Slow-growth on Napa home construction

2006 a moderate year for building permit approvals

By KEVIN COURTNEY
Register Staff Writer

Despite neighborhood concerns about the pace of growth, residential construction in Napa last year fell far short of any records, city officials reported this week.

The city issued building permits for 220 units, about two-thirds the average growth rate called for by the city’s General Plan, planner Jean Hasser told the City Council Tuesday night.

Because the new housing market has slowed, Hasser predicted construction would remain at modest levels during 2007.

Some 660 approved units could be built at any time, but market conditions will likely stretch them out over multiple years, she said.

The General Plan calls for an annual growth rate of about 1 percent, or 305 units a year. This total has been exceeded only twice since 1994, Hasser said.

The peak year was 2002, when 725 units received building permits. Most of these were big apartment projects, ending a rental drought of nearly two decades, Hasser said.

Nearly half of last year’s housing starts — 95 apartments at Sheveland Ranch and Hawthorne Village — will be affordable to people of moderate income or less, Hasser said.

Because the apartment market is slumping, “it is likely we will not see this level of affordability again for quite some time,” she said.

Virtually all new ownership housing is considered too expensive for moderate income families.

City Councilman Mark van Gorder questioned whether the city was doing enough to get developers to include affordable units in new subdivisions. Instead of allowing builders to pay a fee into a housing fund, the city could require them to construct less costly units in every project, he said.

Builders of apartment and condominium projects must include affordable units. The in lieu housing fee is not an option.

The council last wrestled with this issue in 1999, when it decided to give house builders a choice.

Napa Valley Register Copyright © 2009