By Town Crier Staff Report

Santa Clara County, thanks to communities like Los Altos and Los Altos Hills, is the fourth least affordable place to live in the nation according to a newly released housing study. And the situation doesn’t look like it’s going to improve anytime soon, local housing experts say.

Even during the current recession, the mean home price in Santa Clara County stands at $551,317 for existing homes and $740,003 for new homes. The median-income household can afford to buy only approximately 15 percent of the houses sold in the county. This number contrasts with the national average of 63 percent, according to the County of Santa Clara Housing Task Force Report.

The Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) estimated that between 1995-2000, six jobs were created for every housing unit built in Santa Clara County. The association expects this imbalance to continue between 2000-2005, with 2.5 jobs for every unit of new housing, mostly concentrated in the northern part of the county, including Cupertino, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Santa Clara and Sunnyvale.

“The persistent housing crisis has focused the attention of community leaders and policy makers on the need for action. However, in spite of the efforts to respond on the part of the fifteen local cities and townships, and the County itself … the crisis worsens. This sobering truth, that no one institution can solve this problem, presents a unique challenge for anyone concerned about the long-term health of Silicon Valley,” according to the report.

The report concludes that the county has not played a central role in the development of housing because zoning and land use authority, which has the most impact on housing production levels, is retained by the 15 cities and townships within the county.

The county’s efforts “have hardly begin to scratch the surface of the housing needs of extremely low-income special needs individuals and families,” the report concludes.

As a result of what county officials have called a “persistent housing crisis” and a “threat to the economic vitality and social fabric” of the community, the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors has introduced a regional plan to make housing a county priority. The board recently created the Office of Affordable Housing, earmarked $18 million for affordable housing projects over the next four year and plans to involve the area’s 15 cities in implementing its regional plan.

The Office of Affordable Housing is expected to strategically coordinate existing county housing services and seek opportunities for the County to contribute resources to the creation of more potential housing solutions. The office may serve as support to the Board of Supervisors in order to exert countywide leadership on housing policies and to bring together multiple local jurisdictions to form a County Housing Commission.

“As elected public servants of the County of Santa Clara,” the board said in the report’s prologue, “we have heard the compelling stories of working parents struggling to make ends meet, of young families wondering if they will ever be able to purchase a home here, of senior citizens worrying if their fixed incomes will force them to leave the region they helped build, and of employees yearning to live in the community they serve. The scarcity of affordable housing touches us all.”

The formation of the County of Santa Clara Housing Task Force 18 months ago was the first step in formulating a regional plan. The report served as the foundation for the board’s new plan.

The final report may be accessed at www.housingtrustscc.org/chtf.