YIMBY, NIMBY – both address the concept of yes or no in my backyard. Yet, what happens when each change, when each development, goes beyond your or my backyard? The whole balance of a community, our environment, our earth is involved. When community members voice concerns about the proposed or planned developments at SDC (Sonoma Developmental Center), or the Sebastiani Winery parcels, it seems like requesting any change to these plans opens up the YIMBY, NIMBY name-calling circus.
For this column, back in 2022, I crunched some numbers to see how much money a family of three would need to buy a home at 120 percent AMI (area median income). I came up with $121,800 per year. If they pay 30 percent of their income for rent or a mortgage, it should then be $3,045 per month. Even using the low interest rates of 2022, with 10 percent down, I came up with a mortgage payment of $4,034 for a $650,000 home. So think of what it would be today, and what is this family of three going to get for $650,000 in today’s market? Remember that this number does not include property tax or insurance. And they would still be short $1000 per month.
If we look at recent, new, market-rate developments in the City of Sonoma, we see prices of well over a million dollars. At present, the City of Sonoma requires 25 percent of housing projects to be deed-restricted affordable (the City is discussing lowering this percentage). Within this 25 percent there are extremely low, very low and low income levels. As you can see those with incomes lower than the median have even less of a chance of getting housing in these planned developments…