Voluntary Inclusionary Housing Provision

For the past few years the City of Tracy has been grappling as a community with how we grow, when we grow, how much we grow, and where we grown. Evelyn Tolbert felt that an objective process and system might well be the answer; assisting the community through its implementation, in achieving our residential development goals in an equitable manner.

On May 20, 2008, Evelyn Tolbert presented a proposal that she had proactively drafted for a "Voluntary Inclusionary Housing Provision" to the Tracy City Council for consideration. The City Council is contemplating making amendments to its Growth Management Ordinance during the month of July. Evelyn Tolbert has formally requested that the proposed Voluntary Inclusionary Housing Provision be made a part of the Growth Management Ordinance at that time.

The Voluntary Inclusionary Housing Provision system allocates points for each of various defined "Elements". Any residential development proposed to be built in Tracy will have its placement in the queue to receive residential growth allotments (RGA's) based upon its total point allocation. The Tracy community spent many months participating in numerous workshops and public hearings to articulate what types of housing it wants created in our community. The idea of the Voluntary Inclusionary Housing Provision is that developers, property owners, and interested others, can chose from a menu which comes straight from the General Plan thereby building the exact housing that the community has approve.

In the Voluntary Inclusionary Housing Provision there are points allocated for "Elements" such as: The location of the project; the project's proximity to infrastructure, the number of units in the project, whether it is "green" building, whether it is senior housing, or affordable housing and a number of other key factors that the Tracy community feels are important.

There are some objectives involved in the Voluntary Inclusionary Housing Provision that Evelyn Tolbert feels are very critical to our community. A major objective is "Transparency ". With her proposed structured element point system, the community will know exactly why one residential development project is moving ahead of another: Because it accumulated more points based on how closely it aligns with the community's desires as spelled out in the General Plan. Another objective is that the Voluntary Inclusionary Housing Provision allows the development community to optimize how fast it gets to build by delivering more faithfully what our community wants and needs. Another and possibly more important objective of the Voluntary Inclusionary Housing Provision is that it removes any concern of "undue influence" from the equation of approval for residential development.

Evelyn Tolbert continues to work to implement the consensus of the community. Her dedication has proven to be repeatedly effective a diverse array of areas critical to the display of integrity in our government operations.