Photo by Monique Schoenfeld, Town Crier
Oak School fourth grade teacher Laura Kliewer commutes to Los Altos from her San Jose duplex. She says she has considered putting her name on the Los Altos list for affordable housing. Such housing, or even moderately priced properties, are in short supply throughout Silicon Valley. While continuing to be a mecca for high-tech job seekers, the valley's housing shortage has forced many into long commutes. In the Los Altos-Mountain View area, jobs have outpaced housing by a 4-1 ratio since 1992, according to Joint Venture: Silicon Valley.
Town Crier Staff Writer
Silicon Valley's blessing is its curse: Growth means jobs, but often not a place to live
Growth
Part of the problem is that jobs in the Los Altos-Mountain View area have outpaced housing by 4-1 since 1992, according data released in Joint Venture's 1998 index of Silicon Valley. Santa Clara County has added about 230,000 new jobs and has created only 45,000 new housing units over the past eight years.
Of the housing in Santa Clara County, only 38.2 percent of the units are considered affordable for households earning median incomes. The median home price was $304,500 last year. The national average for affordable housing is 65.6 percent.
Although cities within Santa Clara County approved 1,611 new affordable units, the waiting list is more than 10,000, according to the index. Affordable housing means housing in which residents don't pay more than 30 percent of their income on rent or mortgage each month.
Families earning less the 80 percent of the area's median income are officially "lower income." For example, a starting public school teacher in Mountain View with a gross monthly income of $2,000 can afford to pay $600 a month in rent - that qualifies as low-income housing in this area. The average rent in Santa Clara County last year was $ 1,308.
The resulting traffic congestion has tripled over the past four years. Santa Clara Valley freeways receive the worst possible traffic congestion ratings, according to index data. Traffic flow has been estimated at moving less than 35 mph on most portions of freeways that run through the valley during peak commute hours.
Impacts
Housing experts agree that until housing and jobs are put in the same place, traffic, public safety, economic vitality and sense of community will continue to be a problem in many cities.
Nancy Noe, a member of the Mountain View City Council and co-chair of the Land Use Committee, said the housing crisis has made it difficult for the city of Mountain View to attract and hold onto public safety workers.
Noe said many of the city's firefighters live as far as the central valley or Boulder Creek because they can't afford to live in this area.
"If we have an earthquake or major event, and need more firefighters than are on duty, it may be very difficult for them to get here," she said.
She said the city will often train police officers, only to lose them a few months later to a city that can offer similar pay and a more affordable housing market.
Noe said commuting also affects a resident's ability to participate in school and other community activities.
"If they're spending time on freeways, they're not spending it involved in community," she said.
School officials said the housing crunch is affecting their ability to attract new teachers.
Kim Farmer, a member of the Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District Board of Trustees, said the high school district offers salaries that are as competitive for a school district. However, attracting teachers to the area remains difficult when they hear about the cost of housing.
About 45 percent of the 185-member administrative and teaching staff at the high school district commutes more than 10 miles to work at Mountain View and Los Altos high schools, according to Steve Hope, head of personnel at the district.
Of the 220 teachers in the Los Altos School District, half commute from places further than Los Altos' adjoining communities, according to school officials.
Solutions
The tremendous growth and prosperity that catapulted Silicon Valley onto the map in the 1970s and 1980s are hurting its workers.
Real estate has skyrocketed and housing availability is scarce, pushing employees farther away from their workplaces.
Local residents don't have to look beyond the traffic congestion at the Highway 101 off-ramp at San Antonio Road to see the changes the area's housing crunch has created in Los Altos and Mountain View.
For many Los Altos-area workers who commute hundreds of hours a week, the daily grind begins as early as 4 a.m.
Noreen Sorg knows first-hand the trials of commuting. She drives 350 miles each week from her Pleasanton home to her job at the Los Altos Police Department and back. A typical day for Sorg begins at 4:30 a.m. so she can be on the road by 5 a.m. and avoid the morning traffic jams, she said.
"There are little windows of opportunity that you learn, so you don't sit in traffic," she said, though she admits her 35-mile commute home sometimes takes up to three hours.
Sorg said during the six years she's commuted from Pleasanton, the freeways have become more congested, forcing her to leave an hour earlier in the morning to make it to work by 7 a.m.
Sorg said the real battle is finding time for leisure activities after being on the road for such long periods. She admits there's no time for other activities during the week.
"I put everything into the weekends," she said.
Sorg said commuting isn't for everyone, but she doesn't mind. She listens to books on tape during her commute to help pass time, she said.
"I know some people who have a commute a lot worse than mine. They don't like their jobs or where they live. I don't mind. I like both," she said.
Commuting to Los Altos from San Jose, Laura Kliewer also speaks of " little pockets of opportunity" - alternative routes she has learned to avoid traffic.
"You look at a ramp, and if it looks backed up, you take another route," she said. Sometimes her commute involves traveling on two or three expressways to get to Oak School in Los Altos, where she teaches first grade.
"I would love to live (in Los Altos). I think it would be great. But honestly I won't be able to afford it, " she said. Kliewer said she has considered adding her name to the city's affordable housing list - though she knows her chances for getting housing are slim.
By law, cities must provide affordable housing. But finding a solution is not easy in an area where money, space and bureaucracy tie up the creation of new housing units.
Marlene Prendergast, director of the Palo Alto Housing Corporation, said the federal government has cut back programs that used to help local governments accommodate new growth. She said many times the government is more willing to offer aid to communities where poverty is community-wide rather than small, affluent sectors like Los Altos and Palo Alto.
"It's amazingly hard to (create affordable housing),"she said. "What we do is only a drop in the bucket compared to the potential need."
Prendergast said she blames part of the skyrocketing real estate costs on supply and demand. The occupancy rate is at 96 percent in Silicon Valley. If some of the pressure was alleviated, landlords would not get as much for their apartments, she said.
To keep residents that might not otherwise be able to live in Los Altos, city officials adopted housing guidelines in the early 1990s. They require a residential developer to provide either 10 percent of new units as affordable to very-low income households, or 20 percent of the units as affordable to lower-income households. City and school employees have priority.
In Mountain View, the city has used $4.6 million of housing funds to finance 473 affordable housing units during the past 10 years, according to James Lynch, administrative and neighborhood preservation manager for the city of Mountain View.
Last month, the council approved a below market rate housing ordinance that requires residential developers to provide 10 percent of their units at prices affordable to low-and moderate income families, or to pay a fee. Firefighters, police officers and public school teachers have priority.
The city has taken steps to rezone commercial areas into residential developments, such as the Whisman Park development, and promote housing near public transit, Noe said.
Lynch said the city has used block grant money and worked with non-profits to help preserve housing that could revert to market rate when their contracts expire.
Noe said city of Mountain View just keeps plodding along.
"The struggle never seems to be enough to solve such an enormous problem," she said.