land value tax and housing

2023/11/19 Dan Allison3 Comments

Alex Lee introduced, in the last legislative session, AB 362, ‘Real property taxation: land value taxation study’. “This bill would require the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration to conduct or commission a study on the efficacy of a statewide land value taxation system as an alternative to the current appraisal methods utilized for real property taxation.” It got to the Assembly Committee on Revenue and Taxation, but no further. It is, I believe, a two year bill and can be considered in 2024 session.

So what is land value tax? It is a property tax assessed on the value of the land itself, and not on the improvement to the parcel such as buildings. Current property tax in California is based on both, called split-roll, but strongly weighted towards the value of the improvements, not the land. A pure land value tax would shfit entirely to taxing the land, but blended taxes with a shift towards land value would have some beneficial effects.

Why tax the land? Speculators often leave property undeveloped or vacant in hopes of future high profits at development or sale. There are many such parcels in Sacramento, many of them undeveloped or vacant for decades. Why? The owner pays property taxes, but the value of the property is a small fraction of the value of the improvements, and the improvements are zero, so the property tax paid is a fraction of what it would be if the parcel were in productive use.

The result of improvements-based property taxes is that parcel remain unused. If there were a true land value tax, the owner would want to develop their parcel right now, so that they would receive income from the use to offset their property tax. But with the current mixed property tax, there is almost no incentive whatsoever to develop or redevelop. The result? Far less housing that we would otherwise have.

A shift to valuing the land as a greater percentage of the allocation between land and improvements would help. I have searched for the percentage allocation in Sacramento County (the counties, not cities, administer and collect property taxes, but haven’t been able to find it. It may be one of those black boxes that assessors want to keep from the public.

I am not sure whether a land value tax could be implemented at the county level without changes to state law. It seems that state law tightly controls adjustments to total valuation and tax rates, but so far as I’ve found, does not control the allocation to land value and improvements value. If you can point me to resources for better understanding this, please comment.

NY Times: The ‘Georgists’ Are Out There, and They Want to Tax Your Land, Conor Doughherty

House Sacramento’s book club on homelessness

2023/11/11 Dan AllisonLeave a comment

House Sacramento, the local YIMBY (yes in my backyard, housing for everyone), is starting an Urbanist Book Club in February. The book club is open to everyone, and you can get updates either by the signup below, or by joining House Sacramento’s email list at https://www.housesac.org/sign-up

From their recent email:

Meeting details: Urbanist Book Club: “Our urbanist book club is returning! We plan to convene February 3rd from 2-4pm in person and discuss Homelessness is a Housing Problem by Gregg Colburn and Clayton Page Aldern. We plan to read a couple books a year. We’d love to have you join and discuss this wonderful book! Sign up here if you plan to attend.”

I purchased my copy of the book from Capital Books. It should be available from other local booksellers, and Amazon has it in paperback, Kindle, and Audible Audiobook. A non-Kindle eBook is available from UC Press, the publisher.

The Walkable City book club initiated by Tom Lyons has now concluded. If you know of other book clubs that would be of interest to transportation and housing advocates, please comment with the information.

Sac missing middle housing project

2023/11/10 Dan Allison1 Comment

From the City of Sacramento Missing Middle Housing Project page:

“Missing Middle Housing (MMH) is a range of small multi-unit housing types that are similar in scale to a single-family house and are often found in walkable areas. This study focuses on duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, ADUs, and bungalow courts. MMH types are ‘middle’ in form and scale between that of small single-family houses and larger apartment buildings, enabling them to blend into existing residential neighborhoods. With smaller units, MMH can provide housing at price points attainable to many middle-income households.”

If you would like to see what missing middle housing looks like, head to midtown Sacramento, where missing middle is mostly NOT missing. Midtown has a mix of building uses and housing types. There are corner grocery stores, single family houses, bungalow courts (cottage court, in the MMH documents), multi-unit apartments, and large apartment buildings, with clusters of commercial areas hosted small locally owned businesses.

Midtown was created before the city decided (along with most governments) that uses should be far separated, jobs downtown and housing in the far suburbs. It prohibited most of the kinds of buildings that exist today in midtown. Some of this was through exclusionary zoning, and some through parking mandates that made affordable housing almost impossible. Most, though not all, of midtown escaped the city and state’s urban renewal travesty of the 1960s and 1970s. The city and state replaced missing middle, and lower income, housing, and the people who lived there, with state buildings and parking lots throughout downtown Sacramento (west of 15th Street). But the urban renewal project had just bitten into the edge of midtown, to 17th Street, before urban renewal was stopped, and the housing that had been purchased and not yet torn down was transferred to Capitol Area Development Agency (CADA). And parking mandates were removed from the central city (midtown and downtown).

The Missing Middle Housing Project will become part of the 2020 General Plan update. Four reports will be produced, and the first two are done: MMH Informational Report, and MMH Attainability & Livability Analysis. The analysis was the topic in front of the city council on October 24. All the public comments were in favor of the concept, and requested strengthening the project by removing some of the remnants of the old zoning regime such as tiers matching existing zoning patterns, and unnecessary dwelling unit limits. Floor area ratio (FAR) should be the only built environment limit. The council was also very much in favor of a stronger program, and clearly favored removal of dwelling unit limits. All the attendees were pleased at the support of the council for a strong MMH plan.

My point of concern was recommendation 9, Approval Process – “A discretionary design review process will be required for MMH projects, allowing opportunity for community input.” in the staff presentation. This page is below, and pdf. This type of community review, where NIMBYs are able to kill housing of any density greater than current density, and housing for people of color and lower income, is what got us into this fix to begin with, it is largely the reason missing middle housing is missing. It included in the final proposal, this one item could potentially kill any new housing, by allowing the same exclusionary policies to continue.

City staff tried to clarify that design review would be by city staff, and not public hearings, but that is not what the text says. It says ‘community input’. I’m certainly not opposed to community input, but it should be up front, at the level of policy review, and not review of individual projects. Review of individual projects would force middle housing to continue to be missing.

transportation and May is Bike Month thoughts (guest)

2023/11/082023/11/19 Dan Allison2 Comments

This is a guest post from reader Sonya Hendren. Sonya is a bike advocate and educator in the Sacramento region.

In looking back at this year’s May is Bike Month, two comments during meetings have left an impression, informing my current opinions on the efficacy of our bike advocacy.

During a neighborhood association meeting about walking/biking safety, a panelist emphasized that transportation projects are funded by competitive grants. It’s a fixed-sum game: if Sacramento gets a grant, all the losing cities’ projects are left unfunded. If another city’s project wins, Sacramento’s project doesn’t happen, at least not in this funding cycle, from this source. Of course our first instinct, mine included, is to cheer for Sacramento; we get funding, we do projects.

My revelation is that I don’t want Sacramento to win competitive grants. In the Freeport Blvd Transportation plan, the city never considered a road diet (reduction in lanes), despite it being a prominent request during the community input phase, because their goal is to maintain previous ADT (average daily traffic count.)¹The city works to maintain current levels of private-car use. The city’s Climate Action and Adaptation Plan, companion document to the General Plan, reduces the MCCC (Mayors’ Commission on Climate Change) goal of 30% Active Transportation, down to 6%. Under these practices and policies, Sacramento would use transportation funding to further cement car-dependency. Grant funding would be better spent in another city that is actually trying to shift transportation mode share away from private-cars, trying to reduce VMT (vehicle miles traveled). The project in another city would do more good to Sacramento by serving as a positive example, than spending the money in Sacramento under Sacramento’s current practices and policies.

Second, during a debrief-and-next-steps meeting on school “bike buses,” I learned that after Safe Routes to Schools programs end, feedback of continued walking/biking is the rare exception, not the norm. The norm is that Safe Routes to Schools programs are funded for one to three years, they get a group of kids walking or biking during those years, and when the funding ends, all the families go back to driving. Current infrastructure and incentives are such that without a paid person there helping, even students/families who have been taught how to walk/bike to school and practiced it for years, do not. That’s so discouraging: if “holding people’s hands,” not just teaching them the routes, but traveling those routes with them regularly, sometimes for years, doesn’t convert people to using the routes, how can any of our encouragement projects have any affect??

California needs to drop Caltrans, and create a Department of Highway Maintenance

2023/11/072023/11/07 Dan AllisonLeave a comment

Caltrans has sliced and diced cities with highways, dancing to the tune of segregationists who wanted to isolate and destroy communities of color so that they could ignore the existence of ‘those people’. Caltrans is not likely to be building any completely new highways in the future, though many in Caltrans would still like to. What they will be doing is continuing to widen existing highways, increasing motor vehicle capacity and inducing more driving. It seems that nothing will cure them of this, except disbanding of the agency and firing most of the highway engineers. So that is what I am proposing. In it’s place, there would be a Department of Highway Maintenance. The purpose would be to maintain our existing infrastructure, and I mean actually maintain, not just use safety and maintenance as a cover for widening. If bridges were replaced, they would be required to have the same or less motor vehicle capacity as before.

The department could do projects which remove motor vehicle capacity. This might include removing freeways completely, but with guidelines that prevent the design of ‘boulevards’ that are just as much traffic sewers as the freeways. It might include converting existing general purpose highway lanes to managed lanes, but would never include constructing new managed lanes. It might include projects which reduce on-ramps and off-ramps from two or more lanes to one lane, shortening the crosswalk distance over on-ramps and off-ramps, and creating right-angle on-ramps and off-ramps which slow motor vehicle drivers by design, and it might include narrowing freeway lanes and posting lower speed limits.

All designated state highways which are actually surface streets would be transferred to local transportation agencies, so the state highway system would shrink to actual freeways.

So what would happen to the funds that currently go to widening highways? I propose that one-third be given to local transportation agencies, on a competitive basis, for active transportation projects. All of this funding would go through the California State Transportation Agency; Caltrans would have nothing to do with it.

The other two-thirds would go for rail and transit. A Department of Rail and Transit would be created out of the existing Division of Rail and Mass Transportation. The purpose of this new department would be to purchase rail right-of-way, by condemnation if necessary, from the freight railroads, so that passenger rail may run in California without interference from the freights. It would also fund infrastructure and operations for rail and transit throughout the state. With the movement of funds from highway widening to rail, it should be possible to complete High Speed Rail on schedule, and to greatly enhance the operating frequency of the three regional rail services (Capitol Corridor, San Joaquins/Altamont Commuter Express (ACE), and Pacific Surfliner). Once higher frequency service and modern ticketing are in place, the regional rails would separate from Amtrak and be operated completely by the state. The state already owns the equipment. Though the agency could fund other transit, the emphasis would be on rail.

midtown wayfinding

2023/11/072023/11/10 Dan Allison5 Comments

Update: With some help from others, I located the Governors Mansion and Handle District signs, and have added that information.

The Midtown Association (Sacramento) has installed a series of wayfinding signs in the midtown area. More information is available at Explore Midtown – Your Way!. It appears that SAFE Credit Union is also a sponsor, as the central origin of the signing is the northwest corner of 15th Street and K Street, on the grounds of the SAFE Credit Union Convention Center and Performing Arts District. This location references 15 other wayfinding locations with its 16 posts. The other locations have four posts, one for the location itself and three destinations. The posts have QR codes which link to an Explore Midtown page for that location, listing nearby attractions and businesses. Businesses not a member of the association are not shown.

Midtown Association wayfinding signs at SAFE Convention Center and Performing Arts District

Number	Location	Intersection	URL
01	SAFE Credit Union Convention Center	1401 K St; 15th & K NW	http://bit.ly/MA-SAFE
02	Memorial Auditorium	1515 J St; 16th & J NW	https://bit.ly/MA-Memorial
03	Governors Mansion	1526 H St; 16th & H SE	https://bit.ly/MA-Governors
04	Muir Park	1515 C St; 16th & C NW	https://bit.ly/MA-Muir
05	Fremont Park	1515 Q St; 16th & P SW	https://bit.ly/MA-Fremont
06	Truitt Bark Park	1818 Q St; 19th & Q SW	https://bit.ly/MA-Truitt
07	Handle District	18/19/L/Capitol; 19th & L NW	https://bit.ly/MA-Handle
08	Lavender Heights	20th & K NW	https://bit.ly/MA-Lavender
09	Golden Hub	24th & K NW	https://bit.ly/MA-Golden
10	Marshall Park	915 27th St; 28th & J NW	https://bit.ly/MA-Marshall
11	Sutter’s Fort	2701 L St; 28th & L NW	https://bit.ly/MA-Fort
12	Midtown Sutter	27/28/J to N; 28th & Capitol SW	https://bit.ly/MA-Sutter
13	29th & R Streets	29th & R SE	https://bit.ly/MA-29th
14	Winn Park	1616 28th St; in park	https://bit.ly/MA-Winn
15	Alhambra District	Alhambra Blvd, J to S; Alhambra & J SW	https://bit.ly/MA-Alhambra

table of Midtown Association wayfinding locations

Note that I am not completely sure about the location numbers. Just as I was visiting each site, a contractor was placing base plates on each sign post, which covered the location numbers that were on each post.

Some of these names are well known and long used, but several seem to be made up for this project. I’m not against this idea – giving people a neighborhood name can increase identification and therefore support for your local neighborhood. On the other hand, efforts by developers to create their own neighborhood or district names are often laughed at, and San Francisco has a number of those.

The wayfinding sign locations are in the slideshow below. I’ve also included bike racks and utility box designs that highlight the Alhambra District.

Walkable City: The Interesting Walk

2023/11/07 Dan Allison1 Comment

To encourage you to participate in the last Walkable City book club meeting, tomorrow evening (Walkable City final book club November 8), some thoughts about the two steps in the ‘The Interesting Walk’ section (page 235 of the 10th Anniversary Edition).

Step 9: Make Friendly and Unique Faces

This step has five points: Invisible Parking, Sticky Versus Slippery Edges, Attack of the Starchitects, Too Much of a Thing, and Boring Nature. In invisible parking, Speck says structured parking should not be visible to people walking, but tucked away behind interesting buildings that draw in people walking. Of the parking garages in Sacramento, some are indeed hidden away, underground in some cases (good visually, but way too expensive to build), and behind commercial businesses in others. Other garages are glaringly obvious, presenting long stretches of sameness that discourages people walking, no matter how they go there (including the people who drove). Sticky edges have interest and variety, slippery edges are long stretches of sameness, often entire blocks where each foot look identical. Though thankfully Sacramento has less of the bland (I intended to type blank, but then, bland fits) than many cities. Government buildings are often the worst offenders. Walk along the north side of J Street between 14th and 15th Street, and you will know just how bad this can be. Starchitects is about cities selected star architects, who tend to design buildings that are interesting or beautiful, but have absolutely no connection to their surroundings. Too much is about how large developments look too much the same along their street faces, or if they do no, have fake variety. The solution is many buildings with a smaller face, built at different times by different developers (see Encouraging Fine-Grained Development by Andrew Price for an introduction). And finally, too much nature, in the city, can be just as boring as a suburb. We need small parks within walking distance of everyone, and of course we need street trees. But large expanses of park within city boundaries make for a less interesting place to walk, and push destinations further apart. An example it Land Park. It is wonderful, but it is just too much of a good thing. The park is mostly empty most of the time, and the parts that are more used are the zoo and Fairytale Town, the non-park parts of the park.

Step 10: Pick Your Winners

This step includes four points: Urban Triage, Anchors and Paths, The Lessons of LoDo, and Downtowns First. Urban triage means to focus effort and investment on places where it will make a big and immediate difference. Not places that are doing just fine, and not places that are hopeless, but places that can use a little help. This is not the Sacramento way. Anchors and paths means connecting two successful places that are close together but have an unwalkable or uninviting barrier between them, by fixing the walkability over short distances. The lessons of LoDo (lower downtown in Denver) is that an initial core of walkability and interest can spark transformation over a larger area. In LoDo, it was a brewery, and then restoration of the train station, and the area is now many square blocks that are largely successful. I’ve spent time there, and it is great, particularly the station. And focus on downtown means to not spread out investments everywhere in hopes they may make some difference, but rather on downtown where things are sort of good and have an existing structure of decent or historical old buildings (good bones is the common expression).

Part III: Update to the 10th Anniversary Edition

All of the book up through Step 10 is essentially unchanged since publication in 2012. The update section which follows Step 10 (page 263) goes into depth on several issues, addresses new trends over the 10 years, corrects some mistakes (particularly as it related to bicycles), and has a fascination section on responsibility for urban planners. Well worth a read, though there is anything directly related to these last two steps of the original book.

Book Club

What do you think? Do you agree? Disagree? Have a different vision, or a different approach? Come to the book club to listen to others and share your ideas. You do not need to have read this section of the book to participate, though you may enjoy it more if you have.

Jeanie Ward Waller

2023/11/07 Dan Allison3 Comments

Jeanie Ward Waller, former Deputy Director for Planning and Modal Programs Caltrans, was fired in September, in retaliation for questioning illegal expenditures on highway widening, and threatening to file a whistleblower complaint. Though I’ve added several comments about this to other blog posts, these deserve their own prominence.

Blowing the whistle on widening freeways (KPBS Freeway Exit podcast);
https://www.kpbs.org/podcasts/freeway-exit/bonus-blowing-the-whistle-on-widening-freeways

I Lost My Job at Caltrans for Speaking Out Against Highway Widening;
https://cal.streetsblog.org/2023/11/03/i-lost-my-job-at-caltrans-for-speaking-out-against-highway-widening

Jeanie Ward Waller at ECOS Climate Committee;
https://gettingaroundsac.blog/2023/10/16/jeanie-ward-waller-at-ecos-climate-committee/

CalBike Joins 100 Organizations Urging More Oversight of Caltrans;
https://www.calbike.org/calbike-joins-60-organizations-urging-more-oversight-of-caltrans/

California Transportation Commission Chair: “Widen Freeways for the People”;
https://cal.streetsblog.org/2023/10/24/california-transportation-commission-chair-widen-freeways-for-the-people

More Than 60 Organizations Urge Governor Newsom to Intervene at Caltrans;
https://cal.streetsblog.org/2023/10/17/letter-to-governor-newsom-intervene-at-caltrans

Sign-on to Support a Moratorium on Highway Expansions in California (for organizations);
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdQI_O5bdYPjAPxi7pMP-SzuMGPYlrxOMwaak21CT90Eh6GOg/viewform?fbzx=4437060886318091529

A Caltrans executive questioned a freeway expansion. Then she was demoted;
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-10-13/caltrans-whistleblower-says-demoted-block-freeway-expansion

Caltrans official says she was demoted for objecting to highway expansion; https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/03/caltrans-official-demoted-whistleblower-complaint-00119767

Caltrans “Shakeup” is a Bad Sign;
https://cal.streetsblog.org/2023/09/19/caltrans-shakeup-is-a-bad-sign

Central City Mobility update #27

2023/11/072023/11/07 Dan Allison2 Comments

It has been a long while since I’ve posted on the Central City Mobility Project. I’ve been traveling, and backpacking, and project implementation has slowed down.

This is Central City Mobility Project update #27.

I Street is largely complete, from 21st Street to 12th Street. Part of the route is pretty standard separated bikeway, as below, but of the new bike facilities, it is the most erratic, changing design almost every block. The bikeway, at 16th Street, second below, is not a bike facility at all, but a car facility, designed to not inconvenience drivers turning right from I Street to 16th Street.

I St at 16th St separated bikeway across motor vehicle turn lane

The concrete turn wedges were being hit by drivers frequently (and some bicyclists), shortly after they were installed. Reflective strips were added, below, and most drivers have gotten accustomed to the turn wedges and are not hitting them, but it continues on a rarer basis. I believe that additional warning signing is going to be installed on the turn wedges, but I haven’t seen this yet.

reflective strips on concrete turn wedges

The concrete turn wedge at Q Street and 21st Street was never installed, so it may have been dropped from the plan.

The paint, not concrete, turn wedges have had K-71 green vertical delineators installed, making them somewhat more visible, and somewhat more respected by drivers. The promised rubber speed bumps have not been installed anywhere, probably a supply chain issue.

The promised bicycle signal at 21st Street and I Street is still not installed.

Though most of the separated bikeways have received green K-71 vertical delineators, a few have not.

Along P Street an added double white line has been installed on some blocks, photo below. I don’t know why, but it must be to solve some issue that was not solved by the original design.

After being mostly neglected, curb designations for loading zones and short term parking have been installed in several places. The photo below shows the white curb with added pavement stencils for a loading zone on P Street approaching 16th Street. This is probably the location that was most being abused by both delivery drivers and private vehicle drivers, so this is good to see. White curb loading zones don’t have a designated time limit, and I have seen this location abused by private vehicle drivers, which should not be here at all since this designation is for commercial loading, but it is far better than before.

Lastly, there seems to be new activity on 5th Street, so that part of the project may be moving forward again. I’ll check it out and post.

I have not visited the south end of 19th Street, nor the south end of 21st Street, so I don’t know if those locations have been improved. Both were a mess. I’ll try to get there and report.

Getting Around Sacramento

by foot, bicycle, and public transit (car-free!)