Plan to Tap Housing Funds for Air Force Quarters Being Studied : Economy: Officials fear the El Segundo base may close--taking away jobs--if homes are not built. The effort faces major hurdles.

State and local officials are looking to build a different kind of low- and moderate-income housing project--one in which blue collars would be complemented by blue coats and ties.

Hoping to ease a housing shortage affecting uniformed personnel at Los Angeles Air Force Base, the officials are investigating whether government money earmarked for low- and moderate-income housing can be used to buy land in Hawthorne for 200 new Air Force homes.

Securing the money, they argue, is crucial to the Los Angeles area’s economy. The Air Force has long said that a shortfall of affordable housing for its South Bay personnel might prompt the closure of Los Angeles Air Force Base in El Segundo.

That could spell an out-of-state move for the base’s main component--the Air Force Space Systems Division. The 3,200-employee unit oversees the purchase of high-tech military space hardware and serves as a catalyst for aerospace business and research in the Los Angeles region.

“We have to move as expeditiously as possible,” said Jan Hall, Gov. Pete Wilson’s deputy secretary for housing and commerce. “We’re talking about thousands of jobs.”

But the effort to tap low- and moderate-income housing funds faces major hurdles. One trouble is that state and federal laws may rule out pooling such money and putting it to the use of a narrowly defined group.

Another is that the search is sure to stir concern among community housing advocates, who question whether it is appropriate to use affordable housing money for the exclusive benefit of Air Force families.

Then there are the doubts about whether construction of more military homes would, in fact, keep the El Segundo air base from closing.

Los Angeles Air Force Base was not named on a list of military base closures proposed this year by a presidential commission, but a second round of closures is scheduled to be recommended in 1993.

And Col. Glenn Perry, the commander of Los Angeles Air Force Base, isn’t making any promises.

“There are no guarantees that if the housing problem is solved that the base will not close,” Perry said. “But I’m convinced that if the housing problem is not solved, it will be considered seriously among those nominated for closure.”

Currently, all 570 of the Air Force’s local housing units are in San Pedro. Perry says the service is seeking a federal allocation to build 37 more homes in San Pedro on a small piece of California National Guard property that Gov. Wilson has pledged to turn over to the Air Force.

But that would still leave the Air Force about 200 units short, Perry says.

The service’s first choice--to build all 200 additional homes in San Pedro--has run into a concern that the community would balk. A bitterly contested attempt by the Air Force to expand its housing stock in the mid-1980s ended in a compromise that allowed the service to build 170 new units on San Pedro park and recreation land.

And although the Air Force has expressed interest in taking over U.S. Navy housing in San Pedro that might be vacated with the closure of the Long Beach Naval Station, it is unclear how much of that property will become available.

Thus the drive to provide Air Force housing elsewhere in the South Bay.

Officials taking part in the effort include Hall, city managers Ron Cano of El Segundo and James H. Mitsch of Hawthorne, and Allan Kingston, executive director of the state’s Century Freeway Housing Program.

Their plan, they say, is to get cities that benefit from the space systems division to enter into a joint powers agreement. The cities would then try to pool low- and moderate-income housing money from local, state and federal sources to buy land for--and possibly help build--the Air Force homes.

The officials want to buy a 20-acre parcel at Rosecrans Avenue and Aviation Boulevard that is owned by TRW. Being offered for about $20 million, according to Cano, the property was first identified as a potential site for Air Force housing in December of last year.

Perry says it would fit the bill.

“It is within the Wiseburn (elementary) school district, which we find very acceptable, and it’s nearly within walking distance of the base,” he said. “I am very gratified by the efforts by governments from the state on down to Hawthorne and El Segundo. I think they’re on the right track.”

Traveling that track, however, could be difficult. A key problem is the strings attached to the low- and moderate-income housing funds under consideration--funds that range from federal community block grants to local redevelopment tax revenues.

The problem is not that Air Force personnel make too much money. In Los Angeles County, a family of four these days can earn up to $52,200 a year and still qualify as moderate income-earners.

The trouble, officials acknowledge, is that government restrictions on such money may preclude using it to benefit a narrow group--in this case Air Force families.

The difficulty was illustrated in August, when a federal judge ruled that Air Force families could not be given priority placement in a Hawthorne housing complex originally intended for the poor and those displaced by Century Freeway construction.

The ruling foiled an attempt by Hawthorne to buy the 100-unit complex from the state and turn it over to the Air Force to help ease the service’s housing deficit.

Said Kingston, the Century Freeway official: “I wish there were some easy way to do this. There definitely has been a question of how to make this work.”

Another problem is that a prime source of affordable housing money could probably not be pooled without a change in state law.

The funds--redevelopment revenues that communities are required to set aside for low- and moderate-income housing--must be spent in the community in which they’re raised.

Cano says the law change should be pursued, since cities in Los Angeles County have accumulated millions of dollars in these funds, called housing set-asides. But Kingston and others involved in the housing search express doubts, saying the move could be time-consuming and politically difficult.

They acknowledge, however, that tapping other sources of low- and moderate-income housing money won’t be easy either--especially given the concerns of public interest groups.

“The notion of earmarking these funds to a narrow group is troubling,” said Carlyle Hall of the Center for Law in the Public Interest, a nonprofit public interest law firm based in Los Angeles. “To say these funds are just going to be used for Air Force people is slighting everyone else in the community.”

Supporters of the Air Force project argue that using such money is justified as a preventive measure, since the base closure would put many residents out of work--and possibly out of their homes.

Carlyle Hall disagrees. “If you buy that, then you put yourself in a position to be blackmailed by any employers,” Hall said. “They can say, ‘Unless you provide subsidies for our employees, we’re going to leave.’ ”