Santa Barbara OKs Housing Aid for Folks Making Up to $160,000 a Year

[question everything]

From the Los Angeles Times

Santa Barbara OKs Housing Aid for Folks Making Up to $160,000 a Year

In a city where the median home price is over $1 million, a planned condo project's units will be priced below market from $495,000 to $595,000. Teachers, nurses, police are among the expected buyers.
By Maria L. La Ganga
Times Staff Writer

August 14, 2006

(snip)

Now, "it's hard to get sympathy for people making $160,000 a year if you're down in Texas or something," said Bill Watkins, head of the UC Santa Barbara Economic Forecast Project. Any household with that kind of money is in the nosebleed section of American earners, and "most of the country would think, 'You're going to subsidize that person's house? You're kidding me.' " But in this city — where the median home price is around $1.2 million — that person needs help. And the Housing Authority of the City of Santa Barbara is about to become the rare public housing agency to assist the well-heeled along with the poor, to build shelter for those whose business cards come in designer leather cases and include words like "doctor," "lawyer," "director."

(snip)

Actually, Santa Barbara officials view Los Portales as one answer to the conundrum of keeping middle-class families in a rich man's city. Prospective buyers would probably be "a cop married to a teacher, a nurse married to a guy who owns a plumbing store," Councilwoman Iya Falcone said during last week's City Council meeting. "Some of the people who are going to buy the higher-priced units are doctors and lawyers. But lawyers are people too…. I love this project." Santa Barbara fancies itself America's Riviera, with its wide, white beaches and perfect weather, its rugged mountain backdrop and clear-day views of the Channel Islands, its building codes tended as meticulously as its lawns. The city is zoned for 40,005 housing units. About 38,000 have been built, and the only housing construction these days is in-fill: a few units here, a few there. Unlike other land-poor cities, Santa Barbara has been loath to tear down large swaths of outdated structures and rebuild, said Paul Shigley, editor of the California Planning & Development Report.

(snip)

The Santa Barbara Foundation lent the Housing Authority money for the land. In return, up to half of the units are to be marketed first to workers in the area's nonprofit organizations, people who can't buy market-rate homes on non-market-rate salaries.

(snip)

It would take some fancy math to keep the two- and three-bedroom Mediterranean-style condos affordable. And, truth be told, they'd be considered affordable only in a housing market like Santa Barbara's. On the open market here, they'd bring more than $1 million each; the proposal is to sell them for $495,000 to $595,000. Which explains why the City Council — with some consternation — decided last week to create a new class of affordable-housing recipients. State and federal laws generally state that, depending on the program, people eligible for affordable housing can't make more than 80% of the area's median income, as defined by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. In Santa Barbara County, which includes tony Santa Barbara as well as working-class Santa Maria, the median income is $65,800 for a family of four. The City Council here had already created a class of affordable housing several years ago for people making up to 200% of the median income. Last week, they agreed to tailor the Los Portales project for people making up to 240%, or nearly $160,000. (To keep these affordable condos affordable, buyers would be subject to price controls on resale that would restrict any price increase to about 2% a year.)

(snip)


http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-vacant14aug14,1,5661390.story?coll=la-headlines-california

[aquart]

1. Smart.

[barb162]

2. Yep

Ya gotta love CA real estate prices (if you bought there 20-30 years ago)

[question everything]

And managed to stay there

not being affected by job losses..

[barb162]

5. A relative moved there about 30 years ago, bought a house

for 130,000 and now it's at about a million bucks. And it's Menlo Park, which isn't even that hot of a town

[edhopper]

3. They should

just wait a few years after real estate collapses in this country. Things will be very affordable, just no one will have any money to afford them.
:sarcasm:

[DireStrike]

4. Wow, how can they afford that?

That's fantastic, as long as everybody up to and including their target of 160k incomes is getting adequate housing.

On the other hand, I don't see how a person making that much could need aid. Are they getting squeezed somehow? They're either upper-upper middle class, or lower-upper class. Either way they should have disposable income, unless something (my guess is housing) is eating their entire salary.

[Selatius]

7. The housing prices are ridiculous

If homes are selling for 1,200,000, and you make, say, 80,000/year, are you more or less willing to accept aid?

I would simply wait for the housing bubble to explode, and then buy a home when prices have collapsed.

[DireStrike]

8. Ah, that makes sense.

So what ultimately happened here is that real estate speculators were subsidized by taxes. Sad, but I guess it's better than other places where people are just forced to leave.

Real estate speculation should be reigned in.

[Freedom_Aflaim]

6. Aid for the Rich

While we are cutting aid to the poor.

yea..just what we need.