SONOMA VALLEY HOUSING AFFORDABILITY ROADMAP

This project is the core of the next phase of housing affordability work, both for Sonoma Valley overall and for Sonoma Valley Collaborative.

Sonoma Valley Catalyst Fund, a fund of the Community Foundation Sonoma County, has granted Sonoma Valley Collaborative $96,200 to lead this project.

The Sonoma Valley Housing Affordability Roadmap is a deeply researched Housing Affordability Action Plan describing 10-15 approaches that together reimagine housing affordability. lt will be published in early 2024.

 
 

Preserve affordable infill homes

Keep lower-income people in their affordable homes by partnering with philanthropy and other funds to assure that subsidized, below-market-rate homes in Sonoma Valley stay that way.

Produce affordable infill homes

Build new homes that embody the principles of the Sonoma Valley Housing Declaration.

Protect precariously housed residents

Programs aimed at keeping people at risk of homelessness housed and preventing homelessness.

 

About the report

The goal of the project is to provide clarity and actionable direction about the subset of strategies, programs, and partners that, together, will most improve housing affordability in Sonoma Valley.

The need for the project:

  • Right now, there are nonprofits providing effective services to people on the brink of losing their housing, but they don’t currently operate in Sonoma Valley. What exactly can those programs deliver, which are the best programs, what do they need before they can start operating here, what is the cost?

  • Right now, developers of below-market-rate housing see Sonoma Valley as pretty unfriendly to smaller or subsidized cottages, homes, and apartments. What exactly is needed to change that perception? The City and County are working on this, but their resources are limited.

  • Right now, a very large bond measure on the November ballot promises much more funding for housing production and services. Sonoma Valley will benefit most from this bond only if we have a number of feasible projects and programs ready to go. Where and what are these best projects and programs?

Sonoma Valley Collaborative is pivoting after two years of intensive advocacy to win pro-housing and pro-tenant policies in the newly revised County and City of Sonoma Housing Elements, which determine how affordable homes are preserved and built for the next eight years. In 2020, Sonoma Valley Collaborative published a report, Homes for A Sustainable Sonoma Valley, identifying urgent paths to pursue, like strengthening public will for housing affordability, helping people keep their existing affordable homes, and building new affordable and missing-middle homes in parts of Sonoma Valley that are already developed.

“Sonoma Valley Collaborative is taking a well-planned, highly collaborative approach, which is needed, given that housing affordability is the most expensive, long-term, complex, multi-layered issue Sonoma Valley faces,” says Diana Sanson, Grants Chair of Catalyst.