Conversion of Motel Rejected in Encinitas : Housing: Community dissension over the project, which would have provided homes for farm workers, makes the plan unworkable, one council member says.

The Encinitas City Council voted unanimously Wednesday night to refuse city funds for a plan to turn the Image Inns Motel into a low-cost housing project for area farm workers.

The Rev. Rafael Martinez, executive director of the North Coast Chaplaincy, stalked angrily out of the council chambers while more than 200 opponents of the housing project applauded and cheered their victory.

The chaplaincy wanted to buy the 106-room motel at the Leucadia Boulevard off-ramp to Interstate 5 and had asked the city to donate $103,500 of its community development funds to the project.

Martinez at first refused to talk to reporters seeking to learn if the council’s refusal had killed the project but finally said he was very disappointed in the outcome and that “it is the poor people who are the losers.”

He refused to comment on whether his Encinitas-based organization will return with another proposal for farm-worker housing, but an aide said: “We will be back. We will try again.”

Martinez had said earlier that the city’s blessing was required in order to free up other governmental grants the chaplaincy had obtained.

He told the council last week that his organization, which helps migrant agricultural workers, had plans to raise about $1 million in government grants and obtain a $2-million loan to buy the Image Inns.

The Los Angeles financial institution that foreclosed on the Leucadia motel earlier this year has stressed that the motel itself was not in financial difficulties but that its financial backer was.

According to the real estate broker handling the sale, several other bidders are waiting in the wings to acquire the property if the chaplaincy fails in its effort to turn it into a single-room occupancy hotel for employed low-income workers.

Residents of the surrounding Avocado Acres neighborhood turned out in force last week to oppose the project, which they said would lower property values and bring crime and blight to the area.

“There has been so much dissension over this project that it is impossible to expect a viable project to come out of this,” Councilwoman Ann Omsted said of the plans to purchase the motel. She urged that the council and community join to develop a long-term plan for affordable housing in Encinitas that would be acceptable to all its citizens.

Councilwoman Pamela Slater said the Image Inns project would be “isolating the farm workers from the community,” and suggested instead that a plan be developed to spread low-cost housing projects throughout the city, not concentrate it in one spot where it would draw the wrath of neighbors.

“My six children cannot afford to live here,” Councilman John Davis said, adding that he favors affordable housing that would benefit everyone, not just farm workers.

Opponents cited examples of other low-cost housing complexes they said had become havens for illegal aliens, alien smugglers and drug dealers.

During a four-hour hearing last week, Martinez promised that the motel would be converted into a well-run residence hotel in which two people would share each of the rooms. Families with one small child would also be allowed to occupy a single room.

Meal service, job counseling, religious instruction and educational classes would be offered to residents, Martinez said. A 24-hour manager would live in residence, and security patrols would be provided, he said.

During the high-tension meeting last week, Leucadia residents charged that proponents of the Image Inns conversion had packed the meeting chambers with out-of-towners who arrived early, forcing local residents to stand outside or wait in anterooms where the Image Inns debate could be heard.

On Wednesday night, about 100 chairs were set up outside, and sound equipment was provided so the outsiders could follow the proceedings.