Building of 50 Affordable Apartments OKd : Thousand Oaks: The council’s 3-2 vote comes after a plea from three mothers, all residents of subsidized housing in the city.
As she took the microphone to address the Thousand Oaks City Council, Kathy Corona had one goal: to persuade officials on the dais that she was just like them.
Disturbed by opposition to an apartment complex for very low-income families, Corona wanted to snuff out the perception that public housing degenerates into crime-ridden slums. So she offered her story as proof that renters of subsidized housing care as much about their community as any council member.
Corona’s emotional appeal, echoed by two other mothers who live in the city’s public housing project at Leggett Court, carried the day.
In a 3-2 vote late Tuesday, the City Council approved construction of 50 affordable apartments on a narrow five-acre parcel off Hillcrest Drive, between Hodencamp Road and Boardwalk Avenue.
The three-bedroom apartments will be open to families with gross household incomes of less than $27,600 a year.
Tenants, who will pay 30% of their monthly income as rent, will be drawn from a waiting list of 335 low-income families who live or work in Thousand Oaks, said Carolyn Briggs, executive director of the county’s Area Housing Authority, which will build and manage the complex. Rents will average about $245 a month.
During a three-hour hearing, opponents of the project argued that clustering low-income residents in a crowded complex could create a suburban ghetto with explosive potential for crime.
But three public-housing tenants, nervous yet self-assured, stood up to rebut those claims.
“There’s a stigma attached to public housing,” said Corona, a nurse who has lived in the Leggett Court project for four years.
“There’s a perception that people who live there sit around at home, cause trouble and do nothing with their lives,” she said. “That’s not true and I’m a living example.”
The two councilwomen who voted against the project, Elois Zeanah and Jaime Zukowski, argued that families would not enjoy a good quality of life in the small townhouses, squeezed between Arroyo Conejo Creek and the heavily traveled Hillcrest Drive.
Citing concerns over increased crime and overburdened schools, they also opposed the project because it would pack 250 people into the parcel, now a grassy lot surrounded by single-family residences, vacant land, a high-density apartment complex and office buildings.
“It’s not a good place to raise children,” Zeanah said. “The idea that it’s OK to condemn low-income people to a less-desirable site bothers me.”
But Debbie Schrader, a public housing tenant who struggled to raise three children in a two-bedroom apartment as she waited six years for a larger place, told the council that subsidized units--whatever the size--are vital.
“Public housing has been a godsend,” agreed Georgie Cain, a single mother who moved into Leggett Court several years ago when she could no longer afford to pay rent and feed her two children on an $8-an-hour salary.
Most of the families who will move into the Hillcrest apartments now shuttle between friends’ homes and motels, live in cars or live on the street, Briggs said.
In an angry outburst before the final vote, Councilman Alex Fiore accused the project’s opponents of stereotyping low-income families.
“I can’t toss a blanket over those people unfortunate enough not to have the luxury of a $50,000 salary and say, ‘Boy, they’re going to cause a lot of crime in the community so we can’t have them here,’ ” Fiore said. “We need affordable housing in this city, and this project will be neat and properly run.”
A $4.4-million federal grant will cover basic construction costs for the development, but the council voted Tuesday to spend an additional $230,000 in redevelopment agency funds to bring the complex up to Thousand Oaks design standards. The council will not require garages, but will pay for fenced-in patios and landscaping.
Along with the redevelopment funds, the city is effectively donating the land for the project, leasing it to the Area Housing Authority for $1 a year. Thousand Oaks acquired the five-acre parcel, valued at about $3 million, in a land-swap deal with a developer several years ago.
Fourteen oak trees will be removed to accommodate the complex, which has been designed as five clusters of two-story buildings grouped around open-air courtyards, with a grassy play area the size of half a football field at the southeastern corner. The Area Housing Authority will replace each uprooted tree with three boxed oaks.
