FULLERTON : City Won’t Buy Lot for Senior Housing

The City Council refused to buy a half-acre lot for a planned low-income senior citizens apartment complex after a developer pulled out of the project.

Council members voted unanimously last Tuesday to let an option expire on the property, at 233 E. Amerige Ave., which the city would have bought for $725,000 and turned over to Century West Development. Instead, council members decided to have the parcel reappraised and to reopen negotiations with the First Lutheran Church of Fullerton, the current owner of the property.

Santa Monica-based Century West Development was to have built 50 low-income apartments on the site but was forced to pull out because of financing problems.

“Century West has made every effort they could to make the project work,” said Terry Galvin, Fullerton’s redevelopment manager. “. . . Century West withdrawing from the project is not the end of the world, but it’s unfortunate that it happened.”

The redevelopment agency’s option to purchase the property--previously appraised at $750,000--expired last week. Over the past year, Century West has given the church $25,000 as a deposit toward the cost of the land to extend the city’s option several times. But the company could not afford to pay for any more extensions.

Century West will lose the deposit, but the city still could have bought the property for $725,000 ($25,000 less than its appraised value) or paid for an extension of the option on its own, Galvin said. He said that the redevelopment agency would have had a good chance of finding a new developer so that the project could have gotten under way next summer.

Even so, some council members had doubts.

“I’m not real confident of the quality of developers out there and their ability to carry out these kind of projects,” said Councilman Chris Norby, who voted against the project when Century West was chosen to develop the complex in November, 1990. “. . . Redevelopment is supposed to be kind of a yeast for development, and not a whole loaf of bread.”

Council members also questioned the cost of the property, pointing to the fall in land prices since the parcel was appraised in 1989. Mayor Don Bankhead cited figures that showed similar parcels in the area had been sold for 40% less.

Still, Galvin and church officials said that demand for low- and moderate-income residential housing is still great, making the cost of land higher. Already, 27 senior citizens have signed up to move into the complex once it is built, Galvin said.

“It’s your responsibility to build this facility,” George Klimpel, a real estate agent representing the church, told the council. “It’s very difficult for a developer to build on his own today. . . . It’s your obligation to do something about affordable housing.”

Norby and Councilman Richard C. Ackerman said the city should abandon the project altogether. Other council members said that there was a need for city involvement in housing.

“I do not feel that we will get low-income housing if we just hand it out to the private sector,” Councilwoman Molly McClanahan said.

Meanwhile, the church is expected to go ahead with plans to demolish Stanton House, a 97-year-old Victorian home that still sits on the property. Several residents had sought to save the house by moving it to another site, but plans fell through after it was severely damaged in a fire last summer.