Mixing It Up in Carson

Miguel Martinez, 23, recalls trying to talk his mother, Maria Torres, out of buying a five-bedroom Spanish-style home in the South Bay city of Carson.

But the 48-year-old longshorewoman, who already owned her Wilmington home free and clear and needed the tax deduction from a mortgage, had made up her mind. Martinez said his mother could see beyond the vacant, run-down property’s dirt, brown tiles and three different color carpets and wasn’t afraid she would get into a financial hole fixing it up.

“I said ‘No, mom.’ She said yes,” he recalled. “Those who don’t take chances won’t get anything in life. Let’s do it.”

Martinez, a business student at Cerritos College, did recognize that $177,000 was a great price. And while they had been seriously considering a $300,000 house in a gated Lakewood community, the purchase could have been made only through the sale of their current home.

This way, they could keep their old house and rent it out. “The rent would cover the mortgage payment on this one,” he said. “It was even better.”

Two years later the house has benefited from a new roof, new carpets and re-textured and repainted walls. Now sitting in the small, bright kitchen--the only room that was remodeled--Martinez has no regrets.

He said his mother, who has realized her dream of a two-story house, enjoys the short distance she still drives to her job at the Los Angeles Harbor.

And the son admires the feisty spirit of his neighbors. Protesting an indoor swap meet, the homeowners prevailed and got a grocery store instead. “They fight for their neighborhood. I like that,” Martinez said.

Bounded by Compton on the north, Long Beach on the east, Torrance on the west and the L.A. Harbor to the south, Carson lies in the heart of the South Bay region. The eighth largest city in Los Angeles County is also surrounded by four freeways--the Harbor, Long Beach, Artesia and Century.

Since its incorporation in 1968, the middle-class, ethnically diverse city has become nationally recognized as a model of racial balance. Its population of more than 90,000 is evenly divided among whites, blacks, Latinos and Asians.

And in the early 1950s it also became home to the largest concentration of Samoans anywhere in the world outside of Samoa. When the U.S. Navy base in American Samoa moved its operations to Hawaii and California, it created what has become known as “The Great Migration.” Thousands of Samoans left the island to keep their jobs with the Navy, resettling in Carson, Long Beach and Wilmington.

By census estimates, about 2,500 Samoans call Carson home. “It’s the central nerve of cultural life for the Samoan community,” said Chief Tua’au Pele Faletogo of the Samoan Federation of America.

But it was the Spanish who were the first to have an influence on the land that was to become Carson. In 1784, a Spanish soldier, Juan Jose Dominguez, was deeded 75,000 acres for service to the king of Spain. Carved from the original land grant, the area that is now Carson began its existence as part of the Rancho San Pedro. In 1853, George Henry Carson arrived in Los Angeles and later married Maria Victoria Dominguez. Carson became public administrator for the county of Los Angeles and managed the rancho until his death in 1901.

Carson’s son, John Manuel, took over management and developed much of the South Bay area, including Redondo Beach, Harbor City and Lomita.

Today, the area’s heritage is remembered through many of the street names, the neighboring community of Dominguez Hills, as well as the historic Dominguez Ranch Adobe, next to the original Carson family home on Alameda Street.

Until a flurry of housing tracts began springing up in the mid-1960s, the area consisted mostly of oil derricks, agricultural fields and junkyards.

In fact, Ray Park, a Siemans Transportation Co. employee, recalls as a boy picking vegetables on the very spot that has today become his family room. His 1,600-square-foot Dominguez Manor tract home rests on land that was once part of a working ranch with strawberry fields to the horizon.

Park said it cost him more to add a 380-square-foot addition in 1988 than it did to buy the three-bedroom home for $20,000 in 1970.

Park likes having his voice heard in local politics. An example was a recently legislated noise ordinance. Joining with other homeowners, he says they pushed it through the City Council within a year.

“We threatened to have a recall,” he said. “We worked within the system. The city administrators will come out to work with you, listen to you. That is the neat thing about Carson.”

A 1,700-square-foot home in Carson with two stories, three or four bedrooms, two baths and an attached two-car garage sells for an average price of $175,000, said Linda Johnson, an agent for Century 21, the Service Co.

At the low end of the price range, a foreclosed home with three bedrooms and two baths would sell for $150,000. The high end would range between $250,000 and $275,000. These homes usually have four bedrooms, three baths, a family room and a fireplace in 2,500 square feet.

When John Bradley bought his third Carson home five years ago, he said that he and his wife, Linnie, began their house-hunting expedition with the determination to be “broad-minded.” But after looking in places as far away as La Habra and Yorba Linda, they ultimately decided that “cramped, older homes at higher prices weren’t worth the status of saying they lived in a certain city.”

Eventually they returned to Carson and bought a two-story four-bedroom, two-bath house in the Marlborough Estates just north of Cal State Dominguez Hills.

“It was really the street that attracted us,” said Bradley, a retired aerospace worker. “It was quiet. We liked the floor plan. We jumped on it because we were thinking resale value.” They paid $212,000.

So far the Bradleys’ plans have been no more long range than enjoying great neighbors and a convenient drive to church and anticipating the annual July 4th block party.

And while Bradley can recall a time 15 years ago when there were no graffiti or security guards in certain stores, he allows, “We have a [L.A. County] sheriff that responds very quickly. They can be here within five minutes.”

The active cooperation of more than 300 community block associations is a contributing factor, said Sgt. Robert Costa of the Carson sheriff’s substation.

True to its motto, “Futures Unlimited,” Carson has wooed more than 3,000 regional, national and international companies with pro-business tax incentives. Home to such firms as Coca-Cola, MCI, Hewlett-Packard, Arco and Mercedes-Benz, the city has 68% commercial-industrial land use.

If there is anything Carson residents would like to see happen, it is the formation of an independent school district. The issue came up in 1993 when the community, historically part of the Compton and Los Angeles Unified school districts, voted to pursue the formation of its own district.

Twenty-six-year resident Carolyn Harris has been leading the drive. So far, the mother of four and her team of volunteers has gathered enough signatures from the Compton school district residents; they are still working on the count needed from the L.A. Unified residents to get the measure on the next ballot.

These days Carson residents are looking at some developments of major scope. A new 180,000-square-foot Super Kmart, for example, going into the Carson Town Center on Alameda Street, has created quite a stir.

But the most ambitious and complex construction yet undertaken by the Carson Redevelopment Agency is the Metro Mall. Ground has just been broken along the 405 Freeway for an outlet mall that is planned as the largest in the Greater L.A. area. It also stands out as one of the first commercial building projects in California to rise over a landfill. Planners are expecting to draw 12 anchor stores and 250 specialty stores.

In the absence of a city property tax Carson’s need to generate revenues through the sales tax is a point that no one in the community disputes. However, the mall development has drawn fire from some residents.

Gary Colboth, a professor in the school of public administration at Cal State Dominguez Hills, questions the thoroughness of the clean-up process.

“It’s not being cleaned up. It’s being contained,” he said. “It’s an old toxic waste site. It’s still settling. I think when you start putting big buildings on it, you’re going to have big problems.”

However, Community Planner Sherry Repp reflects the enthusiasm of most people in Carson. “This project represents a wonderful opportunity to bring in jobs, revenues and exciting development,” Repp said. “How often do you get to put a million-square-foot mall next to a freeway?”

For Martin McHale, it’s his neighbors who make Carson a special place.

In 1980, after being hit by a series of rent increases, McHale and his Palos Verdes neighbor decided to buy a mobile home in the Imperial Carson Mobile Estates, one of 28 in the city. They bought a two-bedroom, two-bath double-wide for $43,000 and moved in two months later.

McHale finds his economically designed home, with a beautiful pool and Jacuzzi, much nicer than apartment living. “In an apartment you don’t have flowers you can take care of,” he said. “I planted tomatoes, something I had never done in my life.”

Counting “some of the finest people in America” as his neighbors, he notes, “We have 15 African American families, 15 Hispanic families, six or seven Filipino families, two Japanese families and one Chinese family. We have everything here. If Carson doesn’t work, America isn’t going to work.”

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Carson Heights Home Sale Data

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Sample Size 1,811 (for 10-year period) Ave. home size 1,346 (square feet) Ave. Year Built 1957 Ave. No. Bedrms 3.13 Ave. No. Baths 1.64 Pool 4% View homes 1% Central air 5% Floodzone 62% Price Range $54,000-228,000 (1995-96) Predominant Value $141,000 Age Range 6-89 years Predominant Age 40 years

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Average Sales Data

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Year Total $ per Median Sales sq. ft. price 1996* 99 $106.11 $144,015 1995 154 $106.71 $142,592 1994 128 $113.81 $153,691 1993 98 $118.84 $163,627 1992 115 $130.70 $178,973 1991 148 $139.97 $178,067 1990 182 $141.20 $180,098 1989 233 $128.44 $164,591 1988 327 $105.95 $138,535 1987 327 $89.90 $121,327

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*1996 data current through June.

Source: Experian, Anaheim