Builders Hope Homes Will Spark Watts Renaissance : Revival: They’re betting that low prices and availability of land will erase stigma of poverty.
Santa Ana Pines is another new subdivision with a bucolic name, green and red flags fluttering outside, a well-appointed sales office and three models of split-level homes called the Ponderosa, the Chaparral and the Monterey. It is the kind of development usually associated with Palmdale or Lancaster or any of the other suburban subdivisions that have mushroomed in Southern California.
But this subdivision is in the heart of Watts, the first commercial single-family subdivision to be built there since World War II.
Developers and local activists hope that with home prices between $140,000 and $150,000, Santa Ana Pines will attract working- and middle-class residents and major retailers who abandoned the community years ago. They hope the ambitious development will create a renaissance in a community that has been stigmatized by crime, unemployment and the legacy of the 1965 riots.
They have new reason for optimism. While real estate in the rest of Southern California continues to decline and new subdivisions languish, builders have found that Watts is a good place to do business during the housing slump.
Watts has survived, real estate experts say, because it is one of the few areas in Southern California with an average house price below $130,000--but without the long commute to Los Angeles. And the recent influx of Latinos--now about half of Watts’ residents--has created an immediate need for housing. As a result, home prices in Watts have increased by more than 20% during the last two years and sales are brisk, according to Dataquick Information Systems, a real estate information service.
Builders, who have long ignored Watts in favor of more affluent areas, have begun to return. In addition to Santa Ana Pines, more than a dozen commercial builders are doing business in the community.
“These are the only houses selling in the city, so that’s where you try to build them,” said Jack Warner, head of S&J; Development Co. in West Los Angeles, who has built homes in Watts. “You don’t make that big a profit, but it’s better to make something than build a million-dollar house that sits there forever.”
When Warner started buying property in Watts two years ago, he was one of a few commercial builders in the area. But while the rest of the city was overbuilt during the 1980s, Watts was largely ignored, and construction of the Century Freeway has opened more land for development. As a result, Watts is one of few areas left in urban Los Angeles where there are lots available for construction, said Richard Peiser, director of USC’s Lusk Center for Real Estate Development.
The narrow side streets of Watts are dotted with new two-story stucco homes, and they are transforming the neighborhood. The pastel homes add splashes of color to the drab series of ramshackle bungalows. And because the new houses sell for much more than the area’s average home price, neighbors have seen their property values rise and are begining to make extensive home improvements.
There are still drugs, gangs and crime in Watts. Attracting businesses to the area continues to be difficult. And residents have a harder time obtaining loans than in other parts of the city. But this mini-boom in residential real estate has given Watts residents hope for the first time in decades.
“All around me I see people fixing up their houses, buying lots that had been vacant for years . . . taking pride in their neighborhood again,” said Wilma Haynes, chairwoman of a Watts homeowners Assn. “People who come to Watts now are very surprised at what they see.”
In Los Angeles County, the average home price has decreased by about 10% during the last two years, according to a survey by the Real Estate Research Council of Southern California. But home prices in Watts continue to rise, and the price of lots has increased by about 30% in the last year, builders say, because there is so much competition for the open land. While the average Los Angeles County home is on the market almost three months before being sold, homes in Watts sell much more quickly, real estate experts say, with about 1,000 sales in the neighborhood since 1990.
Realty agents also have been busy in other parts of South Los Angeles, but the sales activity in Watts appears dramatic because of the many years of neglect. As a result, developers of Santa Ana Pines are optimistic about the subdivision, which will include 114 homes and two small retail centers. The first phase of 12 homes is under construction and six houses already have been sold. The project is expected to be completed in 1994.
Two of the development partners, Thad Williams and Marvin Greer, said they didn’t want to simply turn a quick profit and build a shoddy subdivision. All the houses are two-story homes with more than 1,600 square feet, are fully landscaped and have central air conditioning, two-car garages with automatic door openers, dishwashers and other amenities.
“Both Thad and I grew up in neighborhoods like this,” Greer said. “I grew up in Chicago on welfare and Thad grew up a few miles from Watts. We’re not a bunch of upper-income guys who decided to make a bundle in real estate after college. This is our roots. We have a commitment to this neighborhood.”
Williams and Greer already had completed a townhouse complex in Watts when they decided to build a single-family home development. But the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency, which had committed $5 million to the townhouses, would not grant funds for Santa Ana Pines.
Williams and Greer researched the single-family home market in Watts and decided to embark on a commercial development. Many prospective investors and businessmen they knew were skeptical.
“People would say to us: ‘You’re doing this because the government’s offering you lots of money.’ We’d tell them it was a totally free market and they couldn’t believe it,” Williams said. “They couldn’t believe a bunch of black guys were going into Watts to make a profit without any government assistance.”
As Williams and Greer drove around Watts, they pointed out construction projects and the recently built and renovated homes. Williams drove past the small white stucco house in South-Central Los Angeles, where he was raised, past the street corner where his brother, “a street preacher,” holds forth, past the streets where homes have recently been built. A few of the new houses are spacious split-levels, but some are boxy, narrow “shotgun flats” with few windows and no landscaping.
Greer looked out the car window and shook his head. “Ain’t no reason you can’t put up nice homes here. Watts deserves decent homes as much as any other place.”
At dusk, on a recent weekday evening, a series of prospective home buyers stopped by the sales office at Santa Ana Pines. Some asked how often police helicopters hover over the area. Others were concerned about alarm systems, security gates and gang turf.
Although the development has some of the trappings of a suburban subdivision, this is clearly the inner city.
The Imperial Courts housing project is only a few blocks away, graffiti are sprayed on a pole just outside the sales office and across the street there is a Spanish-language billboard advertising beer. In the distance, the metal spires of the Watts towers are silhouetted against a smoggy sand-colored sky.
Tracy Brewer, a legal secretary in downtown Los Angeles, stopped by the development after work and was impressed by the drawings of the three- and four-bedroom homes in the sales office. She liked the design of the homes, the large rooms and the security measures. All houses are pre-wired for security systems, and there will be a six-foot wrought iron fence around much of the property.
“Yes we’re concerned about crime in the area . . . but we’re first-time home buyers and we don’t want to buy something in Palmdale and then spend two hours a day on the freeway,” Brewer said. “When I first moved to Los Angeles, I wouldn’t have considered Watts. But after spending four years living in an apartment and seeing what the prices are around town . . . well, now I’m considering it.”
The development will be built on a narrow strip of land located on an old Red Car right of way. Residents hope that in addition to the retail centers at Santa Ana Pines, the development will attract other businesses. In South-Central Los Angeles, there is only one store for every 415 residents, while the county average is one store for every 203 residents.
“This development should bring people with good jobs--the kind of people we need to build up the community,” said Mike Stewart, deputy to Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores, who represents Watts. “These people need places to shop. So a development like this, hopefully will attract some businesses and provide some jobs . . . which is what we desperately need in Watts.”
Although residents in minority areas like Watts have difficulty obtaining home loans from banks and saving and loan associations, they still find ways to buy houses, said USC economics professor John Veitch, who co-authored a study on banking services in minority neighborhoods. In South-Central Los Angeles, he said, more than half of the home loans are made by mortgage brokers. And some Watts residents are eligible for a city program targeted to moderate-income families that provides low-interest mortgage loans.
Recently, the influx of Latinos has transformed the way loans are obtained. Often, several Latino families will contribute, qualify for a loan and buy a house, local realty agents say.
Rising property values and the fear of crime have prompted many longtime black residents to sell their houses and move to suburban areas, said Melvin Oliver, an associate professor of sociology at UCLA who has studied “black flight” from Watts. The majority of the home buyers in Watts, he said, are Latino.
But the developers of Santa Ana Pines hope to keep black families in Watts and attract other families who have abandoned the area.
“We’d like to bring back to Watts those people who’ve moved out to rent in Gardena and Inglewood, people who are tired of driving in from Palmdale and Rialto, people who want to move back to the neighborhood where their mama still lives,” Greer said. “We’re trying to build nice enough homes . . . to give them a reason to come back to Watts.”
