Affordable-housing advocates push plan to preserve tax money for redevelopment

For weeks, affordable housing advocates have been content to let local government leaders be the face of a public relations and lobbying battle to convince the Legislature to hold on to the state’s $5-billion redevelopment program, which requires 20% of the money to be spent on building affordable housing.

Gov. Jerry Brown proposed abolishing redevelopment programs and sending the property tax money they operate on to counties, school districts and the state instead, igniting a storm of protest from local leaders.

Now, concerned that local government is going to lose its battle in the Legislature, housing advocates are pushing their own proposal that would preserve about $1 billion a year in property tax money for affordable housing while allowing the rest of the state’s redevelopment program to fade away.

The proposal, being pushed by the Southern California Assn. of Nonprofit Housing, would require that starting in 2012, property tax money that previously went into redevelopment agencies’ housing funds instead go to local Councils of Government to give to cities to use to build affordable housing.

Jeff Schaffer, vice president of the Enterprise, which provides support to affordable-housing builders, said the proposal will “keep some mechanism alive [for] state funding flowing into affordable housing."

Without it, advocates warn, tens of thousands of people will be forced into substandard housing, overcrowded rentals or even homelessness. Or they will move farther into the exurbs, creating more sprawl and more traffic.

A Times investigation last fall found that many redevelopment agencies skirted or ignored laws requiring them to build affordable housing and in the process mismanaged hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars. Following that, lawmakers introduced legislation to reform the process, calling for more audits and stricter requirements on how the money was spent.

Advocates said their new proposal would also incorporate reforms.

It is unclear how much support the proposal has in the Legislature, which is preparing to vote on the budget as soon as next week.

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-- Jessica Garrison

Comments

[TrueFreedom]

so let's see: I bust my hump to buy a house I can afford.. I pay property taxes.. then my property taxes are used to subsidize housing right next door for people who can't afford to live there?

Get rid of redevelopment agencies entirely.

Affordable housing actually hurts the middle class by enabling people to live where they can't afford.. leaving less housing for the rest of us. Of course, the rich can afford to live where they want, leaving the middle class to get squeezed out.

Get rid of affordable housing subsidies.

Affordable housing can be created organically, without subsidies, by proper zoning... smaller lots, less desirable areas, etc will naturally garner lower prices making them more affordable.

Don't put the pinch on the middle class with affordable housing subsidies..
get rid of redevelopment agencies entirely.

[jsa26]

If these people could show us that the money they have received over the many decades this program has been is placed has been well spent, I could support this.

I don't see any arguments that say look at all the good we've done with the Billions and Billions we've received. It comes out to this many families helped for this much per family.

All I hear is vague plaints of how much the people need help.

With all the history, if the program was really productive and worth the money, there'd be plenty of evidence.

[Ace]

What is the legal definition of "affordable housing?" I wonder if it's a catch-all phrase like "immigration reform," which gets tossed around without an understanding of what the "reform" would be.

[Just the Facts]

Have the COGs adminster funds? They are quasi-governmental agencies with the mystical ability to set the RHNA allocations for our cities. RHNA numbers created using some esoteric formula that only exists in the reality of an office bound economist that never gets out! This is not the answer, as the COGs are very much out of touch with the local jurisdictions they ostensibly represent.

There are a myriad of solutions to increase affordable housing production, but without adequate funds, none will be successful. What the public doesn't understand is that the so-called 20% of redevelopment funds (or housing setaside) is the primary vehicle for the production of affordable housing. Coupled with the low income housing tax credit, it has let to the successful development of thousands of units statewide. Setaside is different than the 80% unrestricted redevelopment funds that are typically used for many of the boondoggles that the public has been pointing their fingers at. Furthermore, it is the state via their tax credit regulations that are effectively pushing for increased local subsidies for affordable housing and yet are now robbing them of the very funds necessary to win an allocaton of these same tax credits.

The unfortunate truth is that there are some bad apples which have poisoned the public's image of redevelopment. What is not being recognized are the many agencies statewide that are deploying their redevelopment dollars (both setaside and 80% funds) in a responsible manner that is reducing blight and stimulating economic development in their local community.