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The City of Eureka today received some detailed information from a state housing official about the potential implications of Measure F, aka “The Eureka Housing for All and Downtown Vitality Initiative.”

In a letter to Mayor Kim Bergel and the city council, Melinda Coy, chief of the Proactive Housing Accountability Unit of the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD), says that if the measure passes next month, it would not be allowed to take immediate effect.

In fact, because it aims to alter the housing element of the city’s general plan, HCD would need to review those changes to ensure “substantial compliance” with state regulations. The city would need to submit a draft of the changes to HCD at least 60 days prior to adoption, and the state would then scrutinize them to see if they pass muster.

If you’re still a little fuzzy on exactly what Measure F aims to do, here’s a quick summary. It would:

1. Create an “Off-street Public Parking Overlay Designation” on 21 city-owned parking lots, limiting their use to public parking, bicycle parking or high-density residential development. However, any new housing projects on those sites would need to be built atop the existing ground-level parking, with no reduction in the number of spots, and additional parking spaces may be required for new residents. (Six approved and in-progress housing development projects that have received tens of millions of dollars in funding would not meet these parking requirements.)
2. Rezone the former Jacobs Middle School campus property to allow a wide range of additional land uses, including high-density residential for at least 40 percent of the ground area, plus medium- and low-density housing, public and quasi-public uses and a variety of commercial uses. (Worth noting that the land is owned by Eureka City Schools, which is in negotiations to sell a portion of the property to the California Highway Patrol.)
3. Amend the city’s housing element accordingly.

Coy’s letter mostly deals with that last provision, and while she doesn’t come right out and say that Measure F could totally mess up the city’s compliance with state housing law, she does recount the years of collaboration between Eureka and HCD to ensure that the city fulfills its obligation to “affirmatively further fair housing.”

Eureka has been assigned a Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) of 952 units, meaning it must have specific plans to accommodate that many new housing units, 378 of which must be for lower-income households. Eureka’s met that obligation in part by declaring a collection of city-owned parking lots “surplus” and making plans to develop housing projects there. The city’s adopted housing element was certified as compliant with state housing laws in November of 2022.

But Measure F would amend the city’s “sites inventory,” forcing Eureka to remove those parking lot parcels from its housing element. And while Measure F would allow for the potential of more housing development at the Jacobs site, the state might not green-light the restrictions it would enact on housing development downtown.

Coy explains that, in reviewing the changes Measure F would implement, HCD would check to make sure the newly proposed housing sites are suitable and available for housing development within the planning period. The agency would also check to ensure the city’s modified housing element doesn’t constrain housing development or inhibit compliance with other state housing laws, including “minimum parking limitations within one-half mile of public transit.”

This is a key detail, because one of Measure F’s major provisions is the parking limitations it would apply to those 21 city-owned parking lot parcels — most if not all of which are within a half mile of public transit. In other words, there’s no guarantee that the state would sign off on a housing element that’s been modified the way Measure F describes.

And if the city’s housing element is deemed non-compliant with state housing law, it could have dire consequences, Coy warns, “including ineligibility or delay in receiving certain state funds, referral to the California Office of the Attorney General (AGO), court-imposed financial penalties, the loss of local land use authority to a court-appointed agent, and the application of the ‘builder’s remedy.’”

The city could also face financial penalties, “such as a minimum of $10,000 per month and associated attorney costs … for any action brought by the AGO or HCD to enforce the adoption of housing element revisions.”

The city could also lose its “Prohousing Designation,” which allows Eureka to access certain funding opportunities and be more competitive for others, including money from housing, community development and infrastructure programs.

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Meanwhile, the most expensive ballot measure in Eureka history just keeps getting pricier thanks to a wide open checkbook from Security National Properties Holding Company, the real estate loan servicing firm founded by semi-local tycoon Robin P. Arkley, II. 

On Monday, the “Yes on F” campaign reported its largest single campaign contribution to date: $363,517.11. With this latest cash infusion, the so-called “Housing for All and Downtown Vitality Initiative” has now raised $1,587,554, with all but $600 of that coming directly from Security National.

To put that amount into perspective, if Eureka voters turn out in roughly the same numbers as they did during the last presidential election then Security National will have spent about $131 per voter. And that’s if you don’t include the company’s $650,000 purchase of the parking lot in front of City Hall, which remains barricaded to prevent anyone from parking there. 

Meanwhile, the “No on F” campaign also reported a new donation: $1,000 from the SEIU Local 2015 PAC. That brings the campaign’s total to $20,537, or about 1.2 percent of what Security National has raised.

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DOCUMENT: HCD Letter Re: Adopted Housing Element Revision Process – Letter of Technical Assistance