UDR Is B-a-a-a-a-ck

A special meeting of the Planning and Transportation Commission scheduled for Feb. 27 has been postponed until Mon., Mar. 12, at 6:30 p.m. The purpose of the meeting was to address UDR’s request to remove required affordable units from its high-density apartment plan.

Due to scheduling conflicts, the meeting was moved to Mar. 12, when the commission holds its regular meeting on the second Monday of the month

UDR received the council majority’s approval in August 2011 to increase its number of apartments to 320 with the condition of having 48 affordable units. UDR was to receive $4.1 million from the city’s redevelopment agency to build the project. The state’s shutdown of redevelopment agencies led UDR to request eliminating the affordable units.

According to a Feb. 7 OC Register story, City Manager Dennis Wilberg says the city has no money for UDR. His quote: "Our intention was to provide the assistance, but now that source of funding has been taken away. We don't really have any money to give."

UDR is a huge corporation with billions of dollars in assets. To suggest it needs assistance from Mission Viejo taxpayers is ridiculous. UDR’s proposed site – the former Kmart property – is a classic example of the abuse of redevelopment, which was supposed to eliminate blight. The only blight on the property is due to UDR’s lack of responsible upkeep.

UDR’s first proposal for high-density units was approved by the council majority in 2005. The city’s stated purpose for approving the project was to meet affordable housing goals. Over the years, various council majorities have approved housing projects, despite the objections of residents to overcrowding, and then dropped the affordable requirement. An exception is Lennar’s high-density condo project at Jeronimo and Los Alisos, which was not allowed to eliminate affordable units.

Council majorities have pretended to help the poor while helping themselves to campaign donations from developers to rezone property for affordable housing. Developers then applied their deal-making skills and ended up building only market-rate units. Such bait-and-switch tactics caused the city to fall behind in meeting the state’s affordable housing goals.