Agency Chides Encinitas on Housing for Poor

A state housing agency told the city of Encinitas Monday that its housing policies must supply more specifics if it is to meet state requirements for providing low-cost shelter for the poor and homeless.

In a nine-page letter sent to City Manager Warren Shafer, the Department of Housing and Community Development in Sacramento suggested the city amend its zoning ordinances to provide more multizoned land on which to build affordable housing.

The agency encouraged Encinitas to offer incentives to builders as an encouragement to erect more multifamily units, rather than the single-family homes that dominate the coastal town.

The letter also suggested that the city provide more specifics on the location of an emergency shelter for homeless, advising that a nonprofit housing group could be contacted to help city officials develop a more coherent strategy to provide low-cost housing.

“In our opinion, a housing element program should include a clear commitment, a schedule for action and specific objectives for implementation within the planning period,” the letter stated.

“Actions such as ‘seek funding from federal and state sources . . . ‘ do not, in our opinion, commit the city to undertake any specific action.”

The letter follows a lawsuit filed against the city of Encinitas last week in Vista Superior Court on behalf of six migrant workers who have been unable to find affordable housing within city limits.

The suit, brought by the nonprofit California Rural Legal Assistance, claims that Encinitas has lagged in providing affordable housing for perhaps thousands of migrant workers toiling in nearby fields, preferring to keep a more gentrified atmosphere to its residential streets.

City Manager Shafer said he was surprised by the letter’s contents.

“The state had a number of opportunities to review our housing element in its drafting stages,” he said. “They gave us their comments, and we responded to them.”

The city of Encinitas, incorporated two years ago, drafted its general plan two months ago. The plan, a sort of blueprint for the city’s development, includes seven areas, or elements, that the city planned to address.

“Now to get a letter at this point detailing a whole list of issues that have never before been raised concerns us. The general plan is supposed to be just that--general.

“It’s not supposed to be a detailed document containing specifics on every directive we hope to achieve,” Shafer said.

Shafer met Monday with City Planner Craig Jones to review the contents of the letter, and said he planned to meet with the city attorney next week.

He said the city would seek other cities as role models in complying with the state’s requirements.

The letter carried no threat of enforcement, according to state Department of Housing and Community Development officials. Such policing of housing issues is commonly provided by the filing of lawsuits, such as the one brought last week against the city by the legal-assistance group.

“Right now, that lawsuit is more imminent on our minds,” Shafer said, “because we have 30 days in which to respond to their allegations.”

Claudia Smith, general counsel of the legal-assistance group, Monday renewed her criticism of Encinitas’ housing element.

Stalled on Decision

The city’s zoning ordinances must allow for smaller lots on which to build multiunit, low-cost homes for low-wage workers, such as migrant laborers, many of whom exist in make-shift shanty towns, she said.

“It’s an understatement to say that the city’s general plan was too general. Quite frankly, it was to the point of almost being non-existent.”

For example, the city has stalled its decision on where to put an emergency shelter for the homeless within city limits as required by state law, she said.

“Some things are just black and white. They have an obligation to locate an adequate site for the shelter,” Smith said. “They don’t have to build the thing, just identify the site. It’s been pointed out to them, they just refuse to budge on it.”

The city has identified several sites for a shelter, all outside Encinitas city limits. “One of them is in Orange County,” Smith said. “I guess the homeless in Encinitas are supposed to go to Orange County to find shelter?”

Encinitas City Planner Craig Jones said the city will have to go back to the drawing board and supply more details in its housing plan.

“They’re looking for just that, more details. They’re asking questions such as if there’s a housing need in an area, how can it be quantified, how can it be broken down?”

While they are not obligated to act on the state’s recommendations, Jones said they would review the city’s general plan.

“We’ll obviously look at it,” he said. “We’re genuinely concerned with housing issues.”

Jones said the legal-assistance group’s lawsuit and the state’s letter were not unrelated.

“It’s not a conspiracy or anything but we know that the CRLA has been in contact with the state housing agency,” he said. “But the claims are quite different. The state’s claims are more extensive, while the CRLA’s claims are much more inflammable, less-substantiated.”

The director of a North County social service agency that addresses the needs of Latino farm and domestic workers, however, applauded the letter as a formal acknowledgement that Encinitas is existing in the Stone Ages in its reluctance to make a commitment to the poor and homeless.

“They’re just dead-set against any Hispanic immigrants from Mexico or Central America,” said Rafael Martinez, director of the North County Chaplaincy.

“They’ve been very antagonistic to every thing we’ve tried to do as an agency. They just want to get rid of the migrants, period.”

Martinez, who applied to the state Department of Housing and Community Development for permission to build several trailers on donated land near Fallbrook in which to house migrants, said his plan has been held up by county red tape and permit requirements.

“The people in Encinitas are worse,” Martinez said. “It’s not just red tape. Officials there have been downright rude when I attended City Council and public meetings on the issue of migrant workers.

“They always turn the meeting into a ‘how to’ session of getting rid of the illegals, despite the fact that very few of these people are actually illegals. One official even used the word ‘eradicate’ when talking about the migrants.

“This is a public official (a councilwoman) speaking on the record. You want the city commitment to the poor and afflicted, there’s your answer right there.”