More low-cost marina rentals sought

With Westside rents hitting records, a group of affordable housing activists has identified Marina del Rey as the next stop in a long campaign to secure more low-income apartments along prime coastal land.

Unlike most waterfront developments, the marina is owned by Los Angeles County, which leases it to developers, so county supervisors are in a position to demand more affordable apartments.

Advocates for affordable housing contend the county is allowing developers to build too many market-rate apartments on publicly owned land. The city of Los Angeles, they note, requires coastal developers to build at least twice as many units for the poorest renters.

In the next few weeks, county supervisors are expected to take up the issue in two key votes that will pit adding apartments for low-income residents against maximizing county profits from the marina.

“What is the county’s duty to the people? Is it only to the rich?” asked Deanna Kitamura, a lawyer at the Western Center on Law and Poverty. “We don’t want to have poor and rich families living far away from each other.”

The issue comes as the marina is undergoing a building boom. Developers are replacing 2,000 aging units and adding 1,251 new units.

Of the marina’s 5,323 existing apartment units, 28 are designated for affordable housing.

State law requires inclusion of affordable housing in coastal redevelopment, when deemed economically feasible. So far, 413 low-income apartments have been approved or are planned, said Dusty Crane, spokeswoman for the county’s Department of Beaches and Harbors, which runs the marina.

Such units will limit profits for both developers and the county because their rents are capped. Under the terms of its leases with marina developers, the county receives 10.5% of all apartment rents there.

That provides the county with about $35 million a year from its leases, money it can use to supplement healthcare, law enforcement and other services.

County officials say they are working hard to balance the housing needs of the poor with their duty to see that taxpayers get a good return on their investment.

“I think that the county was right to take a look at affordable housing. You do need to have a balanced community, but it’s a business relationship,” Crane said. “I think that the supervisors try to be fair. It’s like anything else. Can you afford to live in the neighborhood or not?”

Disputes over marina rents are nothing new. Under pressure from activists, county supervisors introduced rent control for unincorporated areas, including the marina, in 1979. But the board removed the controls nearly six years later.

Today, marina rents are among the highest in the county.

Last year, average monthly rents in and around the marina topped $2,300 and were second only to Santa Monica among the county’s largest rental communities, according to RealFacts, a firm based in Novato, Calif., that surveys rents at complexes with 100 or more units.

Without more affordable homes, the Westside and other areas could end up being beyond the financial reach of many employees and cause some local businesses to move, said Stuart Gabriel, chairman of USC’s Lusk Center for Real Estate.

Gabriel said the need is so great that adding a few affordable units in the marina amounts “to pouring a glass of water into the Santa Monica Bay.”

One of the marina’s affordable apartments is rented by Helen Garrett.

The 65-year-old grandmother, who lives on Social Security and a small monthly pension, shares an immaculate one-bedroom apartment in the marina’s Capri Apartments with her miniature schnauzer, Hilda. To qualify for the unit, she had to provide the management with detailed financial records.

Garrett pays $677 a month, well below the approximately $2,200 market rate.

“This doesn’t happen to poor folks,” she said, proudly showing off the small living room. “This is what working people ought to be able to live in.”

Garrett belongs to a community group, People Organized for Westside Renewal, or POWER, that is urging the county to build more low-income housing.

A county task force set up last year has proposed changes to the marina’s affordable housing policy that supervisors are expected to consider next month.

The proposed policy would end the practice of developers’ paying the county large fees to avoid building low-income units in the marina.

Developers who tear down their complexes would replace units rented by low-income tenants with new affordable units. If the new complex includes more apartments than the old one, developers would build 5% of the extra apartments for “very low-income” tenants or 10% for “low-income” ones.

In Los Angeles County, a household of four earning less than $55,450 qualifies as “low income.” The county caps the rent on a three-bedroom apartment for such a family at $845 a month. The same household earning less than $34,650 qualifies as “very low income” and would rent the same unit for $705 a month.

Though an improvement over the county’s previous policy, the proposal does not go far enough, Garrett and other activists say.

As part of a legal settlement with advocates for affordable housing, the city of Los Angeles requires that 10% of all redeveloped coastal apartments in complexes larger than 10 units be set aside for tenants deemed “very low income” or 20% as “low income.”

Lawyers for POWER, including lawyers from the Western Center on Law and Poverty and the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, said they would consider legal action if the county did not alter its plan.

Meanwhile, they have asked county supervisors to block the first development that planning commissioners approved in December using the county’s proposed policy.

That approval allowed the owners of Del Rey Shores to start replacing their 202-unit complex on Via Marina with a 544-unit development.

The proposed development includes 17 “very low-income” units -- 5% of the 342 apartments being added -- and 37 units to replace ones now rented by “moderate-income” tenants. A family of four can earn up to $67,400 to qualify as “moderate income.”

Susanne Browne, senior attorney with the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, said an economist reviewed the development plans for activists and concluded that more affordable housing could be built.

But a Del Rey Shores executive said the developer should be commended for including low-income units, which he said would cost the owner an estimated $6 million because of reduced rent over 30 years. The project cannot afford more, he said.

“This project has an unprecedented commitment to affordable housing in Marina del Rey,” said David O. Levine, chief of staff to the development’s owner, Jerry B. Epstein. “We’re putting our money where our mouth is.”

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jack.leonard@latimes.com