Long Beach : Low-Income Housing Law Shelved for 3-Month Study

Without comment, the Long Beach City Council on Tuesday voted to shelve the city’s low-income housing law for three months. The law calls for landlords to pay fees or replace cheap housing they demolish or convert. The vote means that developers will put their conversion projects on hold while they work with city officials and housing advocates to come up with an alternative.

The issue had generated hours of contentious debate at recent meetings of the council, which at one point narrowly defeated a motion to repeal the ordinance entirely. Opponents of the housing ordinance cited a recent state court ruling that invalidated a similar measure in San Francisco.

One of the options under consideration is charging developers fees on construction that would be put into a housing fund. Another is simply not replacing the ordinance, according to Planning Director Bob Paternoster. “It’s just one out of 50 housing programs,” Paternoster said. But housing advocates argue that it is the only one out of 50 that protects housing for poor people.