Low-income housing plan stalled by lack of land

Bryce Alderton

With land at a premium in Southern California, there is one group

still striving to create affordable housing for low-income families in

Surf City. But the noble nonprofit developers have hit a major roadblock

-- finding an acre of land to build on.

To find a plot of vacant land in Huntington Beach, or anywhere in

Orange County, is virtually impossible nowadays, said Allen Baldwin,

executive director of the Orange County Community Housing Corporation, a

nonprofit organization formed in 1977 to provide affordable housing to

low-income families at partially-subsidized rents.

In 2000, the corporation built 15 two-bedroom apartment units on

Koledo Lane in the Oak View neighborhood of Huntington Beach. Now the

developers along with representatives from Project Self-Sufficiency want

to build a 32-unit apartment complex for low-income families -- but first

they need to find land to build on and raise about $900,000, Baldwin

said.

“There is a desperate need for more housing and the outlook is very

glum,” he said.

In Huntington Beach only about 1,000 or 1% of apartments are

low-income housing, not nearly enough to accommodate the increase in

workers that will be needed for projects such as the Hyatt Resort and the

Huntington Center Mall, said Gus Duran, the city’s housing and

redevelopment manager.

“A lot of the jobs we’re creating are for service workers and these

people need places to live nearby to travel to work,” Duran said.

Duran suggests Baldwin’s company hire a real estate broker to identify

a piece of vacant land or an existing building that could be renovated to

accommodate low income housing.

“Once they have something identified, we’ll be happy to step up to the

plate and help them out,” Duran said.

Duran said the city’s redevelopment agency has worked with the company

in the past to create low-income housing.

Funding for the housing comes from both federal and local grants.

Families living in the units have incomes that range from $12,000 to

$30,000 per year, and contribute 30% of their income for rent, Baldwin

said.