"We're moving steadily up the income ladder," said Raphael Bostic, an associate professor of USC's School of Planning, Policy and Development, one of more than a dozen conference speakers. The cost of land in a coastal region pushes up prices and limits the number of lower-cost housing options, he said. "The economics of this region does not make affordable housing very palatable here," Bostic said. "The reality of living here is that you have less of a house on less land, which is a disincentive" to buying.
Mike Murray, president of the St. John's hospitals in Oxnard and Camarillo, said rising real estate prices make it difficult to recruit doctors and nurses to the area. A general practice doctor, who may start his or her career earning $160,000, has to decide whether the desire to live in California is enough to overcome its premium-priced housing, he said.
"They have certain expectations, thinking that 'I'm a physician and I should be able to get a nice house,' " Murray said in an interview. "In Arizona, he or she could get a 3,500-square-foot home for $500,000, where here they'd get the same home for $900,000 or more."
An inadequate supply of homes and multifamily units is another factor cited for keeping home prices on the rise. Because of the state's continually growing population, planners estimate that 225,000 dwelling units must be built annually just to keep up.
Lucy Dunn, director of the state Department of Housing and Community Development and the conference's luncheon speaker, said the housing industry contributes $200 billion annually to the state's economy.
"In many people's minds, the definition of the American Dream is a single-family, detached home of your own away from everybody. Our environmental community can't hate sprawl and also stop us from the growth planning we need to do to take care of our population," she said.
Because growth can't be stopped, Dunn and other conference speakers said, local and state politicians must reject protests by existing homeowners worried about plunging home values.
Leaders must demand dramatic changes in regional planning laws, encourage greater housing densities, permit smaller and less-costly dwelling units and mixed-use developments, and be willing to improve those state environmental regulations that cause needless delay, they said.
That means California's 58 counties -- including Ventura, with its growth-control measures -- must embrace taller, denser communities to accommodate their "fair share" of growth, speakers said. As in other places in Southern California, Ventura County's population increase is less a matter of people relocating there than it is the birth rate surpassing the death rate.
Ventura County as a whole met 91% of its housing goal from 1990 to 2000, the most recent period for which data are available. But only Camarillo and Simi Valley exceeded their targets, and Thousand Oaks and Port Hueneme came within 10% of their goals.
By contrast, Santa Paula, Moorpark and Ojai each produced less than 60% of their "fair share" of housing during the 11-year period, according to a report to be released in the fourth quarter by Cabrillo Economic Development Corp.
Development of homes for families with low or very low incomes "fell far short" of their targets, the report states, with just over one-third being built. By comparison, housing for moderate and upper-income families surpassed the planning targets by 28%.