Affordable Housing Fuels Boom : ‘Inland Empire’: A Home Buyers’ Mecca

If you stand along California 60 east of Riverside on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, you can see them coming--armies of young families, in compact cars and pickup trucks, searching for a house they can afford to buy in Southern California’s newest boom area--the “Inland Empire.”

As far as the eye can see, on both sides of the freeway, there are new homes or houses under construction. Real estate banners fly over the housing tracts--one is called “Dream Street,” another “Hometown, U.S.A.”

So many real estate signs clutter the intersections in Moreno Valley, a newly incorporated city 10 miles east of Riverside, that drivers cannot see stop signs and the weekend accident rate is high.

Builders and real estate brokers thrill to the sight. The oldest among them compare the Inland Empire boom to that in the San Fernando Valley in the 1950s, while their younger colleagues are reminded of the Orange County building surge of the 1960s and early ‘70s.

Population in the Inland Empire--Riverside and San Bernardino counties--has jumped from 1.1 million in 1970 to more than 1.8 million today, the fastest growth of any large region in the state.

From 1980 to 1984, the two-county area grew 16.2%--faster than Dallas or Houston or Phoenix--according to U.S. Census estimates. By the end of the century the population should reach 2.7 million, a forecast by the Southern California Assn. of Governments said.

Last year the City of Rancho Cucamonga, incorporated only eight years ago, had the fastest growth rate in the state among cities of 50,000 to 100,000 in population, the state Department of Finance has reported.

In 1984, the two-county area led the state in new housing starts for the first time, with 38,400 new units. In Moreno Valley alone, 4,000 new single-family homes and 400 apartments were built last year.

“We’re talking major boom here,” said Jeff Scarenka, the ebullient marketing manager for Barton Development Co., which is building a large office building complex in Rancho Cucamonga.

Said Ronald O. Loveridge, a political science professor at the University of California, Riverside, and a member of the Riverside City Council: “This is no longer a small town; we’ve joined the big leagues.”

The population explosion, and accompanying economic growth, have not been entirely a blessing for the Inland Empire.

Roads and freeways now are more congested. Schools in some communities are badly overcrowded, while other areas struggle with inadequate sewage or flood control facilities. Air pollution is a constant worry.

Some communities have resisted growth--Redlands, Norco, Alta Loma (before it became part of the new city of Rancho Cucamonga) and, off and on, the City of Riverside.

But most have come to terms with the boom.

“More people are going to move into this county than I would like, if I had my druthers,” Riverside County Supervisor Kay Ceniceros said. “But we must accommodate them.”

All of this growth, occurring so suddenly, has produced a land of striking contrasts.

New housing tracts and warehouses stand next to abandoned vineyards in Rancho Cucamonga, at one time one of the largest wine-producing regions in the country.

Some citrus packing plants are still operating but most of the fruit now comes from elsewhere. Only a few of the orange and lemon groves that were once a staple of the Inland Empire’s agricultural economy still survive.

A handful of Basque shepherds still roam the Inland Empire, but most of the grazing land has been gobbled up for development.

At the Basco Centro Restaurant in Chino, the sheepmen eat huge meals, washed down with red wine, and lament the passing of the old life.

Stock car races, motorcycle clubs (or gangs, depending on one’s point of view) and country-Western bars are still a part of Inland Empire life, but so are female mud wrestling, meetings of Young Republican yuppies and expensive, if not altogether satisfying, restaurants.

“The area is still a little bit country, and people like that,” said Brent Hunter, manager of the Ontario Chamber of Commerce. “There’s a lot of talk about this becoming the ‘new Irvine,’ but we don’t want to be the ‘new Irvine’--a sterile place with a lot of traffic problems. There’s still a personal touch out here that people like--they don’t want a bunch of guys in blue suede shoes taking over.”

Some still wonder if the Inland Empire boom is real. For years they have been hearing talk of a surge of prosperity that never quite came about.

“I was predicting this kind of growth 20 years ago, when I taught real estate classes at Chaffey College (a community college in Rancho Cucamonga),” said Mayor Bob Ellingwood of Ontario. “By the textbook, this is where it should have happened a long time ago. But, for whatever reason, the Inland Empire just hasn’t clicked until the 1980s.”

Why is it happening now?

The main reason is land--available, affordable land.

Los Angeles and Orange counties are rapidly filling up, developers say, and there is no place to go except east to the Inland Empire or north to Ventura County, where land is much more expensive.

“This is really the only measurable open space left” in the Los Angeles area, said Joseph DiIorio, who is developing several projects in Rancho Cucamonga and Fontana.

William A. Wren, senior project manager for Ontario Center, a 763-acre commercial and residential development where the Ontario Motor Speedway once was, repeated a theme often heard in the Inland Empire: “Los Angeles and Orange County have had their growth and development--now it’s our turn.”

Land costs are one-third to one-half of the prices in Los Angeles and Orange counties, developers say.

Cheaper land means less expensive housing.

The 1984 average price for a new home in Riverside County was $106,600 and in San Bernardino County it was $89,100, while in Los Angeles it was $144,400 and in Orange County it was $165,900, the Construction Industry Research Board reported. Last year’s average new home price in Ventura County, another rapidly growing area, was $149,200.

It is still possible to buy a new three-bedroom house in Fontana or Rialto or Moreno Valley for $80,000 to $90,000.

That is what attracts the hordes of weekend buyers and fuels the Inland Empire boom. Most experts agree that it would fade like a rose in the desert if interest rates were to rise significantly.

“As soon as housing hit the $100,000 mark in Los Angeles and Orange County, you could see people jumping over the county line,” said Joseph Janczyk, associate professor of economics at California State University, San Bernardino. “Now you see a pattern of movement steadily eastward.”

Some of the new homes are very small--750 to 900 square feet, on lots that are sometimes no larger than 3,600 square feet.

But they require little maintenance, an appealing feature to young working couples who have little time for yard work.

Some builders worry that buyers might lose interest in these tiny homes, some of them in rather bleak surroundings.

Interior decorator Carole Eichen told a Building Industry Assn. seminar in Ontario last spring to inject “a lot of color, a lot of light, a lot of happiness” into the houses, in order to lure buyers to “this rather barren area.”

Clowns, balloons, lemonade, free baby sitters and “peppermint-scented light bulbs” will create a festive atmosphere for prospective home buyers, she advised.

Eichen also urged the builders to paint the walls in pastel colors and to “keep the furniture up, off the floor, when you’re dealing with these small spaces.”

But she assured her audience, “This is not fooling people--it really isn’t.”

Fooled or not, large numbers of home buyers, and increasing numbers of apartment renters, are flocking to the Inland Empire.

At least half of the new residents have migrated from Los Angeles and Orange counties, chased out by high housing prices, crime, poor schools and other disagreeable aspects of modern urban life.

Janczyk said several studies show that former Los Angeles residents tend to move to San Bernardino County, while emigrants from Orange County usually wind up in Riverside County.

“It seems they just follow the nearest freeway until they find housing they can afford,” he said.

They are willing to put up with very long commutes--some drive two hours or more each way--in order to have a home of their own and what they believe to be a safer, more pleasant life for themselves and their children.

Shortage of Jobs

Many of these people prefer to work closer to home, in Riverside or San Bernardino county, but the jobs are not there--not yet.

“The area is housing-rich and job-poor,” said Keith Julian, a former Southern California Assn. of Governments economist.

But David W. Ariss, managing director of California Commerce Center, a 1,350-acre warehouse and office building complex just east of Ontario International Airport, thinks this situation will change.

“We have the ‘worker bees’ out here,” Ariss said. “Eventually, industry will move out to meet them.”

Good transportation facilities are another plus in the Inland Empire.

Ontario Airport, once known only as an alternate landing field when Los Angeles was fogged in, handled more than 3 million passengers last year and has become a major freight airport as well.

Three railroads--Santa Fe, Southern Pacific and Union Pacific--run through the area.

The freeway system is extensive, offering access to all of Southern California for the many firms that are beginning to locate distribution centers in the area.

However, some freeways--especially Interstate 10, running east and west through San Bernardino County--and California 91, which carries legions of workers from Riverside County to Orange County--have become heavily congested.

Water is surprisingly plentiful in the Inland Empire, thanks to several large underground aquifers that fill with the runoff from the mountains.

A final reason for the boom, builders and developers say, is that local politicians have become more receptive to growth.

“In the 1970s we were at loggerheads with local governments,” said Gary Brown, executive director of the Building Industry Assn.’s Baldy View chapter. “There were demands for environmental impact statements. There were sewer moratoriums and demands by local water quality groups. In Redlands and a few other places you had a no-growth movement . . . . A lot of local governments became extremely arrogant and said, ‘You do it our way or go somewhere else.’ ”

But the 1978 passage of Proposition 13, the state constitutional amendment limiting property taxes, changed all that, Brown said.

“Now cities realize they need new development, in order to finance services,” he said.

Developer fees help to pay for roads, schools, sewers and flood control facilities, and most of these fees are passed on to new home buyers.

Builders say fees are so high in some communities that they threaten the supply of affordable housing.

The Building Industry Assn. and individual builders and developers contribute heavily to political campaigns, in hopes of keeping fees as low as possible and maintaining a pro-growth attitude by local governments.

“We are extremely active politically,” Brown said. “We have a lot of influence with our state representatives and county supervisors. And now we are working hard to have the same kind of influence with local city councils, school boards and water districts.”

A pro-growth candidate for one of these locally elected boards can count on a $500 contribution from the building association’s political action committee, as well as contributions from developers who have an interest in that particular area.

The no-growth or slow-growth attitudes of the ‘70s have been replaced by a new “go-go” spirit in both counties, especially in San Bernardino County.

“The local attitude in most Inland Empire cities is pro-growth, which is in contrast to many cities along the coastline,” said Denis Macheski, a Southern California Assn. of Governments planner.

Putting it less delicately, the mayor of a city in San Bernardino County, who asked not to be identified, said, “The developers run the county.”

URBAN POPULATION GROWTH Percent increase from 1984 to ’85 Population of 50,000 to 100,000 (est.)

Percent City Increase Rancho Cucamonga 6.2 Oceanside 4.9 Irvine 4.8 Visalia 4.2 Upland 4.0 Lancaster 3.6 Salinas 3.3 Santa Ana 3.1 Escondido 2.5 Simi Valley 2.4

Population of 100,000 or more (est.)

Percent City Increase Bakersfield 6.6 Stockton 4.1 Fresno 3.9 Ontario 3.7 Modesto 2.9 San Bernardino 2.5 Fremont 1.9 Riverside 1.8 Sacramento 1.8 San Jose 1.7

THE NEW EMPIRE Geographical definitions of the Inland Empire differ but this series deals with the valley portions of western Riverside and San Bernardino counties, extending from the Los Angeles and Orange County lines on the west to Redlands and Moreno Valley on the east and bounded by the San Gabriel and San Bernardino mountains on the north and by the Santa Ana mountains on the south. Since 1980, the population growth and construction boom in the Inland Empire have made it one of the fastest growing regions in the state. The graphic below illustrates the percent of growth between 1970 and 1985.

2010 1970 1980 1985 (est.) Riverside Co. 459,400 653,900 794,800 1,407,800 Corona 27,519 37,791 43,350 77,700 Norco 14,511 21,126 22,100 29,400 Riverside 140,089 170,876 183,400 230,600 San Bernardino County 682,233 895,016 1,053,800 1,816,000 Chino 20,411 40,165 47,950 68,400 Colton 20,016 21,310 24,750 45,250 Fontana 20,673 37,111 49,100 87,400 Loma Linda 6,599 10,694 11,200 14,700 Montclair 22,546 22,628 24,700 35,400 Ontario 64,118 88,820 108,100 156,400 Rancho Cucamonga * 54,000 65,500 170,400 Redlands 36,355 43,619 49,950 72,600 Rialto 28,370 34,474 47,050 86,000 San Bernardino 106,869 118,794 134,700 199,600 Upland 32,551 47,647 54,300 68,300

*--City did not exist in 1970 Sources: California Department of Finance, Southern California Association of Governments Racial, Ethnic Population in percent, by county Riverside White 73.9% Latino 18.8% Black 4.5% Asian, Other 2.8% San Bernardino White 73% Latino 18.5% Black 5.2% Asian, Other 3.3% Los Angeles White 53% Latino 28% Black 12% Asian, Other 7% Orange White 78% Latino 15% Black 1% Asian, Other 6% Source: 1980 U.S. Census