Volunteer Group to Build Low-Cost Housing in O.C.

Habitat for Humanity, the nonprofit home-building group whose most famous members are former President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalyn, will announce plans today for a 48-unit “self-help condominium neighborhood” in Rancho Santa Margarita.

The two-acre development, designed for lower-income households, would be the largest undertaken by Habitat for Humanity in the nondenominational Christian volunteer organization’s 13 years of building affordable housing.

Typically, Habitat for Humanity builds housing units with volunteer labor and donations from private industry and sells the finished product at cost, often making the mortgage loan itself.

The project is being proposed in partnership with the Fieldstone Co., a Newport Beach-based residential builder, and the Santa Margarita Co., developer of the Rancho Santa Margarita planned community.

Officials of Habitat for Humanity, based in Americus, Ga., and the Santa Margarita Co. would not comment on the project in advance of this morning’s press conference, and Fieldstone’s president, Peter Ochs, was in Atlanta and could not be reached for comment.

But a statement issued by representatives of the groups said: “The development is the most ambitious of its kind in the United States. The construction of these homes will provide a solution to one of Orange County’s most pressing issues: the need for adequate housing for low-income households.”

In Orange County, where housing prices are among the highest in the nation, the median price of a resale home in August was almost $248,000 and the median price of new homes is well over $325,000. The California Assn. of Realtors estimates that only 14% of local families can afford to buy the median-priced used home in Orange County.

Rancho Santa Margarita, although the newest planned community in the county with several thousand acres still left to develop, is designed in large part for first-time home buyers. Many of the new condominium units being built there sell for prices well below $200,000.

County Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez, whose district includes Rancho Santa Margarita, said he was first approached about four months ago by officials of the three organizations and asked to help shepherd the project through the county bureaucracy.

“This is a unique project,” Vasquez said. “It provides a tremendous opportunity for home ownership for people who cannot otherwise afford to purchase a housing unit in Orange County.” Vasquez called the partnership of a builder, a land developer and a charitable housing organization “innovative and exciting. This is a great opportunity,” he said, “and I hope it will be the first of several projects like this in the county.”

The proposed condominiums, if approved by the county, would be located on a two-acre tract within a larger project being built by Fieldstone in the northeast section of Rancho Santa Margarita. The exact location could not be determined Thursday.

Orange County Planning Director Michael Ruane said that a preliminary tract map and site plan for the Habitat community have been approved.

Break in Fees Sought

He said Habitat for Humanity officials currently are negotiating with the county for reduction of the costly “infrastructure fees” which could easily total $10,000 per unit. Those fees are levied by the county to help pay for parks, roads, sewers, police and fire protection and other intangible “support” items, Ruane said.

Also being negotiated is waiver of the plan processing fees generally charged developers. On a 48-unit project those fees could hit $10,000.

Ruane said that the county Planning Department would assign the project “top priority” once final plans are submitted. “We should be able to get things processed and to the (county) Planning Commission in 30 to 60 days from the time we get the final plans,” Ruane said.

Habitat for Humanity was founded in 1976 by Millard Fuller, an Alabama native who made a fortune in the mail order business and then poured it all into the organization when he decided to dedicate his life to helping the poor.

‘Capital, Not Charity’

Fuller has said that the group’s guiding philosophy is that “the poor need capital, not charity.” Potential buyers usually are chosen based on need, willingness to help build the houses and ability to repay the mortgage loans Habitat for Humanity makes.

In 1988, the organization’s volunteers built 2,000 homes and the organization said its goal for 1989 is 4,000 units. Habitat for Humanity operates in nearly 300 cities in the United States, Canada and 25 Third World countries.

Former President Carter--an accomplished carpenter and woodworker--first became involved with Habitat for Humanity in 1984 and has said that the organization is one of the few volunteer efforts to which he gives a large amount of his time.

He has served as a member of the group’s board of directors and on several occasions has helped generate publicity for the organization simply by showing up, hammer in hand, to help on a project.

Suggested by Ochs

One knowledgeable source said the Rancho Santa Margarita project was suggested by Peter Ochs, founder and president of Fieldstone and a former top executive of William Lyon Co.

He approached Habitat for Humanity and the Santa Margarita Co. about the project more than four months ago as part of the county Building Industry Assn.’s homeless project--which calls for builders to engage in some type of housing program in each of the five county supervisorial districts, sources said.

Ochs and Anthony Moiso, president of the Santa Margarita Co., both have strong business and charitable backgrounds.

Ochs, 45, holds an economics degree from Princeton University and an MBA from Stanford. He was president of the William Lyon Co. in 1981 when he decided that he wanted to run his own company and founded Fieldstone. He is an avid art collector, specializing in early California Impressionist works, and is a longtime supporter of the South Coast Repertory theater.

Started With Mission Viejo

Moiso, 49, is a member of the O’Neill family, which owns the 40,000-acre Rancho Mission Viejo. He cut his development teeth on the planned community of Mission Viejo--which later was sold to the Philip Morris Cos. and now is an independent city. He spent more than 10 years planning development of the 5,000-acre Rancho Santa Margarita community in which the Habitat project is to be located.

Among his charitable and philanthropic activities, Moiso has supported various arts programs and youth groups. Several years ago he donated 40 acres of his family’s land as a site for the $26-million Santa Margarita Catholic High School--the first Catholic high school built in Orange County in 22 years.