Lawsuit is right: Elk Grove discriminated against homeless in affordable housing decision

Remember when Elk Grove officials made homelessness illegal — hey, can we do hunger next? — and then nixed an affordable housing project in Old Town because, oh sadness, even though they felt just horrible about it, zoning restrictions wouldn’t allow such a thing in an area zoned only for commerce?

Well you’re not going to believe it, but the same officials approved a similar project for market-rate housing just a few blocks away, even though, unlike the affordable housing project, there will be no office space open to the public there at all.

And even though, exactly like the affordable housing project, there will be first-floor residential space, which was supposedly why the affordable housing project had to be rejected.

Isn’t it amazing how flexible these zoning guidelines are when it suits our elected officials, and how rigid they are when it doesn’t?

This is why those involved in the affordable housing project, which would provide 67 permanent supportive housing units for formerly homeless folks, filed suit against Elk Grove on Tuesday, alleging that the City Council’s decision was discriminatory, broke several state laws and ought to be reversed.

If the intention wasn’t discriminatory, the effect absolutely was.

The July decision blocked Oak Rose Apartments from being built on an empty 1.2-acre field south of Elk Grove Boulevard and east of Webb Street. At the time, we called the unanimous vote against this project senseless and shortsighted. But it turns out to have been even more problematic than we thought.

“The City Council tried to cool down the hostile rhetoric and mossbacked NIMBYism that filled the council chambers,” we wrote then. “But it still sided with those sentiments by denying the Oak Rose Apartments because of narrow zoning rules and planning guidelines for the Old Town area.”

Not really, since those “narrow” zoning rules had wiggle room to spare when it came time to approve D & S Development’s Elk Grove Railroad Courtyards — 33 rental homes it calls live/work units -— on Railroad Street in Old Town. That project was approved, the suit says, even though it includes 17 ground-floor residential units and did not request or get a formal Density Bonus Law waiver.

Dana Trujillo, CEO of Excelerate Housing Group, which would build the affordable housing project, said in a statement that, “We have exhausted every avenue with the city to get them to approve the project. At this point, we have no choice but to ask for the court’s assistance to get this project the green light it legally deserves.”

Erin Johansen, of HOPE Cooperative, which would provide services at the site, said most people don’t understand that especially when formerly homeless people have housing and services, they pose no particular threat. “Law enforcement calls for service are low in our properties, but the public is afraid,” even though services make supportive housing an asset to neighborhoods.

Elk Grove planning manager Antonio Ablog explained over the summer that Trujillo’s proposals simply “do not meet the land use regulations which require commercial development on the first floor and no residential development. They are proposing 19 units on the ground floor which are not allowed by the land use regulations. Therefore, they can’t be granted a density bonus. … We don’t have a way to recommend approval of this.”

After the suit was filed on Tuesday, Ablog did not immediately return phone and email messages seeking comment.

In July, Elk Grove Mayor Bobbie Singh-Allen said compassion and shared sacrifice were key. “This requires a regional approach,” she said. It does, but right now, almost all affordable housing in the region is being built in Sacramento, and very little anywhere else in the county.

Currently, Johansen said, there are 1,801 affordable housing units in production in Sacramento, 600 specifically for homeless people, and none in Elk Grove that are 100% dedicated to homeless folks.

“If you don’t have any,” Trujillo told us, “it’s hard to solve your homeless problem.” There are about 150 people living on the street in Elk Grove.

When the Oak Rose project was still under consideration, Jackie Perez, who owns a flower shop next to the proposed site of the affordable housing, told ABC10 that she might close Jackie’s Flowers if people who used to be homeless moved in next door. “I’m worried somebody will be in the backyard which no one would see if something happened to me — it’s just a very scary feeling.”

Like others, she said she is all for affordable housing, as long as it’s located somewhere else: “We don’t have a problem helping the homeless, we just don’t want it right in the middle of town where all of our kids’ safety and all of our safety is gonna be compromised.”

This is a common attitude, of course, but what would really make all Californians safer? More projects like Oak Rose, especially in places like Elk Grove that are the NIMBY-est.