Strategy in dealing with State Mandated low-income housing

The issues associated with zoning changes, low-income housing, the community development agency’s 20 percent set-aside for low-income housing and the Regional Needs Housing Assessment (RNHA) are all separate issues that often converge, as we have seen in the case at the old Kmart site. 

The RNHA is a number of low-income housing units that the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) tells cities like Mission Viejo that need to be built in the city in a given period of time. We are currently dealing with the numbers from the year 2000 allocation, and the next cycle in terms of the RNHA allocation is supposed to be in 2008.  SCAG is an agency which, in conjunction with the state department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) develops the housing projections and needs analysis using a rather mysterious formula. This is just a little background to help explain what is involved here. Of course, this is to be weighed with what is best for the city and my own opinion of some of these issues. 

From my perspective and strong conviction, the ideal would be to let the free enterprise system sort it out. To put it in the vernacular, the whole system is a mess, and we would be better off scrapping this whole government-defined and marginally mandated low-income housing insanity. I do not see any benefit in the government artificially controlling real estate by having new construction forced to restrict units to allow for “affordability.” Yes, I do believe in zoning and for people or organizations being accountable for the impacts that they have on another person’s or organization’s wealth. With these beliefs I have not lost sight that some serious reform needs to be made at the state level, nor have I forgotten that I need to make decisions based upon the reality of the way things are versus the way I think they should be.

What is best for the collection of citizens who live in Mission Viejo is what I am interested in promoting and responsible for supporting public policy that furthers that end. Yes, I oppose zone changes, but practicality, history of a parcel’s zoning, community sentiment and common sense have to prevail over a belief that is based on an ideal, emotion or bad experiences with one similarity but vastly different facts.

As someone who was a resident back in the days of “Beautiful Mission Viejo,” “The California Promise” and “It’s so nice to have Mission Viejo around the house,” not to mention the novelty of underground electrical and phone utilities in a suburban setting, I have a strong desire to preserve what made Mission Viejo such a desirable place to live. Actually, a desirable place to live is an understatement. Mission Viejo was much more profoundly sold; Mission Viejo is more than a place to live, it is a place to be a part of.

To preserve Mission Viejo, the greatest challenge is to educate the newer residents of this city and to get them to be an active part of the community.

What we know as The California Promise is at a major crossroads. In the effort to preserve the ideals of Mission Viejo, to maintain and improve what we have, to navigate through the planning ideologies that are the antithesis to what we know as The California Promise, we need to think strategically and choose our battles wisely.

The people who want to preserve the character of Mission Viejo have to ask themselves some difficult questions, such as: does it make sense to dig in your heels and consume much of your political capital on the wrong fight (i.e. the former Kmart site), does losing credibility increase or decrease your effectiveness, if you expend your political capital on the wrong fight will that help or hinder garnering public support, will losing credibility help or hinder your ability to oppose projects that are actually objectionable? 

What I would like to do is get a group of people who are concerned about the character and value of Mission Viejo together and focus on goals that make sense. I realize we cannot change state law, bring about a major change in the RNHA allocation, tell these “public interest” groups that threaten legal action to go burn in the Inferno, but we can certainly take reasonable and wise steps to move in the best possible direction.

John Paul “J.P.” Ledesma, Councilman, City of Mission Viejo