Foes in Growth Vote Share Single Tactic : Santa Clarita: Residents are being urged to limit low-income housing by voting yes--and no.

Using language that political consultants say plays on racial and economic fears, both opponents and supporters of a Santa Clarita slow-growth initiative are raising the specter of “low-income” housing in an effort to win the April 14 election.

“We must control growth and low-income housing. . . . The city’s General Plan provides no limitations,” exhorts a door-hanger distributed by proponents of the initiative, which would allow construction of only 475 housing units annually through 2002 in the predominantly white bedroom community.

“Answer NO to subsidized low-income housing projects. Answer NO to quotas,” urges a flyer distributed by opponents of the initiative, known as Measure A. Another pamphlet advises voters that a vote against Measure A “will say no to government-subsidized low-income housing projects in our neighborhoods.”

Proponents theorize that by limiting all growth, the city by extension would reduce low-income housing.

Opponents are referring to a provision in the proposed slow-growth measure that gives the City Council the option of exempting some or all low-income housing from the annual cap. Authors of the measure, while denouncing low-income housing, say they included the provision out of fear of a lawsuit. Many of the more than 75 growth-control initiatives enacted in California include similar provisions in an effort to comply with state laws requiring cities to provide affordable housing.

But several factors, including cutbacks in government subsidies and the high cost of land and developer fees, make it unlikely that Santa Clarita will experience a large influx of low-cost housing, regardless of the initiative’s fate, developers and housing experts say.

Nonetheless, the campaign rhetoric carries a potent message in an affluent community where nearly three-quarters of the housing units are single-family houses and about 80% of the population is white.

“It’s a non-issue. But in a short-term campaign like this, you can’t move people on an intellectual level, so you have to move them on an emotional level that reflects prevailing voter sentiment,” said Jeff Raimundo, a political consultant with Townsend & Co. in Sacramento. “It’s the same reason that Bill Clinton’s sexual problems are a lot more predominant than his opinions about the economy.”

“The actual pros and cons of the measure become irrelevant in these kinds of campaigns,” said John Landis, an assistant professor of city and regional planning at UC Berkeley who has written extensively about growth controls.

Some political consultants say the rhetoric plays on racial fears.

“Any time people start talking about low-income housing, that is a code word for racial minorities,” said Parke Skelton, a political consultant with Skelton, Grove & Associates in Los Angeles.

For instance, Skelton said, use of the phrase “Answer NO to quotas” in campaign literature distributed by opponents of the measure may literally refer to the 475-unit growth cap. But coupled with the phrase “Answer NO to subsidized low-income housing projects,” it is a veiled way of exploiting fears about race-based quotas in hiring, promotions and other employment decisions, Skelton said.

“There’s a subliminal racial message in all this,” Skelton said. “It doesn’t surprise me. Racism is the dirty secret of American politics.”

But Ray McNally, a political consultant with McNally, Temple Associates Inc. in Sacramento, said the focus on low-income housing is primarily intended to raise economic fears, not racial ones.

“The real threat wouldn’t be that a bunch of blacks are going to move into a neighborhood; it’s that projects will go in and crime will occur and property values will fall,” McNally said. “It’s the stereotypical picture of the conditions low-income housing brings in: litter, drug dealing and domestic violence.

“Both sides are just trying to punch the button that will get voters to respond emotionally, not necessarily based on the facts.”

Although proponents of Measure A urge voters to approve the initiative to “stop low-income housing,” only 65 of the 2,493 housing units approved by the city since it incorporated four years ago were for low-income residents, and those units were reserved for senior citizens.

In addition, there are only 10 apartment complexes in the city that contain some subsidized housing units for low-income residents, including senior citizens, said Racquel Garcia, an administrative assistant in charge of preparing Santa Clarita’s low-income housing report for the federal government.

“We need to do a better job encouraging low-income housing because there is hardly any in the city,” said Gail Foy, the spokeswoman for City Hall.

Also, only 14%, or 351, of the units approved since cityhood were apartments or condominiums, which are frequently rented by low-income residents, said Fred Falstaff, a Santa Clarita city planner.

Nonetheless, a spokesman for proponents of the measure said the group will continue to warn residents that the initiative is necessary to stop low-income housing.

“I experimented with it, and it’s the one thing that gets voters to change their minds,” said John Drew, president of Citizens Assn. for a Responsible Residential Initiative on Growth. Many members of the organization themselves expressed “very strong” opposition to low-income housing--even unsubsidized apartments and condominiums--during drafting of the initiative, Drew said.

A spokesman for the opposition group that distributed the campaign literature warning that Measure A would result in quotas and government-subsidized housing acknowledged that the theme attempts to exploit residents’ fears.

“If there’s anything I don’t like about the campaign, it’s this,” said Marc Aronson, a board member of Santa Clarita Citizens for Managed Growth. “I’m as far from prejudiced as you can be; that’s why I have such a hard time with this. But we’re aware this is a hot issue with residents from our research.

“I don’t even know if I believe that more low-income housing would be built if the measure passed.”

Housing experts and local developers say it is unlikely that much low-income housing would be built if Measure A passes and the council exempts such housing from the cap. But some low-income units might be built by developers that want to avoid competing for a limited number of permits.

For instance, affluent Thousand Oaks in Ventura County enacted a growth-control measure in 1980 that includes an exemption for low-income housing. Since then, the city has approved about 7,200 housing units, 1,200 of which are for low-income residents who earn less than $34,800 annually for a family of four, Thousand Oaks City Atty. Mark Sellers said.

But high land costs, fees levied on developers for roads and other infrastructure improvements, and a shortage of government subsidies make it unfeasible for many developers to build low-income housing, said Sam Veltri, a vice president with the Anden Group. His company wants to build a 3,000-unit housing project on a 1,000-acre parcel in Santa Clarita.

Veltri said the only way he could build low-income housing would be to double the number of units in the project, “and they’re not going to let us do that.”

“Even if you overcome those obstacles, there’s NIMBYism,” he said, referring to the “not in my back yard” stance of homeowners in many communities facing growth issues.

Even if a developer wants to build low-income housing, government subsidies have largely dried up, said Bill Glavin, a spokesman for the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.

For instance, the new, highly touted Home Investment Partnership Program administered by HUD will provide only $5.6 million for new housing construction to 51 jurisdictions in Los Angeles County, including Santa Clarita, a spokeswoman for the county Community Development Commission said. The county will allocate only $20,000 per project, she said.

There are tax credits available to rehabilitate and build low-income rental housing for families of four that make 60% of the Los Angeles County median income of $42,000, said Ronne Thielen, executive director of the California Tax Credit Allocation Committee. About 5,430 units per year have been built statewide since 1987 when the program began, she said.

But “there’s not a lot of money available at all,” Thielen said.

Nonetheless, the fight over Santa Clarita’s Measure A “has become a race to see who is the toughest on low-income housing,” proponent Drew said.