What’s bigger than a breadbox, sleeps two, and you have to work 126 hours a month at $15 an hour to rent?
The answer: A new studio apartment in Manteca.
Keep in mind after spending $1,895 a month to put a roof over your head working 40 hours a week at $15 an hour that you’ll have a whopping $510 a month left for incidentals such as food, deodorant, phone, transportation, and clothing.
And if you’ve checked prices at the grocery store lately you could easily blow the entire $510 on eating Top Ramen three times a day for a month.
That was the good news.
The bad news, if the experts are right, is when the rent moratorium is finally lifted it could place more upward pressure on rental prices as landlords that have been burned by people not paying rent for 18 months raise prices to cover their losses.
This is not good.
There are those who believe a housing market correction when it arrives as they inevitable do at some point it won’t make much difference in places like Manteca, Lathrop as well as Tracy. That’s because the three cities — and now even Modesto and Stockton — are the affordable housing solution for the Bay Area.
There have been two housing market corrections in Manteca since 1980. In 1989 home sale prices started a 10 percent decline. The start of the 2009 downturn saw house resale price eventually drop 30 percent.
During each downturn apartment annual rent increases stalled a year or two. They did not decrease like house prices did.
California is simply not building enough houses. Everyone in a position of power seems to know that. They even concede government regulations that slow down the approval process add to the cost of housing such as solar and fire sprinkler requirements or add to the cost of owning a home such as the move to eliminate efficient and less costly natural gas to heat homes are part of the problem.
It has created a situation where there are too many dollars chasing a commodity that can’t provide a large enough supply to meet demand. It causes inflation just like higher costs of production and raw materials.
And it will be a long time before the tons of dollars being created in the Bay Area combined with the tourniquet that is the local housing market in places from San Jose to Pleasanton to Oakland and even Brentwood eases enough not to give Manteca and surrounding communities a high fever ever time the Bay Area sneezes.
Against all this local officials for decades have been making Don Quixote style promises to slay the housing cost dragon. But all they have to offer — which by the way has never been implemented or actually given more than a rousing declaration or two for a call for action during election cycles and even at council meetings — won’t make a difference.
And the suggestion they saddle new homebuyers — including those that barely qualify for the lowest priced new home on the market — with an affordable housing fee has the potential to make things worse.
Picking the low hanging fruit regarding affordable housing measures such as density bonuses or inclusionary zoning designed to encourage developers to voluntarily provide more at-market affordable housing that is smaller without financial incentives is not the answer.
The so-called “tool boxes” they want to use are akin to using a spray bottle to combat a raging wildfire.
It’s time we end the charade and be brutally honest.
Whatever energy elected officials — and by extension city senior management — invest into any effort aimed at encouraging the building of new housing to make it affordable will only address the affordable housing needs of Bay Area communities creating well-paying jobs and little or no additional housing within their boundaries.
Once we concede the truth, then maybe, just maybe, city leaders can take steps to improve the odds of people earning Manteca paychecks to be able to afford Manteca rents.
A thousand apologies if anyone is offended but it should be clear by now Manteca needs to forgo the idea that traditional single family homes on 6,000 square foot lots or even new development can address the ever eroding housing affordability situation in this community.
It is why auxiliary dwelling units known by the moniker granny flats or robust “standalone” garage conversions need to be actively and aggressively pursued by the City of Manteca.
If you don’t think you can’t design a livable space in 550 square feet — basically the size of a typical two-car tract home garage built in the 1970s — you need to take a look at studio apartments in The Atherton complex next door to Bass Pro Shops people are willing to pay $1,895 a month to rent.
Garage conversions that create the same amount of self-contained living space can pencil out financially with a cash flow for the owner to rent the space for half the cost of an Atherton studio.
A $200 or so jump in monthly income for a homeowner can raise their quality of life while at the same time making it possible for more attainable housing for Manteca.
Separate granny flats that have more living space could even be carved out from the existing parcel and sold.
The city, of course, will tell you all of this is possible because the state has mandated it to be allowed.
But that ignores the fact there are tremendous roadblocks put in place by the city doing business as usual that discourage people from becoming landlords for the first time — and for one housing unit — despite the fact it could eventually raise their financial lot in life as well.
The city could do a lot of things to make it possible for hundreds, if not thousands, of Manteca homeowners to do what new development has failed miserably at since at least 1995 —address affordable housing needs of existing Manteca residents which are essentially the children of Manteca residents that secure local jobs after graduation and not the affordable housing needs of the Bay Area.
The list includes:
*Providing, free of charge, basic blueprints for three basic garage conversions and three basic granny flats that can be easily modified.
*Lining up lenders willing to finance such construction and offer mortgages to homeowners once the work is done.
*Reducing fees that make sense for true infill projects that maximize the use of existing city infrastructure.
*Making the approval process as efficient and timely as possible.
As things stand now Manteca’s elected officials have a believability problem of their own making.
They keep making promises either they can’t keep, don’t want to keep, or that are impossible to keep when it comes to affordable housing.
The way to change the dismal track record is to tailor the solutions to the problem they say they want to resolve — affordable housing that is Manteca centric and not Bay Area centric.
This column is the opinion of editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinions of The Bulletin or 209 Multimedia. He can be reached at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
