Housing Project OKd Despite Protest : Apartments for Poor Called Blow to Linda Vista Neighborhood

Over the protests of District 5 Councilman Ed Struiksma, the San Diego Housing Commission voted Thursday to place a 34-unit public housing project for its poorest tenants in a Linda Vista neighborhood struggling to shed its low-rent image.

The 34 apartments on Fulton Street are part of a 50-unit, $4.1-million public housing package to be financed primarily by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, with contributions from the Housing Commission. HUD has approved construction of the housing, but under its regulations, local housing agencies must win HUD approval of the sites where the apartments will be built.

The commission also voted to place a nine-unit project at the corner of Mission Gorge Road and Golfcrest Drive in San Carlos and to put seven units on Saranac Street in the farthest reaches of East San Diego. There was no opposition to either of those locations.

But Struiksma, who is not one of the five San Diego City Council members who sit as housing commissioners, showed up at the meeting with aides and two community members in an attempt to derail the proposal for a project on a parcel of vacant land near California 163 in Linda Vista.

In pursuing revitalization, “you put people into the community who have discretionary income, who can bring additional amenities to the community--not people who . . . are 100% very low income,” Struiksma said.

“I’d rather give the money back to the federal government,” he added. “Why give the community something they don’t want? Why give the community something that, frankly, they’re going to point to with disdain?”

Joan Dowd, a member of the Linda Vista community planning committee that wants no part of the three- and four-bedroom units, told the commission that three of Linda Vista’s six census tracts contained high percentages of poor people who live in private housing, sometimes two or three families to an apartment. It is irrelevant, Dowd said, whether the housing is owned by the public or by private landlords.

Struiksma said that Linda Vista would be willing to take the public housing if it were mingled with market rate housing, a practice followed under other public housing programs. But the HUD program calls for all the apartments to be occupied by so-called “very low income” tenants.

A family of four earning $17,150 or less is considered “very low income” by the federal government. Tenants awarded apartments under the HUD program usually have incomes averaging $7,000 to $8,000 per year, said Elizabeth Morris, the Housing Commission’s acting executive director.

Struiksma also said that the 2.36-acre site is currently the subject of a legal dispute between its owners and a bank, opening the possibility of jeopardizing the entire project.

Balanced Community

But his protests--and those of community members--did not sway the commission, which voted unanimously to adhere to its “balanced community policy” of spreading low-income public housing throughout the city. With just 7% of the city’s public housing, Struiksma’s district has less than its fair share, commissioner members noted.

Commission attorney Larry Marshall said that both sides in the lawsuit are willing to sell the land to the Housing Commission. If a decision on ownership is further delayed by more court action, the Housing Commission would switch the location of the project to a 1.3 acre site on Kelly Street in Linda Vista.

Struiksma promised to oppose Thursday’s decision when the San Diego Housing Authority--which is composed of the eight council members and Mayor Maureen O’Connor--reviews it for final approval next month. But the five council members who sit on the Housing Commission could form an unbeatable majority if they vote again to approve the project.