SAN DIEGO COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : A Good Deal--and a Phony Issue

Affordable housing in San Diego County got a couple of much-needed boosts in recent days.

First, the San Diego City Council had the good sense to ignore Mayor Maureen O’Connor’s absurd comment that the city would be dealing with the likes of Saddam Hussein or former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega if it purchased 816 low-income apartments from Alvin Malnik, a Florida attorney with reputed ties to organized crime.

Instead, six members of the council voted to issue $32 million in bonds to help buy the Clairemont and Rancho Penasquitos complexes.

The second boost was much smaller, but could pay dividends in the future. The San Diego Community Foundation distributed $200,000 in Ford Foundation grants to nine local nonprofit groups. San Diego has lagged behind Los Angeles and San Francisco in nonprofit housing development, and the grants can help jump start some projects.

The city Housing Commission’s purchase of Mount Aguilar Apartments and Penasquitos Gardens still needs state and federal approval. And O’Connor may still try to sabotage the project. She has said she would report the fact that Malnik will receive tax credits from the transaction to the Internal Revenue Service, to what end is unclear.

O’Connor and Councilman Bruce Henderson contend that the purchase is financially a bad deal for the city.

However, Housing Commission figures indicate that the deal, at an average price of $47,000 a unit, is a bargain. The commission says it knows of no similar projects available for a similar price in the community. This is not hard to believe, given the cost of land alone in North City.

The San Diego County district attorney’s office has yet to issue a report on its investigation of Malnik, but it’s hard to imagine what it could find that would be sufficient to kill the deal. The city is proposing to buy the apartments, not lend him money or become his partner. Even if he proves to have a less-than-sterling character, what’s the harm? The city is buying housing, not his reputation.

If this deal falls through, the city could still end up helping to finance the sale to another buyer. However, ownership by someone else does not have the same long-term guarantees of affordability as city ownership.

The Housing Commission deserves credit for quickly responding to protect these low-income apartments.

We trust that state and federal authorities will review the pertinent parts of this deal and, like the City Council, ignore irrelevant concerns.