Tehachapi News

Housing Issues: A hot election topic

The issue of Section 8 housing has become a flashpoint in Tehachapi city politics – but why?

According to Steven Pelz, executive director of the County Housing Authority of the County of Kern, there are 23 renters with Section 8 vouchers in the 93561 ZIP code, scattered in 17 locations. According to Tehachapi Mayor Deborah Hand, 11 of those 23 are in the city, and five of those 11 are seniors. The others, she speculates, are disabled.

There are no public housing projects in Tehachapi, and the privately owned low-to-moderate income and senior housing developments between Kmart and West Park are models of cleanliness and good management, says City Manager Greg Garrett.

Aware of the difficulties experienced by nearby cities, notably Lancaster, some Tehachapi residents worry about the impact of an influx of renters using federally funded Section 8 vouchers, which give financial help to low-income renters. They are concerned about crime, drugs, graffiti, neighborhood deterioration and a burdensome demand on the schools.

The situation in Lancaster, exacerbated in the past by lax placement standards on the part of the County of Los Angeles, became a political tipping point and ushered in a mayor who vowed to turn the freight train around with an “iron fist.”

In an Oct. 10 story in the Antelope Valley Press, Political Reporter James Rufus Koren quotes Mayor R. Rex Parris as saying that Section 8 has been a key factor in the Antelope Valley’s rising crime rates in the past 20 years.

Parris has launched a Section 8 Commission to spearhead local control of the program and bring absentee landlords into line, even to the point of bulldozing the houses of non-compliant owners.

Two of the current Tehachapi City Council candidates, Henry Schaeffer and Richard Tripp, have made opposition to Section 8 a plank in their campaigns.

“Section 8” is just one piece of the subsidized housing pie.

The issue arose locally in connection with a proposal for an 81-unit affordable housing project to be built on 6.53 acres of vacant land at Mill Street and H, on the north side of the railroad tracks.

Irvine-based Global Premier Development, Inc., developed the apartment complex – called The Village at Tehachapi Family Apartments – as a tax credit project.

Such projects offer inviting tax credits for investors and are a successful cornerstone of federal and state affordable housing policy. The developments are privately owned and must be held for 55 years to gain the full tax advantage – that is, they cannot be built for the tax advantage and unloaded on a slumlord. The build the projects, developers cobble together various sources of funding, including federal, state, county and municipal development moneys.

According to Garrett, the city of Tehachapi has “well over a million” in RDA funds to be spent on the low- to-moderate income housing component.

The Village at Tehachapi project, a mix of 11, two-story buildings of one-, two-and three-bedroom units, a community area and a swimming pool, worked its way through the city planners and met all the requirements. Global Premier asked the city for Redevelopment Agency (RDA) housing set-aside assistance in the amount of $700,000 for the Tehachapi apartment project and, encouraged by absence of opposition, were anticipating smooth sailing.

But on March 3, the city council, sitting as RDA directors, voted 4-0 to turn down the developer’s application for RDA housing set-asides. (Mayor Hand, who owns a business in the downtown redevelopment area, recused herself from the vote.)

Councilman Stan Beckham said he believed the development was wrong for the city and would become a problem area. Councilpersons Phil Smith, Linda Vernon and Ed Grimes expressed misgivings about the location, which would place a new population of residents across the tracks, away from transportation, shopping and schools.

The project subsequently gained close to $600,000 in assistance for the project from Kern County but on Oct. 9, 2008, failed to pass the third tie-breaker in the stringent apportionment process for tax credits from the California Tax Credit Allocation Committee, ending at No. six on the Rural Set-Aside waiting list. Unless it moves up the list by inheriting tax credits from other projects, it is dead in the water as conceived.

Underlying the city council RDA vote are the political currents of the city and the seeds of contention in the current political campaign.

The appearance at the meeting of impassioned public speakers, alarmed at the prospect of Section 8 renters in the development, took the council by surprise, adding a new dimension of conflict to the problem of location.

“The council was torn,” said Councilman Phil Smith. “There is no grocery store north of the railroad tracks. It would be putting the tenants in a position of walking across the tracks to buy groceries.

“Section 8 was not the issue,” he said. “They made it the issue.”

Smith said, “Those folks [the developers] were dumbfounded. It was a frustrating meeting.”

The sides started lining up at that moment, he said, and “That is why we see Section 8 on the ballot [as an issue].”

Mel Rubin, who owns the Orchard Apartments adjacent to Global Premier’s Mill Street property, is fiercely opposed to the construction of that project. He backs the two candidates who agree with him, Henry Schaeffer and Richard Tripp.

“There are many reasons why it should not be built there,” said Rubin, who owns two other apartment properties in Tehachapi, both of which – even his opponents agree – he cleaned up and improved, throwing out drug dealers and troublemakers. “It has nothing to do with my being next door.”

Rubin said that in a letter of opposition he wrote to the state allocation committee, he expressed concern about the number of children who might be living there (he estimated around 200-225) and the cost to parents of the bus ride to school ($260 a year), the proximity to the railroad tracks and heavily traveled streets and not enough room for the children to play.

His objections go beyond the presence of children.

“These are subsidized properties,” he said. “It has to do with the future character of Tehachapi. Many of those apartments will be rented out to Section 8 residents. I know business people. If they are facing high vacancy, the tendency is to rent out to whomever.”

Rubin said he does not allow Section 8 renters in his properties.

Rubin’s opponents contend he is fearful of losing renters to a cheaper, newer development.

“One or two may [move], I suppose,” he said. “I’m not concerned about that at all.”
He said, “Our rents on average are on or below the market rents in Tehachapi, certainly lower than Palmdale, Lancaster or Bakersfield.”

Rubin said he agrees with the city on the need for tax-subsidized housing for seniors and a multicultural center.

Steven Pelz of the county’s housing authority said the program has two main parts – tenant-based and project-based. The more desirable and hard-to-come-by tenant-based Section 8 vouchers go with the tenant wherever that person wants to live, as long as the dwelling is approved for Section 8. Project-based vouchers stay with the dwelling unit or apartment building.

The Section 8 residents in Tehachapi have tenant-based vouchers, he said.

“There are no Section 8 apartments in Tehachapi,” Pelz said. Projects like the Village at Tehachapi are designed for renters who earn 30 to 60 percent of the area’s mean income, he said.

“Problems typically are due to the landlord not properly maintaining or properly screening or from absentee landlords,” Pelz said. “That’s what happened in Lancaster. For many years, Los Angeles did not have strong screening criteria within its own program”

Pelz said the Kern County program carries out strict, updated screening of applicants that includes criminal history and drug use.

“We do complete criminal history of arrests and convictions. If there is a violent criminal history or recent drug conviction we do not accept them in the program.”

To qualify for the tax credit program, a project has to be quality – “market rate in amenities, maintained properly, attractive, brand new construction,” he said. “It’s not something Tehachapi should fear  any way.”

As to the project’s location, Pelz said the housing authority “has a history of siting low-income projects near railroad tracks. In Bakersfield in the 40s to the 60s, a number of such projects were placed “smack next to railroad tracks.”

Because of federal funding restraints, the Section 8 program is now closed to new applicants, according to Pelz, and there are 7,000 people on a three-year waiting list. Some programs are faster to get into, he said, and the county has immediate help for homeless.

Joe DeAnda, press secretary for the state treasurer’s office, the gatekeeper of federal tax credits, said the refusal of Tehachapi to offer up RDA funds for the local project probably had no bearing on its failure to pass the third tiebreaker to qualify for funding. The static formula used to calculate how much of the project is eligible for tax credits, he said, “is going to stay the same regardless of the source of financing.”

For that matter, since the 6.53-acre lot is properly zoned for multi-family construction, the developer could go ahead with private financing and build it.

But he won’t.

Andrew Hanna, the 31-year-old president and CEO of Global Premier Development, Inc., said, “Our specialty is affordable development. We have little to do with market rate development type projects.”

As for the rejection by the city for RDA funding, he said, “They didn’t want to give us funds due to the location. It’s one of our biggest concerns even though we’re going to mitigate the noise and the tracks. We had a whole transportation system worked out.”

Hanna said his company had researched potential tenants, and found that few would be transplants from outside the area.

“Quite a few people in the city are on the waiting list for affordable housing. They would be moving from one place in Tehachapi to another. If there is better housing, they take advantage of it,” he said.

Hanna said of Rubin’s opposition to his project, “They were trying to derail the competition. It’s not fair but I understand their point of view.”

He said that to live in his apartments, “You have to have a job,” and they do stringent background checks and require applicants to produce tax returns and pay stubs.

Hanna said, “There’s a reason drug dealers don’t have jobs. They can’t bring in tax returns.”

“We want a peaceful, happy development,” he said. “We are going to be owning the building for the next 55 years. I don’t want my project to attract problems. We’re very selective.”

Hanna said his company has financed 3,500 units and they have “another 4,000 in the pipeline.”

One of those projects is senior affordable housing in Tehachapi.

“We had another family deal,” Hanna said. “But the city said it wanted senior housing. We are trying to appease the city. It’s in the planning stage right now.”