Lodi council discusses affordable housing, ADA accessibility
The Lodi City Council discussed affordable housing and the city’s ADA accessibility during its shirtsleeve session Tuesday morning.
The council received a presentation on the city’s 2016 draft analysis of impediments to fair housing and the 2016 Americans with Disabilities Act transition plan.
The analysis of impediments determines the current state of fair housing, identifies impediments and creates a plan to address them, said Jessica Hayes, a grants specialist with the city.
All agencies that are grantees of federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD) funds are required to complete an analysis of impediments, Hayes said.
Hayes’ analysis identified nine impediments to fair housing in Lodi. Four of the impediments resulted from a shortage of housing, particularly subsidized housing, affordable housing for large families and affordable newer housing. Other impediments were housing discrimination, including different mortgage origination or denial rates in certain neighborhoods, a lack of knowledge about fair housing and mortgage lending, and an overall lack of knowledge about housing discrimination in general.
Two impediments involved the long-term impacts of housing policy, including the growth management allocation ordinance and past policies that directly or indirectly resulted in minority concentrations in less desirable neighborhoods.
Councilman Alan Nakanishi asked how Lodi stacked up against other cities when it comes to fair and affordable housing.
“California has had a shortage of new developed housing, and the affordable housing shortage has just really skyrocketed,” Hayes said.
Affordable housing is a universal issue, Hayes said, noting that Lodi is pretty comparable with other cities and is facing a lot of the same issues and challenges in this current housing market as other jurisdictions.
The analysis does not include recommended action items to address the identified impediments and is just an informative document that will be used in the next planning process, Hayes said.
“It’s a good document to have because it tells you where things currently stand,” Hayes said.
In the future, the assessment of fair housing will be a more detailed analysis of impediments that would include recommended actions to address those impediments, Hayes said, adding that the documents will be completed regionally instead of from city to city.
According to Patrice Clemons, Lodi Community Development Block Grant program specialist, the ADA transition plan is made up of a self-evaluation, a transition plan, a grievance procedure and a plan for implementation.
The evaluation involves identifying and evaluating all of the city’s programs, activities and services and whether they deny or limit access to those with disabilities.
The transition plan identifies physical barriers to accessibility for those with disabilities, lists recommended action for removing those barriers, maps out a timeline for those actions and the estimated cost. Barrier removal has been ongoing with improvements to Hutchins Street Square, the City Hall Annex, Kofu Park, the Ham Lane overlay, the sidewalk repair program and the GrapeLine bus stops.
According to Clemons, the timeline for a majority of the removal projects is 15 years with some of the projects due in 2018.
Removal of the barriers is estimated to cost the city about $10,311,000 and possible sources of funding include the city’s general fund, as well as CDBG funding, the Transportation Development Act and Measure K.