Quota Creativity : Wealthy Cities Plan to Call Servants’ Quarters Low-Income Housing

Maid’s quarters and caretaker cottages aren’t what come to mind when most people think of low-income housing.

But that’s exactly what the tiny, affluent communities of San Marino and Bradbury in the San Gabriel Valley and Rolling Hills Estates on the Palos Verdes Peninsula propose in order to meet state-mandated quotas for affordable housing. The three Los Angeles County cities are drawing up new housing plans that define existing and new domestics’ quarters as low-income units.

“We felt this was a creative and very good solution for our city,” said Richard Thompson, planning director for Rolling Hills Estates, a semirural community with many large horse properties where the annual household income averages $86,304.

State officials say they have no problem with such a plan, provided the servant’s quarters have a separate kitchen, bathroom and entrance. The law does not require affordable units to be available to the public, said Tom Cook, deputy director for housing policy at the state Department of Housing and Community Development.

But the proposal has drawn the wrath of housing advocates, who accuse the exclusive residential communities of shirking the law’s intent.

“That’s bloody outrageous,” said Jan Breidenbach, executive director of the Southern California Assn. of Non-Profit Housing. “That’s totally violating the spirit of the law, if not the letter.”

“Are they counting the stables?” sneered Kay Knepprath, a policy advocate for the California Homeless and Housing Coalition.

Advocacy groups say low-income housing should be available to all residents, not just servants employed by wealthy homeowners. All cities can find a way to build low-income units, they contend.

In any city, “there must be three or four acres left where they could do some rezoning and do more intensive development to provide housing for people who need it,” Knepprath said.

State housing officials tout the wealthy city of Belvedere, on San Francisco Bay, as an example of what can be done. The Marin County community set aside several acres in its rolling countryside in the late 1980s and built an 11-unit low-income complex for senior citizens.

But other cities say there would be public uproar and fear about diminishing property values if low-income housing went up in their community.

“The odds are quite slim that such a proposal would be well-received by our community members,” said David Saldana, director of planning for San Marino, an old-money community of single-family homes and a median household income of more than $100,000.

Saldana says he sees no problem with using servant quarters to meet low-income housing needs, since such units are usually occupied by people who fit that income bracket and who need housing. But he concedes the law probably intended the units to be available to the public.

Low-income housing is defined as housing affordable to someone making 80% of the median income for a region, according to the state housing department. Cities also must provide very-low-income housing, defined as that affordable to someone making 50% of the median income.

In the Los Angeles metropolitan area, units that rent for less than $500 per month are considered very-low-income and units under $750 are considered low-income, state officials say. Figures vary slightly depending on the size of the unit and the number of people living in it.

Each city is assigned a certain quota for such housing according to its population. For example, Bradbury, with its 908 residents, must provide about 14 units.

But state officials don’t know how many cities have the required housing because many cities haven’t submitted the reports that are legally required every five years.

Almost 80% of California cities are out of compliance with some aspect of this state law. In October, the state attorney general’s office singled out 47 of the worst offenders--including Bradbury and Rolling Hills Estates--with letters taking them to task for failing to turn in any housing reports, said Paul Kranhold, a spokesman for the state housing department.

Bradbury planners said there’s nowhere to put low-income housing among what are now exclusively single-family homes, many on two acres or more. The city’s median household income is more than $105,000, according to the 1990 U.S. Census. After Bradbury’s planning director resigned in the midst of a financial scandal recently, the city hired Lockman & Associates, a Monterey Park-based planning firm, to come up with a solution.

The firm recommended that Bradbury “encourage and permit additional grooms’ quarters and servants’ quarters . . . they’ll meet their future (low-income housing) needs,” said Mike Wagner, a vice president of planning.

Bradbury officials concur.

“The intent of the law as I understand it was to provide low- and moderate-income housing and we certainly have some people who are living in low- and moderate-income housing via guest quarters and grooms’ quarters,” said Bradbury City Councilwoman Beatrice La Pisto-Kirtley.

In Rolling Hills, where the annual household income averages $150,001, the city is prohibited by contracts, covenants and restrictions from building anything except single-family residential homes, according to City Atty. Mike Jenkins.

Instead, the city has given $141,835 to neighboring Lomita since 1981 to build low-income housing in that city, which Jenkins said he believes fulfills Rolling Hills obligations for low-income housing.

But state housing officials disagree.

“He may be under the impression that will do it for them but it won’t,” said Gary Collord, an analyst with the state housing department who reviews housing reports. “The law is clear that the units have to be provided within the corporate boundaries of the city.”