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July 10, 2007 EDITORIAL - The Antelope Valley's wide-open spaces are
being eyed by Southern California regional planners as the way to solve
the Southland's problems by providing homes its residents can afford as
the population grows and home prices skyrocket to ever more dizzying heights.
The Southern California Association of Governments' Regional Housing Needs Assessment calls for Palmdale to add more than 17,900 homes - that's somewhere around 60,000 people, or not far from half Palmdale's present population - over the next seven years. Lancaster is to add nearly 12,800 homes.
Of the total 17,900-plus new homes sought in Palmdale, about 10,600 would be for families or individuals with moderate incomes or above-moderate incomes. The remaining 7,300 would be for low-income or very low-income households.
Calculated another way, more than 10,300 would be for very low- to moderate-income families.
The Antelope Valley is already a place where folks with ordinary incomes can afford to live. In Palmdale, for example, nearly 58% of existing homes are within buying range for people with moderate incomes or below.
Faced with those numbers, Palmdale city officials have told officials at the Southern California Association of Governments - whose duties include making regional plans for transportation, housing, employment and waste disposal from Ventura to Imperial counties - that it can't be done.
Judging by historical conditions, Palmdale not only can't arrange to build 2,500 new homes a year, it can't arrange for nearly 1,500 of those to be affordable for families with moderate to very low incomes, Palmdale officials say.
Palmdale officials have appealed the proposed allocation of housing as unfeasible. The association leaders are expected to consider the appeal Thursday.
The appeal is all well and good, but beyond that, Palmdale officials should be ready to shift from "it can't be done" to "it won't be done." If the unreasonable numbers are affirmed, Palmdale officials should ignore them and do what they think is right.
But we fear that Palmdale officials already are stepping down a slippery slope. Last week the City Council, with a series of unanimous votes, approved plans for the first phase of the so-called Palmdale Transit Village, which ultimately could squeeze in more than 1,000 houses, apartments and condominiums around the Palmdale Metrolink and bus station.
Proponents say the village is aimed at providing working people with nice, safe homes that are close to transportation, and that the project will increase home ownership, raise property values and bolster pride in a Palmdale neighborhood where all three are low.
But we fear that the scheme may congregate too many troubled people into one spot. Working folks with families will buy 50-year-old tract houses with lawns and shade trees in east Palmdale, rather than townhouses next to a bus station.
If the Transit Village is an experiment - which it is - Palmdale officials must keep vigilant that it doesn't become the Transient Village.