Panel Rejects State Order to Add Housing

In a fight over how much future housing will be needed in Southern California, a regional planning panel voted Thursday to reject a state-imposed plan to accommodate the 2 million new residents expected in the area over the next five years.

The state mandated that six Southern California counties plan for the construction of more than 504,000 new housing units by 2005. But the Southern California Assn. of Governments voted instead to plan for 438,000, or 13% fewer units, arguing that the state estimates are flawed.

SCAG is the planning and research agency for the region that includes Imperial, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties. SCAG officials said state estimates don’t take into account high vacancy rates, military base closures and a growing number of large families who live under the same roof.

The most vocal critics of the state numbers were government officials in the Inland Empire, where much of the future growth has been predicted. Because of that opposition, SCAG approved the biggest county and city cuts to the state quotas in that region.

But state officials insist that their housing estimates are accurate, so a showdown is expected. Cities and counties that fail to plan for the state housing quotas could be ineligible for state housing funds and would be vulnerable to civil lawsuits by developers and others.

Some state officials worry that if the state allows Southern California to lower its housing quotas, other regions may do the same.

Cathy Creswell, acting deputy director at the state Department of Housing and Community Development, said Thursday in a telephone interview that any reduction in the state numbers “will be hard for us to approve.”

But Creswell said she doesn’t know how the state will respond until state officials receive a report from SCAG explaining the agency’s actions.

The cities and counties that received the allocation would not build the housing themselves, but would be required to draft housing plans and zoning changes to accommodate construction by developers.

“Now comes the interesting part,” SCAG Executive Director Mark Pisano said after SCAG’s regional council voted on the lower housing numbers.

Since no region has ever rejected the state housing quotas since the program began in 1980, SCAG officials don’t know what the next step is.

The housing allocation numbers are issued every five years by the state Department of Housing and Community Development under a program called the Regional Housing Needs Assessment.

It is up to SCAG officials to divide up the responsibility for the housing units among its 183 cities and six counties.

The state program was put on hold in the recession years of the early 1990s, when housing construction slowed dramatically. It was relaunched in late 1998, with the state mandating that Southern California plan for the construction of 625,000 housing units, for all income levels, by 2005.

At the request of SCAG officials, the state lowered its original mandate to 504,758 units. Over the past year, SCAG officials have struggled to parcel out the housing responsibilities. But 45 cities and counties appealed their quotas to SCAG.

After months of hearings, SCAG officials accepted appeals from 10 cities and counties, cutting the state allocation further by 66,777.

The communities that won cuts from SCAG were:

San Bernardino County (from 43,668 units to 16,211 units); Riverside County (from 12,232 units to 6,051 units); Moreno Valley (from 9,997 to 3,557 units) City of San Bernardino (from 3,782 units to 0); Victorville (from 5,323 units to 2,500 units); Lancaster (from 9,285 units to 7,205 units); Chino Hills (from 5,660 units to 3,806 units); City of Riverside (from 8,748 units to 7,722 units); Santa Monica (from 2,867 units to 2,208 units) and Glendora (from 296 units to 265 units).

San Bernardino was freed from planning for any housing construction in the next five years because of its huge surplus of vacant housing units, SCAG officials said.

Several Inland Empire officials complained that Southern California coastal communities should accept more future housing because that is where most of the future jobs will be.

“We are already accepting more than what we feel we can accept in affordable housing,” said Riverside County Supervisor Bob Buster.

San Bernardino City mayor Judith Valle criticized the allocation process for giving the Inland Empire the responsibility for much of the region’s affordable housing.

“Stop dumping on the Inland Empire,” she said, describing the process as “social apartheid.”