IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD : San Marino: The Affluent Grapple With Low-income Housing

Nearly 80% of California’s cities are out of compliance with some aspect of state mandated low-income housing quotas. So the tiny, affluent San Gabriel Valley city of San Marino, which has not filled its 13-unit quota, is certainly not alone--but its arguments against meeting the quota are distinct.

Since its incorporation in 1913, San Marino has been home to a quiet community of wealthy people. Except for an influx of prosperous Asian immigrants that has altered its ethnic mix, residents say that the city of single-family houses and a small commercial district hasn’t changed for 40 years. The city has no mini-malls, no apartments, no condos, and almost no open land available for development of any kind. An informal proposal to designate maid’s quarters and caretaker cottages as low-income housing units has been dismissed by housing advocates as a gimmick designed to avoid the law’s intent. Many residents here believe that if there must be low-income housing quotas, they should be based not only on a city’s population but on its available land, property values and residential zoning history. San Marino, they argue, could then fairly be exempted from its quota because of its history as a residential city with extremely high property costs and no multiple-unit development.

Population: 12,959

Population by race and ethnicity

White: 62%

Asian 32%

Hispanic 5%

Other 1%

San Marino:

Per capita income: $49,537

Average household income: $146,603

Median household income: $100,077

Los Angeles County:

Per capita income: $16,149

Average household income: $47,252

Median household income: $34,965

Number of homes rented: 586

Number of housing units: 4,303 Sources: U.S. Census and City of San Marino

Census programming by Times analyst Maureen Lyons

RESIDENT

Paul Crowley

Resident of San Marino for 40 years and city council member for seven years

It’s virtually impossible for any parcel of San Marino property to be low-cost anything.

I don’t see how you can have a low-cost living unit on a high cost piece of property without some kind of Draconian eminent domain move or taking property from a private owner.

My personal opinion is that we should receive a variance from the state quota for low-income housing because it’s an economic impossibility to accomplish. We want to do our share to help take care of social problems just like everybody in America should do. We just have this unique problem of geography that makes it difficult for us to figure out how to comply.

Frankly, what we want to do in our town is keep it the same way it’s always been.

There may be ways for us to participate with other (communities) so that we can do our share.

CITY EMPLOYEE

Lori Ludi

Planning and building assistant since November 1991

I think (many people fear (low-income housing) devaluing property, not that it would, or bringing down the overall character and image that San Marino has now and worked so hard to maintain.

Thirteen low-income housing units is not an unreasonable number until it’s someone’s next-door neighbor. For a lot of people here, they’ve worked so hard to buy a home in San Marino that this is where they’re going to stay for the rest of their lives. Or they’ve grown up here and they’ve inherited the family home and everybody is going to inherit this property.

We should start thinking (about how to meet the low-income housing quota) before the state forces us to.

Either we’re going to be paying more money to the county which will mean more money out of everybody’s pocket or we’re doing something about it within the city which is going to be painful to them also. Any way you look at it we’re not going to be pleasing very many people.

GEOGRAPHER

Jennifer Wolch

Professor of Geography at USC, co-author of a study on homelessness in Los Angeles County

These communities definitely do have responsibilities to provide low-income housing. What we see in most metropolitan areas is communities that are divided into municipalities to preserve privilege and to exclude problems. Most of the boundaries, though, are artificial in a functional sense. The (San Gabriel Valley) operates--economically and to some extent socially and politically--as a region, not as isolated small municipalities, so I think that the problems of the region are really the problems of all the municipalities.

San Marino may be built out in residential areas, but San Marino does have commercial areas and certainly units of affordable housing can be built in those kinds of zones. It’s a question of whether or not the city’s willing to either alter its zoning ordinance or encourage non-profit developers to target an area once a property is on the market. I don’t think property in San Marino stands still. (Providing low-income housing) takes effort.

Why should San Marino’s 13 units go somewhere else? Why is San Marino an inappropriate location for 13 units of low-income housing, for 13 units, say, of elderly or handicapped housing? They want a certain kind of social profile. I don’t think it’s appropriate.