Lawsuit Settled on Low-Income Housing : Redevelopment: Solana Beach agrees to find more sites and to long-term maintenance, but not to more funds for such units.

Solana Beach has settled a 2-year-old lawsuit that charged the city with failing to guarantee enough housing for lower-income people through its redevelopment program.

The suit, filed by the Legal Aid Society on behalf of city residents Kitty MacKay and J. Franco Cantoran Quiroz, claimed that the program failed to specify funding or sites for low-cost housing.

Under the settlement, the city has agreed to find sites for low-priced housing, maintain housing for low-income people on a long-term basis and promptly find alternative housing for people displaced by redevelopment projects.

“The suit was to make sure that redevelopment was not just a way to get rid of low-income people,” Catherine Rodman, an attorney with Legal Aid, said Monday.

City Atty. Daniel Hentschke said the original redevelopment plan, approved in July, 1990, included provisions for low-income housing and that, “in settling the lawsuit, the city was not in any way conceding that there was any truth in the allegations.”

The city will not increase the amount of redevelopment funds, which are raised through property taxes within the redevelopment area, spent on low-cost housing--whether through rent subsidies, construction or renovation.

Now, 20% of redevelopment revenue is earmarked for meeting affordable-housing goals in the redevelopment project area along Coast Highway and east on Lomas Santa Fe Drive.

However, the city did make several concessions in ending the litigation, including a plan for relocating residents of existing low-income dwellings that will be razed to make way for redevelopment projects.

State law requires that new housing be available sometime after displacement, but Solana Beach agreed to have alternative housing available for residents before tearing down existing buildings.

Rodman said that, in many ways, the city went beyond the requirements.

Under the settlement, which has been approved by attorneys and city officials, the city has agreed to maintain “in perpetuity” the low-cost units provided under redevelopment.

“We’re real pleased,” Rodman said. “I think the city is truly concerned with maintaining affordable housing.”

Also under the agreement, no more than 25% of redevelopment housing funds will be used to subsidize rents for very-low-income households. The city further agreed to find sufficient sites for development of affordable housing. Legal Aid favors limited funding for rent subsidies, preferring that the bulk of redevelopment housing money go for building more units.

According to the San Diego Assn. of Governments, a regional planning group, Solana Beach should provide 112 units for very-low-income households and 82 units for low-income families.

“There is no question, based on future population projections, that we need to provide more housing,” City Manager Michael Huse said.

The city also agreed to pay the Legal Aid Society $7,500 in attorney fees.

“Quite frankly, if Legal Aid had come in early in the process, we probably would have been able to incorporate the issues into the plan itself,” City Atty. Hentschke said. “We think it was an extremely avoidable lawsuit.”