Turn Housing Into Homes

The adage “When elephants fight, the grass gets trampled” applies to the stalemate over the vacant housing at the former El Toro Marine Corps Air Station.

Orange County supervisors and the Irvine City Council, both of which seem sympathetic to the critical need for more affordable housing, have been battling over the future use of the abandoned airfield. The county board wants to convert the former base into a commercial airport. Irvine and other South County cities are adamantly opposed to any aviation use and now have mobilized behind a proposal for a large central park that they hope to put before voters next year.

Irvine long has made affordable housing one of the priorities of its city policies, and upon returning to the City Council several years ago, Mayor Larry Agran was one of the first in the county to emphasize the need to make use of that available housing stock.

In September, after about a year of urging from Supervisor Tom Wilson, the county board unanimously voted to consider converting the base housing to affordable home units for civilian use. Wilson’s plan was to generate county income and help ease the housing shortage while providing affordable places to live as well as homes for the homeless.

But the disagreement over the base reuse plan between the city and the county has prevented any temporary housing component from being implemented. Caught underfoot are the housing hopes and needs of hundreds of lower-income, homeless and other county residents.

That means that more than 1,100 homes formerly used for Marines and their families have sat vacant and unused since the Marines pulled out about two years ago.

Given the county’s soaring rents--which average a record high of close to $1,200 a month--low vacancy factors and critical shortage of affordable homes, the unused units at the base are a deplorable waste of needed housing stock. A laudable temporary housing approach therefore has fallen victim to the political firestorm and cross-purposes that engulf any issue having to do with the base, however remote to its redevelopment.

As straightforward as bringing people in need together with vacant, available homes seems to be, neither pro- nor anti-airport interests have been able thus far to separate the practical from the political.

One major complication is Irvine’s interest in annexing the base to wrest control away from the county. Annexation itself is an old question, because part of the base lies within the city of Irvine.

While the city long has pondered its relationship with the base, it never acted decisively before the base closing was announced in 1993. The city eventually was cut out entirely from the Local Redevelopment Authority after the base was rezoned for an airport in 1994 and county supervisors assumed planning control.

The revived interest in annexation as part of the city’s anti-airport strategy has put all sorts of legal gamesmanship into play.

Under state law, once the area is inhabited, as few as 12 residents living in the unincorporated area could vote to have Irvine annex them. That, however, still could be thwarted by the county by its refusal to sign a needed property tax exchange agreement with the city.

The Local Agency Formation Committee, a state agency that regulates boundary lines, has said there was a legal approach that would allow the county to put people into the housing without “unduly burdening” either the county or Irvine. But there are reservations on both sides about anything that might tilt a precarious balance.

These reservations seem to have stalemated the efforts to open up the housing. City and county officials should be able to separate the housing issue from the airport controversy and come to an agreement.

In the meantime, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista) is stepping into the void. He has asked Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to allow Marines at Camp Pendleton to use El Toro as interim housing.

That wouldn’t do anything for Orange County’s housing needs. But it’s far better than letting the homes sit empty, gathering cobwebs. It could take years before any redevelopment plan for El Toro’s 4,700 acres is adopted and implemented. Until then, the base’s empty homes should be made livable--and be lived in.