Council Backs Affordable Homes Plan With $1 Million : Housing: In contributing to 132-unit project, officials contend that homeowners have more of a stake in community.
In an effort to encourage residents to buy homes, the City Council has voted unanimously to contribute $1 million to help a nonprofit organization purchase land for low-income housing on the city’s eastern border.
Nehemiah West Housing Corp., a church-based development group, plans to build a gated community of 132 condominiums and townhouses on the site of a former vinyl assembly company near Gage and Garfield avenues. The site is a 4.7-acre parcel of land.
“It’s a tribute to the city leaders to commit to low-income housing in Bell Gardens,” said Lou Negrete, vice president of the Nehemiah West group.
City officials said they have sought to encourage resident home ownership for several years. Approximately 80% of the homes are owned by absentee landlords, according to 1990 Census figures.
“This is a very good project for Bell Gardens,” Councilwoman Rosa Hernandez said. “It’s desperately needed.”
First-time buyers who earn up to $26,000 a year will be eligible to purchase the homes. Buyers will be asked to put down 5%, which they can borrow from a Nehemiah lender at a below-market interest rate. The monthly mortgage payment on a typical three-bedroom, two-bath townhouse with a private patio and garage would be about $635, according to the proposal given to the city.
“Monthly payments may be the same as their current rent,” Hernandez said.
City Manager Claude Booker said an increase in owner-occupied homes will help cut down student turnover in the school system and could encourage more residents to register to vote and participate in city government.
Only 5,800 of the city’s 42,000 residents are now registered to vote, he said.
He also predicted that the proposed project “will bring solid people who are not high wage earners into home ownership--and owner-occupied dwellings are better kept.”
Opponents of the project had expressed concern that the complex would become a slum.
“That just does not happen, “ Booker said. “The owners will have a strong financial interest.”
Construction is scheduled to begin in March, 1992, Negrete said, and the homes should be ready for sale by the following November.
Nehemiah already has lined up much of the funding for the $13-million Bell Gardens project. In addition to the city’s aid, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles has committed $3 million to the project and pledged to raise an additional $5 million from other churches in the area. Nehemiah is also counting on a $2.75-million grant from the Century Freeway Housing Program, a state fund set aside to pay for the replacement of homes demolished to make way for the new freeway.
If all goes well, the Bell Gardens project will be the first built by Nehemiah on the West Coast. The group, made up of a coalition of the United Neighborhoods Organization and the church-based South Central Organizing Committee, has been trying to duplicate the successful Nehemiah Homes project in East Brooklyn, N.Y. That project, built in the late ‘80s, consisted of 1,700 homes that sold for $50,000 each.
Meanwhile, some council members in Bell Gardens have made it clear that they will support other housing developments if the Nehemiah project succeeds.
“This is a first . . . this is a trial. We’ll see what happens and if it’s OK, it won’t be the last,” said Councilwoman Hernandez.
