build projects with five or more units to provide 20 percent affordable units.

The required affordability levels on the sites vary, but are based on people with extremely low or very low incomes (up to 50 percent of the area median income), and those who have low or moderate incomes (up to 120 percent of the median income).

The average median income for a family of four in Goleta is $79,600. 

Fuller said asking developers to set aside some units for below market rates would result, in some cases, in them choosing not to build rental apartments. 

“Asking the developers to subsidize housing costs them, and makes projects less feasible for them to do, and/or less profitable, and reduces their incentive to do them,” Fuller said.

He suggested that requiring developers to include Section 8 vouchers would be a better proposal because they would at least then get paid the full rent. 

But other commissioners were supportive of the inclusionary rental apartment plan. 

“Affordable housing is something very much needed here in our community,” Maynard said. “Many of the folks who work and spend their days in the Santa Barbara and Goleta area, they are traveling to Santa Maria, Carpinteria, Ventura, and much farther locations to find affordable housing.”

She said building more housing would take cars off the roads, and that helps everyone. 

“A lot of the traffic that is on the highway is from renters that are going to far-off areas to find rental housing that is not available in our area today,” Maynard said. 

Craig Minus, vice president of development for The Towbes Group, called the proposal “shortsighted.”

“I am worried that by not fully studying the economic impacts of inclusionary housing on market-rate housing, we may not truly understand the impacts of this policy,” Minus said. “What I am worried about is this such policy, while good-intentioned, ends up squeezing the financial feasibility of market rate rental housing.”

However, Smith said the community wants and needs affordable housing.

“As a practical matter, we are all experiencing the impacts and seeing those who are experiencing homelessness,” Smith said. “We know that there are encampments in our community, people living on the streets, people who are unsheltered, and so we know there’s a desperate need for affordable housing in our community.”

The city of Santa Barbara in June backed an “inclusionary housing” ordinance that would require developers to designate 10 percent of their rental apartments in AUD projects for people earning between 80 and 120 percent of the area median income.

— Noozhawk staff writer Joshua Molina can be reached at jmolina@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.