Politics & Government

A New Look at 'Affordable' Housing

Santa Monica officials are trying to figure out how it will be funded and whom it should target. Some are looking at residents with lower incomes, rather than those on more moderate rungs.

, Santa Monica officials are looking at other ways to fund lower-income housing and at which demographics need that housing the most.

Other than the federal government, the agencies were the largest funding source for affordable housing for California cities. In Santa Monica, the agency—which generated revenue by revamping blighted areas and then collecting a share of the increased property tax revenues—helped pay for the construction of nearly 1,700 units.

It provided 75 percent of the affordable-housing trust fund in Santa Monica, and in total, over more than five decades, spent more than $195 million on housing projects.

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"With the absence of redevelopment, we don't have a reliable, steady funding source" for income-restricted housing, said Councilwoman Gleam Davis.

To the surprise of several City Council members, recent studies of Santa Monica's housing market found that those tenants with the greatest need are those in one- to two- person households that earn about $20,000 a year. In government, those income levels are categorized as "extremely low." 

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In the past, city leaders said, they made it a priority to develop residences for families with moderate incomes.

"We have been serving the moderate-income people who maybe didn’t need the help as much as we thought they did," said Andy Agle, the city's director of housing and economic development. "But what have we done for extremely low [earning] people? People who are really destitute."

In Santa Monica in 2011, the average monthly rent for a studio was $1,240, $1,595 for a one-bedroom and $2,150 for a two-bedroom—a bit higher than what tenants earning higher incomes of about $50,000 annually could afford.

The prices "are really surprising if you haven’t been out looking for an apartment lately," said Councilman Kevin McKeown.

For two days last year, the city's Housing Authority asked prospective Santa Monica residents to put their names on a waiting list for income-restricted units. The call drew 3,000  applicants, and of the 3,370 who already lived or worked in Santa Monica, 95 percent were earning incomes deemed "extremely low" or "very low."

A high proportion were elderly, disabled and homeless.

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The city has to come up with a way to produce and maintain existing affordable housing. Proposition R, approved by voters in 1990, requires 30 percent of all new multi-family housing to be affordable.

Because it's particularly difficult to find lenders willing to finance housing that’s targeted "to families of more modern means," Agle asked the council to consider identifying other local sources.

"We’ve spent a lot of time and energy at building family housing... but when we’re looking at who’s actually living and working in Santa Monica, there’s not a lot of families here, and we’ve been struggling with how do we balance that," he said.

But Mayor Richard Bloom said the city is on the right path.

Already under construction now or approved to be built are 675 residences that will be restricted to residents with low and low-to-moderate-incomes. They will be subsidized either through public agencies or developers.

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Additionally, there are proposals to build nearly 3,000 additional units that aren’t necessarily income restricted.

“There are several thousand housing units being proposed …  [which] gives us an opportunity to think about ‘what are our goals?’” Agle told the City Council on Tuesday night.

City Council members said that going forward, they might look at requiring commercial developers to incorporate affordable housing into their projects.

Hotels, retail outlets and offices especially generate demands for more affordable housing, Agle said.

"Given the variety of development agreements that council will consider in the coming months and years, negotiating the provision of affordable housing as part of commercial developments would provide Santa Monica with additional tools to address affordable housing needs," he wrote in a memo.

Currently making their way through city hall are a number of proposals to build and rehabilitate condominium and apartment complexes, restaurants, hotels, theaters and the like.

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"There's a huge series of habits that I think everybody in town has that have been based on the existence of redevelopment over a number of years, funding of things, architects, builders ... that are gone," said Councilman Bobby Shriver. "It's very wise that we're all out here tonight thinking about it."

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