LOW-COST HOUSING GOING WAY OF DINOSAURS.Byline: GREGORY J. WILCOX Real Estate Like the dinosaurs, low-cost housing is extinct in Southern California Southern California, also colloquially known as SoCal, is the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Centered on the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego, Southern California is home to nearly 24 million people and is the nation's second most populated region, . Has been for ages, too. This doesn't mean that housing can't be affordable, though. That was the subtle, yet powerful, undertone last week at a forum on multifamily housing, developer-speak for apartments, sponsored by the Ziman Center for Real Estate at UCLA's Anderson School Anderson School may refer to:
It's a popular topic in these days of record home prices and soaring rents and drew a mostly standing-room-only crowd to the Skirbal Center in the Sepulveda Pass Sepulveda Pass (el. 1130 ft. / 334 m.) is a mountain pass through the Santa Monica Mountains in Los Angeles, California. It is often called Poop-Out Pass, a phrase once used by now-deceased traffic reporter Bill Keene. . For deep-pocket investors, apartments are still a good place to sink some cash. Developers face imposing challenges, though. Land for new apartment construction in the urban core, which includes metropolitan Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. , the San Fernando Valley San Fernando Valley Valley, southern California, U.S. Northwest of central Los Angeles, the valley is bounded by the San Gabriel, Santa Susana, and Santa Monica mountains and the Simi Hills. and parts of the San Gabriel Valley The San Gabriel Valley is one of the principal valleys of southern California. It lies to the east of the city of Los Angeles, to the north of the Puente Hills, to the south of the San Gabriel Mountains, and to the west of the Inland Empire. is scarce. Costs associated with these kinds of projects - buying the land, permit fees and construction expenses - means that the rents developers must charge so the deal pencils out are more than a mortgage payment in most cases. In the years since Proposition 13 - the property tax limiting measure - passed, cities have been keener on approving retail proposals because they generate sales tax sales tax, levy on the sale of goods or services, generally calculated as a percentage of the selling price, and sometimes called a purchase tax. It is usually collected in the form of an extra charge by the retailer, who remits the tax to the government. revenue. Housing projects, on the other hand, put a strain on municipal finances. Then there is the ``not-in-my-back-yard'' coalition than often forms when apartment projects are proposed. ``People would just as soon have a dog pound next door rather than have an apartment building,'' says Tony Salazar, president of Los Angeles-based McCormack Baron Salazar Inc., a real estate development company. Salazar should know. His company has built five affordable-apartment projects totaling 418 units in the Valley. They are Ashwood Court and White Oak Lassen Apartments in Northridge, Coralwood Court in Reseda, Noble Pines in Canoga Park and Orangewood orangewood, n the wood of choice for the working tips of porte polishers, due to its resistance to splitting and its ability to carry polishing agents. See porte polisher. Court in Sherman Oaks. The company recently completed Carlton Court in Hollywood and is building a mixed-use project over the Metro Rail station at Western Avenue and Hollywood Boulevard For uses other than the original street, see Hollywood Boulevard (disambiguation). Hollywood Boulevard is a boulevard in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, United States, beginning at Sunset Boulevard in the east and running northwest to Vermont Avenue, where it straightens out . This includes residential units above retail shops and a day-care center day-care center: see day nursery. . And it might just be the perfect model for the future. Imagine a high-rise apartment complex rising over some Valley shopping centers some days. This theoretical example would not be low-cost housing by any means with some of the units priced at the luxury end of the rent spectrum. But low-income wage earners could live there too, thanks to various government programs. Having well-off and low-income wage earners as neighbors, known as inclusionary housing, is not a radical concept, either. ``The big myth is that people of different incomes can't live together. Face it, it's coming,'' said Salazar. In some respects it's already here. Los Angeles-based Meta Housing Corp. specializes in senior housing for independent and assisted living as·sist·ed living n. A living arrangement in which people with special needs, especially older people with disabilities, reside in a facility that provides help with everyday tasks such as bathing, dressing, and taking medication. . At the southeast corner of Vanowen Street and Whitsett Avenue, the company is building a 198-unit mixed-income complex. Twenty percent of the units will be for very-low-income seniors with rents averaging about $675 for a two-bedroom, two-bath unit. The market-rate apartments will rent for about $1,750. Affordable, yes. Inexpensive to build, no. ``There is no low-cost housing,'' said John M. Huskey, Meta's president. Developers now pay as much to build this kind of complex as they used to spend on ultra luxury complexes, he notes. There's a crisis of inventory, too. And that won't change, either. In 1989 various government entities in Los Angeles County approved permits for 24,547 apartment units. By 1993, as the region struggled under the weight of a massive economic restructuring, the number of units permitted plunged to 2,884. So far this year 4,948 units have been permitted, but this is 18.7 percent fewer than a year ago. At the same time, the county population continues to grow. ``Developers are being cautious, lenders are being cautious and there is opposition from cities and community groups and there is difficulty in finding sites. It's not a pretty picture and you just don't know Don't know (DK, DKed) "Don't know the trade." A Street expression used whenever one party lacks knowledge of a trade or receives conflicting instructions from the other party. what's going to happen,'' said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. |
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