Officials See SRO Hotels as Idea Whose Time Has Come Again : Housing: Rules are being drawn that would permit construction of up to 750 new rooms in certain areas of downtown. But there is strong opposition from homeowners.
Community activist Bob Roxby remembers that there were about five or six of them where the downtown mall now stands, residential hotels where somebody without much money could rent a simple room by the week.
Others were scattered around downtown, left over from the prewar years, and the city flattened a lot of them during redevelopment--with no regrets. The often-ramshackle structures did not fit in with the sparkling new image Long Beach was creating for itself.
Now local officials are talking of single-room occupancy hotels (SROs) with new fondness. They are thinking of bringing them back with some modern twists as relief for the painful cost of housing in the region.
Impressed with a much-lauded SRO program in San Diego, Long Beach officials are drawing up regulations that would permit the construction of as many as 750 new SRO rooms in certain areas of downtown bounded by 7th Street, Ocean Boulevard, Alamitos Avenue and Pacific Avenue.
The move is good news to housing and homeless advocates, who have long sought an SRO revival. “It’s something that’s desperately needed,” said Marc Coleman, a downtown attorney who has sued the city over affordable housing issues on behalf of Long Beach Area Citizens Involved, a community group. “It shouldn’t be seen as a solution in and of itself, but it is a step.”
The proposal also has stirred up a hornet’s nest of opposition. A consultant’s recommendation that SROs be allowed on major thoroughfares outside of downtown incited an onslaught of irate protests from homeowners and neighborhood activists who equate SROs with rat-infested slums.
“ABSOLUTELY NOT,” declared a letter to the Planning Commission from the Los Cerritos Improvement Assn., whose members live south of the Virginia Country Club.
In another letter, a group of Pine Avenue residents living north of downtown made it clear what they think of SROs. “We strongly object to having units such as these built in middle- to high-income neighborhoods where they will rapidly turn into slum units, increase the crime rate, and further congest the streets with parked cars.”
About 150 people turned out for a Planning Commission hearing on SROs last month and most were adamantly against having such projects anywhere near their neighborhoods. Roxby, 77, a member of LBACI, was one of the few to speak in favor of the proposed SRO ordinance.
The city planning staff has since said it never intended to suggest SROs should be built throughout the city. With as many as 250 rooms per project, the SROs belong downtown, planners say.
That assurance has failed to smooth the way for the SRO plan, however.
“We are going off on a wild turkey chase,” complained Planning Commission Chairman Patricia Schauer, contending that the city is moving too quickly on the proposal. “We have done no research, no clear thinking.”
At Schauer’s suggestion, the commission last week postponed a vote on SROs to allow more time to review the matter before sending it to the City Council.
Schauer, a property management consultant, questions whether there really is a need for SROs in Long Beach. She argues that the city already has “an excess” of low-cost housing with ample vacancies and that most homeless people would never qualify for the new projects. Citing her own experience and conversations she has had with local real estate agents, Schauer maintains that the vacancy rate may be as high as 15% at the low end of the rental market.
SRO proponents challenge the assertion that there are plenty of cheap apartments available. They also point to Long Beach’s large numbers of poor: About half the city’s 159,000 households are considered low income by government standards and, of those, a market research firm has estimated that 48,000 households have incomes of less than $15,000 a year.
Diane McNeel, who as manager of the city’s Housing Services Bureau oversees the city’s affordable housing programs, said that the last time her office solicited applications for subsidized housing, 10,000 people applied.
“Of those 10,000, a good 25% were single Long Beach residents,” McNeel said. “Which tells me we have more than enough single people in Long Beach who need affordable housing. I don’t have landlords calling me up and saying, ‘I have one-bedrooms, give me some referrals.’ I have plenty of applicants saying, ‘I can’t find a place.’ ”
There are still some SROs in Long Beach, although the city has no exact figures. But for years local zoning laws have outlawed the construction of new ones. The current proposal would change zoning laws to allow developers to either build SROs or convert existing buildings to SRO units after obtaining conditional-use permits.
Supporters say the ordinance would give the city enough control over the projects’ design and management to ensure that they do not become the slums feared by critics.
“People still have this misconception that they’re going to have slum conditions in old battered (buildings),” observed Councilman Evan Anderson Braude, who represents the downtown area. “This is not what we’re going to do.”
Council members cite San Diego as a model of what they hope to accomplish. There, city ordinances have encouraged the construction of imaginatively designed SROs deemed so successful that the Chamber of Commerce runs tours of them.
Scoffed Schauer: “San Diego put together one or two prime products that they drag people through every day. Of course it’s going to be wonderful. Do you think they’d be dragging people through if it wasn’t wonderful?”
As proposed in Long Beach, the SRO projects would be privately built and managed, although some could qualify for government subsidies in return for particularly low rents. The projects would be staffed around the clock and would rent small rooms to one or two people at monthly rates averaging about $381. The rooms would range from 10 by 12 feet to 10 by 22 feet, and would have a toilet, sink, refrigerator and microwave. Shower facilities could be shared.
Braude, who said jokingly that he thinks the SRO units should be called “junior suites,” said several businessmen have expressed interest in SRO projects. One is a restaurant owner who told Braude he would like to build one because a lot of his employees can’t afford a place to live.
Braude promotes SROs as a place for “single people starting out in the working world who need a place that’s clean and reliable and as free as possible from crime elements.”
And he thinks his district should not be the only one to get them. The poor, he reasons, work all over Long Beach and should be able to live there as well. “They really need to be everywhere. You don’t have McDonald’s only in downtown. You don’t have banks only in downtown. You have service people who work at retail establishments all over the city.”
Single-Room Occupancy Hotels
A single-room occupancy hotel, called an SRO, is similar to a large boarding house. Residents rent small individual rooms equipped with some cooking and toilet facilities and can also share common kitchen and bathing facilities. Following are the guidelines under the proposed Long Beach SRO ordinance:
* Rooms would be a minimum of 120 square feet and a maximum of 220 square feet.
* Only one person could live in the smallest rooms and no more than two people in the largest rooms.
* Each room would have a private toilet and at least one sink. If showers are not provided in each room, shared bathing facilities would have to be made available.
* Each room also would have a refrigerator, microwave oven and countertop for cooking, as well as a closet and storage space.
