City Snubs Low-Cost Housing Scheme

An idea to pay a nearby community to build Mission Viejo's share of low-income homes fails.

A short-lived idea in Mission Viejo to pay a neighboring community to provide its share of low-cost housing has renewed debate on whether the master-planned city is doing enough to create such housing.

Last year, city officials angered housing advocates by twice rejecting plans for an apartment complex that would have fulfilled the city's low-cost housing obligation.

The housing debate in upscale Mission Viejo has been rekindled by an idea quietly raised two months ago by Planning Commissioner Brad Morton, who suggested the city find another community to shoulder its low-cost housing responsibility.

In an e-mail to Councilman Frank Ury, Morton wrote that it would be a "real coup to jettison our redevelopment housing burden" by transferring funds that are intended to subsidize low-cost housing. He suggested that neighboring Rancho Mission Viejo — a planned but undeveloped community — take care of the city's low-cost housing obligation.

State Sen. Joe Dunn (D-Santa Ana), a leading advocate of low-cost housing, said the e-mail was a disturbing sign.

" ... "For a long time, Mission Viejo has sat high on a list of cities that have tried everything available to avoid building affordable housing for their residents."

The notion of one city shifting a portion of its redevelopment profits to another town is not without precedent.

In 1999, Indian Wells, reluctant to build affordable housing near its swank desert resorts, gave $1.5 million to the rural, farmworker city of Coachella for low-cost housing. But weeks later, Coachella officials backed away after a state agency warned that the city was on shaky legal ground.

It being CA, I have no doubt at all that the town is chock full of libs who would have no problem at all with building low income housing, rehab centers, halfway houses, and gazebos for illigal immigrant day labors to wait in.........In YOUR neighborhood. The NIMBY mindset and the hypocrisy just boggle the mind

We can't have our maid, nanny and gardener living in the 'hood, now can we?

Maybe Mission Viejo could find housing for the sleazeballs I live around. The following is from an article in the L.A. Times. The names have been changed to protect the innocent.

"The East Side Crudville and West Side Crudville gangs really are very much of a plague, ruining things," said Harbor Division [Los Angeles] Capt. Pat Gannon. In 2000, 39 of the 45 homicides in Crudville were attributed to the two [Mexican] gangs.

To outsiders, little distinguishes the east side from the west.

On one side of Crudville Blvd are Mexican restaurants, pupuserias and strip malls.
On the other side of Crudville Blvd, more Mexican restaurants, pupuserias and strip malls.
On the east side of town, large families crowd small, colorful [garish] houses.
On the west side, it's much the same.

Crudville, annexed to Los Angeles in 1909, has long served as an entry place for Latino immigrants [illegal aliens].

About 80% of its 56,000 residents are Latino [with at least 50% of them here illegally], according to the 2000 U.S. census.
The median per capita income is $12,435, about 40% lower than the city's average.
55% of the community's adults have not finished high school.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.