Do-It-Ourselves Idea for Building Homes Gains in Wilmington
Eight months after they helped win a moratorium on the construction of high-density apartments in the harbor area, a group of residents are going into the house-building business to persuade city officials that single-family homes--not apartments--are what the community wants.
About 25 people, most of whom belong to the Wilmington Home Owners, the largest residents’ organization in the community, have formed an unusual limited partnership to buy a three-acre lot at 815 E. L St. that they plan to develop with 20 to 30 single-family homes.
The lot, enclosed by a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire, is littered with flatbed trucks and stacks of freight containers. It has been the source of countless complaints to the city from neighbors who say that the containers are an eyesore and that trucks using the lot make noise and block streets day and night.
The lot is just a half block from Holy Family Catholic Church, the focus of religious and social activity for much of east Wilmington. Many of the investors in the project met through the parish, and have come to trust one another because of their affiliation with it.
Homes for Investors
The investors, who call themselves HOP (Home Ownership Partnership), are expected to be the eventual owners and occupants of the homes, said Lottie Cohen, an Inglewood attorney hired by the group. In several cases, however, the investors said they will sell their interest in the project once the homes are built.
“The partnership is not geared toward maximizing profit,” Cohen said. “In this community, the concept of home ownership is so cherished that they see this as a way to own a piece of land.”
Added Raymond Madrigal, a retired machine operator who has joined the group but does not plan to live in the new development: “Instead of putting my money in the bank, I am putting it here. I want to help clean up the community. A lot of people need good homes.”
Peter Mendoza, president of the homeowners organization and the leader of Home Ownership Partnership, said the investment group represents a new “put-up-or-shut-up” extension of the homeowners organization that will allow its members to take an active role in changing Wilmington. The year-old homeowners organization has been a vocal critic of city government, asserting that the community has been treated like a neglected stepchild and that it lacks basic services that other communities in Los Angeles take for granted.
Message to Politicians
“Usually homeowner groups have strength in numbers and can get politicians to listen, but in this community it takes a whole lot to get the politicians to listen,” Mendoza said. “So rather than sit around and wait, we decided: Why not do something ourselves? We are going to get out our hammers and nails and we are going to build houses. We want to demonstrate once and for all that, yes, there is a need for this kind of housing, and yes, it is economically feasible.”
Early this year, the organization was instrumental in persuading harbor-area Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores to push for the one-year moratorium on high-density apartment construction in Wilmington and Harbor City. The moratorium, approved by the City Council in March, cut in half the amount of construction allowed in the two communities, and came at a time when dozens of apartment complexes were being built or planned.
Residents, who complain of overcrowded schools and insufficient public services for people already living in Wilmington, have argued that developers should shift to single-family homes, which they say would allow manageable increases in density and encourage pride in the community through home ownership.
Many longtime residents, particularly those who belong to the homeowners organization, complain that new apartment complexes are built by absentee landlords who don’t care about the community, and who build poorly constructed complexes that are destined to become Wilmington’s future slums.
‘Pride in Ownership’
“I feel strongly that people feel pride in ownership,” said Olivia Cueva-Fernandez, secretary of the homeowners organization. “By having a home, they will fix it up. It may not be fancy compared to Palos Verdes, but it will be their own.”
But developers, who deny that their projects are substandard, have long maintained that the only single-family homes they could build in Wilmington would be too expensive for residents of the working-class community. Hubert G. Toll, who has about 200 apartments under construction in Wilmington, said high-density apartment developments are necessary to meet the housing needs of the community.
“People here are of a lower income and it is hard to qualify them for a house,” Toll said. “The price of property dictates that the houses you could build wouldn’t be affordable houses. This is a blue-collar labor area and affordable housing can only be achieved through higher density.
“There is no question I am in business to make money, but I am also fulfilling a need. We are trying to rent more affordable housing to the people who need it. With apartments, each family has the capability of having its own private residence, rather than having to share a house with three or four other families.”
Storage Lot
The lot being purchased by Home Ownership Partnership belongs to relatives of George Lupie, who bought the property about 85 years ago and left it to his family in a trust when he died in the 1930s, said John Belsher, an attorney representing the trustees. It is now leased to International Cargo Equipment, which uses it for storage, he said.
The property has been the focus of a dispute between the trustees, led by Mary Jane McCaffrey, and the city, which changed the zoning on the property five years ago from industrial to residential when the community plan was updated. The trustees have sued the city in an attempt to change the zoning back to industrial, but Belsher said the trustees will drop the suit if the sale to Home Ownership Partnership goes through. McCaffrey and the other trustees declined requests for interviews by The Times, Belsher said.
“It is kind of a marriage of interests,” he said, explaining why the trustees chose to sell to the homeowners rather than place the property on the open market. “The owners were interested in selling the property, and the homeowners in the area have a lot to do with how a property can be developed. They are capable of turning the property into something they want, where outside developers are finding a lot of opposition to development in Wilmington.”
While Belsher and representatives from Home Ownership Partnership would not release details of the financial agreement between them, they said the sale is in escrow and that the residents have agreed to pay more than $500,000 for the property. Cohen, the attorney for the partnership, would not say how much each investor has contributed to the partnership, nor would she say how large a down payment the group has made on the property. Mendoza said the partnership is still open to additional investors.
Called Good Deal
Belsher described the sale price as fair for the owners and a good deal for the residents. Cohen said the purchase would have been impossible without the “kind and generous cooperation” of the present owners.
One condition of the sale, Belsher and Cohen said, is that the homeowners group and the current owners join in requesting that the city change zoning on the property from R-2 to RD2, which would allow 2 1/2 units per 5,000 square feet rather than the current two units.
Belsher said the zone change would make the property more valuable, and Cohen said the designation would give the residents more flexibility in designing a development, which she said could be complicated by several Exxon oil wells on the property. Mendoza also said a clustered development would give the homeowners the option of including a small park or community area in the center of the project.
“The RD2 zone would permit clustering of houses with a little less parking space,” Cohen said. “With the oil wells on the property, we may need to cluster.”
Both Belsher and Cohen said, however, that the sale probably would still go through even if the zone change is rejected by the city.
At several meetings of investors, Mendoza said the group has voted to keep the development between 20 and 30 homes, even though 50 town houses could be built on the property under the proposed RD2 zone.
“It is an investment in the community,” said Jo Ann Wysocki, a school teacher and active member of the homeowners organization who has also joined Home Ownership Partnership. “We are not in Wilmington to make money; we are here to live. I need a house. People who need a first-time house are looking for something they can afford.”
While Mendoza and others said it is too early to know, they said that they want to keep the price of the new homes under $100,000 by soliciting the help of residents and members of the homeowners organization in building the development. “We have a lot of skilled people in the Wilmington community who could help keep the price down,” Mendoza said.
Several of the investors said they see the development as an opportunity for them to move back to Wilmington, a community they had to leave to find a house they could afford. Licha Mendez, who grew up in Wilmington and works as a secretary at Holy Family Church, said she and her husband had to move to Long Beach to buy a home.
‘It Draws You Back’
“Now is our chance to get back to Wilmington,” she said. “I love it here. It draws you back. There is a lot of culture here, and my family is here.”
Some of the investors, like 24-year-old Lucia Moreno, have turned to their parents for help. “My parents are putting a lien on their house so we can get a loan,” said Moreno, who is getting married in the spring. “This will be our first house.”
While the project is intended to provide residents with affordable housing, it also has a clear political bent. Mendoza, who as head of the homeowners organization has long been a critic of Councilwoman Flores, said the project is designed to make her aware of how serious the community is about encouraging home ownership and attracting single-family housing developments.
Ann D’Amato, Flores’ chief deputy for the harbor area, said she was unaware that members of the homeowners group were purchasing the L Street property. She said, however, that Flores “supports the position that there are too many apartments” and said that is why the councilwoman has backed the moratorium.
