No one is entitled to affordable housing so close to the coast
The Costa Mesa City Council’s recent decision to place a $20-million bond issue on the ballot for affordable housing needs to be examined, beginning with the basic premise: Is there an affordable housing problem?
By way of personal background, I have lived on the East Coast, the Midwest and, for the past 46 years, in Southern California. And no matter where I have lived, I have always considered myself to be first and foremost an American citizen, and proud to be living in the greatest country on earth, notwithstanding seemingly myriad problems.
And I am proud of our nation’s heritage, beginning with our founders, who crossed a great ocean to settle here, continuing with pioneers who dealt with great adversities in the settlement of the Western states. And then, throughout the Industrial Revolution, Americans moved to wherever they could find opportunities to improve their lot in life for themselves and their families.
Getting back to the present, the cost of housing in California is several times the national average. Looking at the country as a whole, there would appear to be no affordable housing problem at all. If some of those living within five miles of the Pacific Ocean, where land is indeed very scarce, can no longer afford to live here, they are free to move further inland to Riverside or San Bernardino.
If rents are still too high there, why not Iowa? Too cold there? Why not Texas or South Carolina? Miss the ocean breeze? Check out Florida.
In my view, the affordable housing question in Costa Mesa is fabricated by a blend of socialism and provincialism aggravated by liberals in Sacramento who run against the grain of our American heritage, where self-reliance was the order of the day.
Today we live in a world of entitlements. If you can no longer afford to live in paradise, your neighbors are supposed to step forward to pay for you, by way of increased taxes or other means. Some folks suggest extra fees on developers in lieu of new taxes.
While I have never been a friend to the developer community, I find myself defending it here based solely on economic realities. No developer is going to enter into a project that will result in red ink. (If a developer gets blindsided by an unforeseen recession, that is another matter altogether.)
Developers are simply business people who do projects in communities where they can make money. If Costa Mesa is deemed inhospitable, they can (and will) take their projects elsewhere.
To be perfectly clear, I am not here addressing the problems of the homeless or those who can’t feed their families. That is a different subject entirely, and society has a moral obligation to help those folks. And so much more needs to be done in that regard.
What I am addressing here is those folks who feel they are entitled to continue to live in the high-rent district at the expense of their neighbors.
AL MELONE is a candidate for Costa Mesa City Council.