Case Study: City of Alhambra
Discriminatory housing policies and practices by the city of Alhambra
by Eric Sunada
For nearly 20 years, the city of Alhambra maintained discriminatory housing policies and practices that have precluded families from access to affordable housing. The city accomplished this by restricting their subsidized housing stock to mostly senior citizens, despite demographics to the contrary. Through this practice of age discrimination, 99.2% of the rental units slated for those of low-income are off limits to families. Yet families with children are the group most in need of such housing, a fact confirmed by the city’s own findings . Even when limiting consideration to special needs groups, the needs of female-headed households (single mothers) outweigh those of seniors. So follows the obvious question: why is the city of Alhambra practicing age discrimination?
The region in the West San Gabriel Valley has very high housing costs. Many residents have most of their income consumed by rent or mortgage payments. Relative to other parts of the nation, many are considered “house-poor.” That is, so much of their money goes into their dwelling that they often cannot save for the future. Some have remaining disposable incomes so low that they are effectively living near the poverty line.
California law mandates that cities address the affordable housing problem, but gives them the latitude and trust that its most disadvantaged will be served. Also, the federal government provides grant funding to help cities bear the cost of providing affordable housing, and places no age restrictions on who may qualify for such housing, again placing its trust in the cities.
Toward this end, the state requires that cities provide incentives to developers to encourage such developments. These incentives are in the form of density bonuses: allowed exceptions to the city’s ordinance specifying the maximum number of dwelling units that can be developed per acre of land. For developers to gain such waivers to the usual building code, they are required to provide a minimum number of units with reduced costs for the community.
The city gave exorbitant financial incentives to developers if they built affordable housing and restricted it to seniors only. This has resulted in over 99% of low-income rental housing restricted to seniors despite demographic data that show seniors represent only 11% of those in need.
This is best explained by an example: Say a developer decides to build a condominium complex and the land on which it will be developed sits within the R3, high density residential area of Alhambra. The Alhambra city code says that such developments are restricted to a maximum of 24 units per acre. To address the need for affordable housing, the state mandates that Alhambra offer the developer the chance to build more than 24 unit per acre in exchange that some of the units be sold at reduced rates for those in need. By being allowed to develop more units per acre, the developer can generate more revenue, which, in turn, is used to offset the lower profit on the affordable units. By having these affordable units available to those in need, the community’s housing needs get addressed which helps to somewhat justify the higher density and associated burdens placed on residents such as increased traffic. Ideally, everyone pitches in to help: developers provide some units at reduced rates, nearby residents adjust to the higher density, and cities are expected to help by properly planning for infrastructure and open space upgrades in the affected areas.
Here’s the problem: From 1989 to 2008, the city had laws in place which permitted density bonuses up to 400% if developers were to build units dedicated to seniors only (see Table 2). In the example above, developers would be allowed to build 96 units per acre when they otherwise would only be able to build 24 per acre under existing building codes. At the same time, they offered significantly smaller bonuses for non-age restricted units (see Table 1). Developers, whose goal is to 