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EASTHAMPTON — At 92 years old, Bob Jensen has spent nearly all his life in the labor movement. A union bricklayer who arrived in western Massachusetts on a football scholarship at American International College, he ended up becoming a labor educator at the University of Connecticut, a negotiator with the American Federation of Teachers and an active organizer locally.

As Jensen surveys the state of organized labor in western Massachusetts and beyond, after decades involved in workers’ struggles locally and nationwide, he said there’s a lot to be optimistic about.

“Workers are fed up in every area,” he said, from airline pilots to baristas. “They’re organizing to demand what is rightfully theirs.”

Jensen was addressing a large gathering of union members, activists and organizers celebrating Labor Day at the Western Mass Area Labor Federation’s picnic in Easthampton on Sunday.

As a wave of high-profile union organizing continues to sweep across the country, including in western Massachusetts, several recent nationwide polls have found that support for unions is higher than it has been in decades. After a summer of strikes and almost strikes, from actors and writers to UPS drivers, 2023 may see the most U.S. workers walking off the job since the 2018 “Red for Ed” teacher strikes.

Western Massachusetts has had its own moment in the spotlight, too, amid all of that organizing. Since last summer, Hadley has been home to several “firsts” in unionizing large corporate chains: Trader Joe’s last July, Barnes & Noble this May and Michael’s last month. Educators across the region fought public battles for new contracts, retail workers walked off the job, nurses picketed the loss of hospital beds and daycare workers in Springfield went out on strike.

Now, as the summer comes to a close, labor organizers and union leaders around the area are reflecting on the rejuvenated state of the labor movement in western Massachusetts and the struggles they see ahead.

“It definitely feels like there’s a new energy and excitement,” Max Page, the president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, told The Shoestring. “So often, we’re like: ‘Everything sucks.’ Now we’re like: ‘What can we achieve.’”

Page is part of the rank-and-file, activist caucus within the MTA — Educators for a Democratic Union — that over the past 10 years has reshaped the union’s vision to fight aggressively for progressive policies inside and outside of the classroom. Last year, the MTA successfully put forward a ballot question that raised taxes on the state’s millionaires to better fund education and transportation — an initiative Page said that western Massachusetts turned out in large numbers to vote for in November, playing a vital role in its passage. The union has also supported educators across the state going out on strike, despite the fact that state law bars public employees from striking.

Now, the MTA is prioritizing two long-time goals of education activists: scrapping Massachusetts’ high-stakes MCAS testing and making public higher education debt-free for the state’s students.

“This is the year to win it,” he said.

The past year, immigrant workers have also seen some of the fruits of their longtime struggles for economic and racial justice.

In a phone interview with The Shoestring, Pioneer Valley Workers Center Executive Director Claudia Rosales said that immigrant workers and their families won a major victory this year when, in July, undocumented immigrants could begin applying for driver’s licenses in Massachusetts. After years of organizing work by the Workers Center and other groups across the state, state lawmakers last year passed the Work and Family Mobility Act — a major priority for immigrant workers and their allies across the state.

“It’s so important because it stops families from being separated by detentions on the part of ICE,” Rosales said, using the acronym for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Now, Rosales said, the next legislative priority for local farm workers is challenging the state’s minimum wage law. After a five-year hike to the minimum wage, workers in Massachusetts earn a minimum wage of $15 per hour. However, agricultural laborers are exempt from that law, meaning employers can pay them as little as $8 per hour.

“We need to get that off the books,” she said.

Those who have spent decades organizing workers locally expressed optimism that now is the time to win victories like those.

Jeff Jones first got involved in the local labor movement as a Stop &s Shop worker in the 1980s. Now the president of UFCW Local 1459 and the executive board of the Western Mass Area Labor Federation, he said those entering the workforce now are increasingly organizing for better pay and conditions.

“It’s a whole new, younger generation that has come in and is eager to learn the history of the labor movement and apply it,” he said. And western Massachusetts, he added, is “one of the most progressive pockets in the labor movement,” having an outsized influence despite the region’s small size.

Clare Hammonds, a professor at the influential UMass Amherst Labor Center, pointed to the workers unionizing at Barnes & Noble and Michael’s as an example of western Massachusetts organizers tackling big issues.

But union membership does still remain in decline, however, despite the high-profile surge in new organizing. In 2022, union membership hit a record low of 10.1%. But Hammonds said that as more workers win unions, that winning is contagious.

The issues those workers in Hadley and beyond are discussing — fair pay and decent hours, for example — aren’t new. What is new, she said, is the energy and support they feel from the community as they step up and take risks to improve their working conditions.

“It feels like we’re on the cusp of something really exciting,” she said.

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Dusty Christensen is an independent investigative reporter based in western Massachusetts. He can be reached at dusty.christensen@protonmail.com. Follow him on Twitter: @dustyc123.

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It’s taking longer than expected, but residents in Clinton should once again have a hospital operating in their community soon, while those living in Woodward hope to experience a seamless continuation of hospital services during an operational transition later this year. Plans call for the emergency room of Clinton Regional Hospital to open Oct. 30, […]

The post Two western Oklahoma cities work to preserve their hospitals appeared first on NonDoc.

The Tucker, Barbour, and Randolph County pocket of central West Virginia is a beautiful part of the state. Embraced by the million-acre Monongahela National Forest, the region has become a prized location for well-appointed second homes and retirement tranquility. There’s lots to do: ski resorts, both downhill and cross country; vast miles of hiking and biking trails; campgrounds galore – an outdoor recreation mecca.

All of which is a boost to the local economy. And it’s needed. The coal industry, which once helped fuel this economy, has been in steady decline. Barbour County ranks 51st of West Virginia’s 55 counties in per capita income – this in the third-poorest state in the country. And though Tucker County, to the east, is faring better, few are getting rich.

For three decades, Woodlands Development Group has advanced economic opportunities in these three heavily rural counties while striving to keep them affordable. It’s a delicate balance.

Woodlands develops sustainable, affordable housing and supports economic initiatives in Barbour, Randolph, and Tucker counties. It assists with the development of parks, trails, community centers, and greenspaces. Its lending arm, Woodlands Community Lenders, offers access to capital and technical assistance to businesses and nonprofits.

The Tucker County towns of Thomas and Davis, each with a population under 1,000, have become attractive art and outdoor recreation destinations, with thrumming downtown businesses in storefronts that once stood shuttered.

But shadowing this boon are concerns that the artists/entrepreneurs and others who reanimated these streets will no longer be able to afford to reside here and that this same dynamic could eventually play out across the region.

“We weren’t working on building a cool little destination town,” said Seth Pitts, an artist and gallery owner in Thomas. Rather, the vision was to build a community “where we want to live. I’m just hoping the people who helped revitalize the downtown are able to stay here.”

Woodlands Development Group shares that ambition.

‘We’re Present’

The group is headquartered in the town of Elkins, in Randolph County, which borders, to the south, Barbour and Tucker counties. The organization was launched in 1995 by the Randolph County Housing Authority as a “nimble” resource, in Executive Director Dave Clark’s words, to address affordable housing. It’s evolved over the years.

Downtown renovation is a primary focus.

“We make direct investments in downtown buildings,” Clark said, “but we also can support private developers and private building owners, particularly if they want to take an old building and convert it from vacant space into a marketable space. So we’ll help them with the whole gamut.” That can include design, construction estimates, financing, and more.

“We’ve gotten more and more involved with tax-credit programs,” Clark said, “which really are the big-dollar programs in community development across the country – historic tax credits and low-income housing tax credits, predominantly.”

“I like to think of Woodlands as, first and foremost, a community-planning and organizing entity,” he said, which is why it remains largely focused on those three core counties. They comprise some 2,000 square miles but only 50,000 people. That focus allows the Woodlands staff to “keep our finger on the pulse and be more responsive and engaged.”

“I don’t think we’re doing anything magical or special,” Clark said. Staff members live throughout the region, attending city council meetings, joining the Rotary Club. “We’re present.”

“They’re holistic in nature,” said Vonda Poynter, senior vice president of membership for Fahe, a network of community-building Appalachia-based nonprofits, of which Woodlands is a member.

“Some organizations can’t step out of their lane to address an issue,” Poynter said, whereas Woodlands offers “creative solutions” designed to meet each need.

Downtown Abuzz

Elkins, a town of 7,500, has long been the hub of this three-county region. Among its attractions are the depot from which five scenic Durbin and Greenbriar Valley Railroad excursions embark. The Augusta Heritage Center holds a three-week summer event featuring world-class musicians. And the Mountain State Forest Festival attracts up to 100,000 people each autumn.

Woodlands’ biggest project to date is currently underway in downtown Elkins: a revitalization of the grand old Tygart Hotel. The hotel was converted to apartments a half-century or so ago and had incrementally fallen into “what we often refer to as ‘housing of last resort,’” Clark said.

In 2015, community leaders asked if Woodlands would be interested in purchasing the building and restoring it to its hotel origin. “I honestly didn’t think it would ever fly as a hotel,” Clark said. Woodlands brought in a Virginia group that specializes in boutique hotels. “They came back, and the numbers looked really pretty good; they thought there was a lot of potential.”

“Someone might have said, in a feasibility study, ‘It’d be better to tear that sucker down and build new – which you might have spent just about the same amount of money on,” Poynter said. “But doing something that preserves a building and invests in the community in that manner is, again, a very holistic approach to their housing and community-development work.”

The 56-room Tygart Hotel is scheduled to be completed by the end of the year, a $17-million-plus project.

Meanwhile, Woodlands Development Group is working with six new downtown-building owners, assisting with renovations. Young people who had left are returning and investing.

Among the businesses that will be making its downtown debut is Big Timber Brewing – owned by locals who returned, and one of Woodlands’ first borrowers – which will be relocating its taproom a block from the hotel. And the local development authority recently received funding to build an event center.

The hotel project has “definitely facilitated a lot of development,” Clark said.

‘A Direct Connection’

The town of Thomas is 37 vertiginous miles to the northeast up two-lane U.S.-48. “Hidden gem” is the all-too-well-worn term used to describe Thomas and its sister town, Davis, six miles farther along 48.

A couple of dozen relatively new storefronts, most of them formerly abandoned, now adorn Thomas’s Front Street. About two-thirds of them, Clark estimates, are operated by local artists. Woodlands has played a critical role in this development.

Seth Pitts is an illustrator and writer who’s been foundational to the town’s revitalization. He and his business partners received a loan from Woodlands to purchase the building that became both his gallery and home.

“I don’t think a bank necessarily would have loaned to us,” Pitts said. “But they know us,” he said of Woodlands. Woodlands’ staff’s direct connection to the community, he said, allowed for them to “look at our assets in a more creative way” – to appreciate what they brought to the community.

Finding the Balance

Given that so much of the surrounding acreage is protected parkland, potential options for new housing development in the region are limited.

A four-lane road now connects Davis to the Washington, D.C., metropolis. It’s a two-and-a-half-hour drive that used to take four.

Clark noted that second-home development and Airbnb conversion are incrementally nudging folks out of Davis and Thomas. Workforce families are migrating down toward the town of Parsons, 15 miles to the south, which, he said, isn’t an ideal alternative. It’s a 2,000-foot climb from Parsons to Thomas, a drive that can be treacherous in the winter.

Barring Airbnbs outright is probably not the right solution, Pitts said. More practical is encouraging structures that combine a unit or more of affordable housing with Airbnb or something else that accommodates the owner recouping their investment.

A bottom-line objective in future development, he said, should be promoting solutions that facilitate those who’ve put in the sweat equity to continue pursuing their ambitions.

Back in Elkins, Dustin Smith reflects on that town’s past and future. Smith, Woodland’s director of project development, is a northern Pennsylvania native who came to work for the group a decade ago as an AmeriCorps member and stayed on.

“I feel like I’ve seen a lot of change in the last 10 years, and it feels like we’re really kind of on the precipice,” he said.

Clark agrees: “It feels like Elkins maybe hasn’t turned the corner but is getting there. More storefronts are open and you’re seeing many more people downtown at night.”

Smith recognizes that delicate balance: “Rural gentrification is a fine line.”

“It’s exciting,” Clark allowed, “but it’s also a little unsettling. There’s an element of, ‘What are we contributing to?’ But, “so far, from my perspective, I think we’re on the right track.”

The post Walking the ‘Fine Line’ of Rural Development and Gentrification appeared first on The Daily Yonder.

A national cannabis products manufacturer is preparing to open a new production facility in Alleghany County to help supply Virginia’s medical marijuana market.

Chicago-based Green Thumb Industries’ products include botanical cannabis — the basic flower form of cannabis — as well as cannabis-based items such as muscle rubs, tinctures and edibles. It already operates a manufacturing facility in Abingdon and RISE Dispensary medical marijuana locations in Abingdon, Bristol, Christiansburg, Danville, Lynchburg and Salem.

In Alleghany County, GTI is in the final stages of construction work at a recently purchased 300,000-square-foot building. The company declined to say how much it has invested in its new facility.

The company anticipates launching its manufacturing operation there “within the next month or so,” said Jack Page, GTI’s market leader in Virginia.

“It is a rather large building and we are technically only going to be occupying a portion of the building to start with,” Page said. “Market demand will really determine how much of the facility is actually used. This is in response to needing additional space outside of our Abingdon facility.”

The Alleghany site will be used to cultivate cannabis, with different rooms for growing, maturing and drying the plants, as well as places to store nutrients. Material will then be sent to the company’s Abingdon site to be processed into products.

The company plans to start with about 40 employees at the new site. They’ll work in a variety of jobs including “plant-touching roles” such as flower technicians, but also in custodial, maintenance and human resources roles, Page said.

Those jobs will provide attractive new opportunities for Alleghany County residents who might not have previously considered manufacturing employment, said John Hull, executive director of the Roanoke Regional Partnership, an economic development organization that helped connect GTI with resources related to workforce recruitment and training as the company considered the location.

“It’s a great career ladder type of opportunity as well,” Hull said. “For instance, young workers can take a role there, learn the manufacturing type of skills, be introduced to that type of environment and then be available for growth in that company but also other opportunities in the larger region.”

Green Thumb Industries has more than 4,000 employees across the company. The Alleghany site will be its 19th manufacturing facility, and it has more than 80 dispensaries across more than a dozen U.S. markets. It entered the Virginia market in 2021 with the purchase of Dharma Pharmaceuticals, of which Page was a co-founder.

In May, the publicly traded company reported a first-quarter net income of $9.1 million, or 4 cents per share, on $248.5 million in revenue. In an earnings news release, the company noted its revenue was up 2% year over year and said it holds a $185 million cash balance to invest in further expanding its business. It next reports quarterly earnings on Aug. 8.

While GTI has a national presence, all of the products made at the Alleghany facility will serve the Virginia market, Page said.

“Because of the way the federal government still views cannabis, nothing can cross state lines,” he said. “Anything sold in the Virginia medical program is grown and processed and fully sourced in Virginia. And nothing that is made in Virginia is going out of state to another facility.”

Despite state legislation passed in 2021 that allows adults in Virginia to possess small amounts of marijuana for personal recreational use, as well as grow up to four marijuana plants at their own homes, there currently is no licensing or regulatory framework to allow retail sales in the commonwealth.

That means medical dispensaries remain the legal way for Virginians to purchase marijuana, Page said. Qualifying medical patients need a certification from a doctor, physician assistant or nurse practitioner, plus a valid government ID, to buy cannabis at a medical dispensary.

“The RISE Dispensaries and our counterparts in other parts of the state are the safe way for Virginians to access cannabis,” Page said. “Absent the retail market, there are some dispensaries out there that are providing access to cannabis but not necessarily in a safe manner. That’s an important distinction that I think needs to be made.”

GTI is regulated by the state Board of Pharmacy and, beginning Jan. 1, the Virginia Cannabis Control Authority. The company’s facilities are inspected for compliance with procedures such as those related to inventory and record-keeping, and third-party labs check for the presence of pesticides and heavy metals in products, Page said.

GTI’s location in the Alleghany Regional Commerce Center — a business park between the city of Covington and the town of Clifton Forge, just off Interstate 64 — makes it a good location for distributing products statewide, said Alleghany County Administrator Reid Walters.

If the federal government were to legalize marijuana, GTI would also be well-positioned to ship products into the Midwest, Walters said.

“Legalization is something that’s going to create jobs in Alleghany County and put food on people’s table, and they’re well-paying jobs,” Walters said.

Page said the possibilities for business expansion — whether that’s due to higher demand in Virginia’s medical market or due to potential legalization of recreational sales — “definitely factored into the decision to purchase the Alleghany facility.”

Still, the path to increased legalization, both at the state and federal level, remains unclear. 

President Joe Biden last year pardoned all federal offenders convicted of simple marijuana possession and urged state governors to do the same. He also instructed federal officials to review how marijuana is classified under federal law. 

But the president has stopped short of formally backing federal marijuana legalization, and pot remains a Schedule I controlled substance at the federal level.

In Virginia, a member of Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration said earlier this month the governor is “not interested in any further moves towards legalization of adult recreational use marijuana,” according to The (Charlottesville) Daily Progress.

Nonetheless, Green Thumb Industries is looking ahead to the debut of its Alleghany County facility, which, along with the launch of its newest RISE Dispensary in late June in Danville, will further boost the company’s ability to supply the commonwealth with medical cannabis.

Hull, of the Roanoke Regional Partnership, called the new facility a “truly exciting” opportunity for the Alleghany Highlands.

“It further diversifies their industrial base, and combine that with the career-building opportunities there for young workers in the area, we think that it truly is an impactful opportunity,” he said.

The post Cannabis manufacturer to open growing facility in Alleghany County appeared first on Cardinal News.

WIND RIVER RANGE FOOTHILLS—Kristy Wardell dawned rain gear though the skies were clear.

The lifelong rancher was dressed in protective garb to guard against manure and urine that 366 ewes and 442 lambs had discharged along the wheeled journey around the Winds. On her hands and knees, the 59-year-old crawled into the bowels of a big rig she’d driven to flush out the animals, which will summer on Jim Magagna’s pastureland along the banks of Lander Creek.

Not used to being trucked, the band “had an attitude” and were tough to budge. “These sheep I have trouble with every spring,” Wardell said. 

For the better part of an hour she stayed at it, a shepherd on all fours in tight quarters pulling legs, prodding and doing whatever it took to guide gobs of damp sheep toward the exit ramp. Simultaneously, somehow, it was dusty, with enough sheep dander and dirt in the air to cause at least one onlooker’s eyes to clam up. 

Wardell, though, was unfazed. Her dirty trucking task is essentially a side hustle. She’s a sheep rancher, heading the Thoman Ranch’s livestock operations in the Green River basin. 

“The profitability is not there, you fall behind and you can’t pay your bills,” she said. “On our ranch I hardly even draw a wage. That’s why I drive my truck.” 

At one time the Thoman Ranch ran 8,000 to 9,000 head of sheep. Then it was 5,000 or 6,000. Then 4,000. 

“Now we’re down to 1,200,” Wardell said, “because you can’t get good help.” 

In the modern domestic sheep world, such tales come pretty easy. It’s an industry in Wyoming that’s fallen off more than 90% since its heyday almost a century ago. In the old days, the Wyoming Wool Growers Association would hold a festive annual get-together, with a big supper and dance and other activities. That went away. This summer, however, the organization aimed for a resurgence, hosting the inaugural Wyoming Wool and Sheep Festival in Kemmerer. 

“We’re just trying to get back to that, and celebrate the industry,” said Mike Curuchet, president of the Wool Growers board. 

During a sheepherder panel on the opening night, however, talk of the tough times remained.

“It’s a struggle,” Cokeville sheep rancher Jon Child told the crowd. “We had to drop our market on our lambs last year, and it just makes you wonder whether to stay in it? We’re either crazy or we love it, and I think it’s probably we love it.”

Goal? Survive

Asked of their desired legacy, the panelists were on the same page: They just want to maintain. 

“I want a legacy to pass on to the next generation,” Kemmerer sheep rancher Dave Julian said, “that’s my biggest goal.” 

The same long-lasting inverted low-elevation snowpack that delivered mass death to mule deer and pronghorn also did a number on western Wyoming’s sheep ranchers. It was a “gut punch” to the industry, University of Wyoming sheep specialist Whit Stewart said. 

More than one woolgrower called Stewart and ran through their numbers — the ewes they lost, expected lambing rates — trying to determine if they could break even. 

“They said, ‘Can I do this?’” Stewart said. “It’s not often that I have to say, ‘If you can’t get to this production or reduce predation by this much, you’ve just gotta get out.’” 

For the Thoman Ranch, this winter was costly. In a mild year, Wardell said, the family’s flock can survive just by browsing forage growing off their ranchland, supplemented with a little bit of corn. This year they also fed 3.5 pounds of hay per head daily from the onset of January clear through the month of April.

“Never ever have we had to feed that long,” Wardell said. 

On the plus side, Curuchet said, lambs are looking quite a bit better this spring than they did a year ago. There are other silver linings within the long-suppressed industry that have the Wool Growers board president upbeat. 

“I think there’s a lot of optimism,” he said. “There’s some really good people working on some really important issues right now that could hopefully make things a little better.” 

Stewart, the UW professor, ran over some of the more encouraging industry trends. 

“We’ve almost doubled our [domestic] lamb consumption,” he said. “That’s a statistic that you just don’t hear cited.” 

We’ve almost doubled our lamb consumption.That’s a statistic that you just don’t hear cited.” 

University of wyoming sheep specialist whit stewart

There are also some increases in the aggregate number of sheep-growing operations, Stewart said. Because of the decline of large operations like the Thomans, total sheep numbers in Wyoming were still on the downswing as of 2018, the last time the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service completed its census. But smaller “farm flocks” are on the upswing: Nationally, one-to-100 head sheep operations have grown 40% since 2002, Stewart said. 

“You can look at it and say, ‘Well, it’s an industry in decline,’” he said. “I look at it as an industry in transition. From the ‘50s to the early 2000s, you could say it was declining, but we’ve really stabilized.”

Chance for growth

Some Wyoming sheep ranchers new to the game are also accessing novel markets. Rancher Sage Askin, who grows non-woolbearing “hair sheep”  — used only for their meat — added a flock to his Lusk-area operation a decade ago to supplement his cattle.

“We felt that we had browse and additional forage that our cattle were not utilizing on the ranches where we operate,” Askin said. “Very quickly it became apparent that the sheep were roughly twice as profitable, over a 10-year timespan, as cattle.” 

Now Askin runs 4,000 sheep, plus keeps a herd of 1,000 goats. 

Askin achieved profitability with his sheep partly by bucking industry norms and trying new tactics. He doesn’t send his animals ready for market to Colorado’s big processing plants. 

“I see a lot of clients buying sheep for solar-panel grazing,” he said, “I see them buying for targeted grazing projects, and [I see] a lot of smaller producers [buying who] raise farm flocks of sheep.” 

Askin’s male lambs and rams “almost exclusively” get sold to smaller-scale “ethnic buyers” for meat. 

“What we’re doing, I would say, is very unorthodox and very unconventional,” he said. 

Other sheep ranchers more dependent on conventional markets, like the Thomans, are holding out hope that the weather, pricing and other wool-growing variables take a turn in their favor. 

“Mom and dad, they went through a lot of ups and downs, and they held on,” Wardell said. 

The family, she said, has discussed selling their flock, but for now she’ll do what it takes to hold on — even if it’s trucking sheep and “getting 4 hours of sleep a night.” 

“I don’t want to sell them, I want to keep the legacy going,” Wardell said. “I’ll do whatever it is to stay in it.” 

During the sheepherders panel, her sister, Mary Thoman, threw out another idea for supplementary income that could keep the family on their land: “We may have to become fishing guides.” 

Her niece, Taylor Thoman — part of the fifth generation of Thomans to run sheep — sat alongside her. The teenaged Thoman had a quick retort to her aunt.

“Well, if I become a fishing guide,” she joked, “we’ve already lost the whole ranch.” 

The post Shorn down, growing back: Woolgrowers eye opportunity appeared first on WyoFile.

Civic Leadership & Engagement Corps (CLEC) has awarded Saint Martin’s University a $125,000 career and leadership development grant. CLEC is an AmeriCorps initiative through the

Third-generation farmer Cary Junior has spent the past three years trying to figure out how to ensure that Black farmers can benefit from the programs and financial resources within the United States Department of Agriculture. As a member of USDA’s minority farmer advisory committee, Junior set out to address the effectiveness of the existing programs […]

The post Black Farmers Are Tired of Waiting for the USDA to Level the Playing Field appeared first on Capital B.

The Practical Housing Policy Conference sponsored by the Monterey Bay Economic Partnership (MBEC) brought local housing advocates, government officials and policymakers together at the California State University, Monterey Bay Alumni & Visitors Center on June 27 to discuss ways to reach affordable housing goals set by the state of California.

“You cannot recruit business, retain business or hire folks without thinking about housing that’s mixed-use, single-family, affordable or market rate,” said MBEC president Tahra Goraya. “It’s bringing doctors and teachers and others in, and it’s also making sure that farmworkers are housed.”

The state of California requires cities to create a compliant Housing Element plan every eight years and the next one is due Dec. 15. The plan must include a Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) requirement, an assessment of the number of new housing units that cities will require through the term of the plan. In Monterey and Santa Cruz counties, that number is set by the Association of Monterey Bay Area Governments. The San Benito Council of Governments makes the same assessment for San Benito County, which is determined by the county’s median income.

According to MBEC Director of Housing and Community Development Gabriel Sanders, a recent study by the organization revealed that the deep need for affordable housing in California is the result of historical and cultural trends. 

In San Benito County, the RHNA is based on a median family income of $105,100 and would require the county to build 5,005 new housing units by the end of 2031. Of that number, 2,947 would be required to be affordable housing.

For Hollister, that would mean building 2,350 affordable housing units out of the 4,163 units required. San Juan Bautista would need 50 affordable units out of the 88 required. The unincorporated areas of the county would need 547 affordable units out of the 754 required.

The results of the MBEC study released in June 2023 recommended five major policy changes to expedite the building of homes needed to relieve the crisis. 

Streamline permitting and reduce discretionary reviews  

The study suggested that discretionary reviews by planning commissions, city councils or the San Benito County Board of Supervisors can introduce challenges to housing approval which are subjective and not necessarily written into law. It recommends “right of approval” mechanisms that would require objective standards which, once met, would override the opposition and streamline the steps leading to construction.

Increase allowable densities

The study advocates for more “efficient use of vacant or non-vacant land” by increasing height limits, increasing the amount of area in a parcel that can be used as floor space, removing units-per-acre limits, and creating bonuses for affordable housing projects which take advantage of all allowable density regulations. Under the plan, parking requirements for new housing units would be reduced or eliminated, suggesting that building near local mass transit would reduce car dependency and thereby reduce the need for more parking.

Reform impact fees

Because impact fees for construction are set at the same rates regardless of size, a 4,000-square-foot home is assessed at the same fee as a 400-square-foot apartment. The study recommends scaling fees by square footage rather than by unit, which would create an incentive to build smaller and more affordable units. The plan also recommends deferring all impact fees until units are ready to be occupied rather than when they are in their early stages. This would delay cities collecting the fees for around two years but would save the developer from having to finance those costs.  

Increase funding sources for affordable housing

According to the study, smaller communities do not have equal opportunities for state and federal resources because they do not have sufficient matching funds. Raising funds through bonds typically requires a 66% voter threshold which may be difficult to reach. In an example drawn from Santa Cruz County, a local parcel tax measure received only 55.9% of the vote, leading to a recommendation that the required threshold be lowered to 55%, a point where passage is more readily assured. Other recommendations include locating unused publicly owned land which could be developed as affordable housing and partnering with local agencies to find otherwise inaccessible funds such as those earmarked for educational or public health institutions.

Optimize inclusionary housing ordinances

The study recommends creating incentives for affordable housing projects through offering bonuses, deferring fees, or making concessions on conditions which place a burden on developments that include inclusionary components. This would allow developers to increasethe number of affordable housing units that would fit their projects.

The study concluded that local policymakers who create zoning rules, set fees and approve developments might not be in step with best practices in the drive toward creating more affordable housing. It recommended that all of these issues be revisited regularly to ensure that policies remain suited to the ever-expanding need for affordable housing.

“This is not just a paper exercise we are doing,” Goraya said. “These are not just boxes. These are homes where people will live. There are a lot of rules when it comes to building affordable units and development, but there are ways to optimize them that do incentivize more affordable housing and greater density.”

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