Irvine Studies Mandating Low-Cost Housing Quotas

In an attempt to bolster its supply of affordable housing, the Irvine City Council is considering requiring developers to price 30% of new residential construction for low- and moderate-income households.

Under the proposal, a revision of the housing component of the Irvine general plan which has already been approved by the city Planning Commission, 12.5% of any newly built housing would have to be affordable to families with annual incomes up to $23,000, 12.5% for families with annual incomes up to $37,000 and 5% for families with annual incomes up to $46,900, which is the county’s median income. Also, houses and apartments developed under the proposed requirement would have to remain affordable for at least 15 years.

At a City Council public hearing on the plan Tuesday night, five representatives from groups promoting affordable housing said that low-cost housing is possible through innovative financing and planning, and several said that it is necessary to build more units in smaller spaces.

“Don’t look at density as a negative, but look at density as something that can work for you. Density is a key resource . . . a positive resource,” said Manny Aftergut, a representative of Goldrich & Kest, a company that develops affordable housing.

Aftergut said that Irvine officials must consider allowing 51 to 100 units per acre in new, affordable-housing developments, adding that the city is a prime area for affordable housing because developers will “do it only in top housing markets.”

Currently, the city requires at least 10% of its housing to be built for households earning up to $56,000 a year, and there is no required length of affordability. In the village of Westpark, the last development to be approved by the city, the builder, the Irvine Co., was mandated to produce 25% of the housing for households with low to moderate incomes.

“We are trying to focus the city’s program to lower income households,” said Mya Dunne, the city’s senior planner in charge of developing the housing element of the general plan. Dunne said the city staff estimates that the proposed plan over the next 5 years would generate the production of 1,100 homes affordable for families making up to $23,400 a year, compared to 274 homes built for that income category during the 5-year life of the current plan..

The proposed changes in the city’s affordable-housing requirements have met stern opposition from the Irvine Co. The company contends that the plan is economically unfeasible because of the recent loss of federal-subsidy and revenue-bond programs that once helped developers produce housing for lower-income groups.

“If the current proposed housing element were enacted on one of our projects, it would render it economically unfeasible and we couldn’t do it,” said Patrick Smith, president of Irvine Pacific, the apartment-building arm of the Irvine Co.

Allen Baldwin, executive director of the Orange County Community Housing Corp., a nonprofit developer, told council members that the city must be willing to do away with requiring niceties, such as parkways and landscaping, that drive up housing costs. Irvine must provide housing that its workers can afford, he declared, adding:

“If they can’t afford to live in your town, they shouldn’t work in your town.”

Other speakers advised the council that low-interest loans are available and suggested that the city create a “housing trust fund,” financed through such resources as developer fees, condominium-conversion fees, real estate property taxes and a tax on profits when houses are sold.

The council took no action on the proposal pending further hearings.