Monrovia council considers ‘inclusionary’ affordable housing law

The Monrovia City Council on Tuesday received a briefing on options for an ordinance requiring new developments to have affordable housing units.

The city’s consultants gave a presentation to the council that included recommendations for “inclusionary housing” regulations over the next five years.

Following a financial analysis of real estate development in the region, Kaiser Marston Associates recommended new apartment buildings in Monrovia have 6% low-income units for buildings up to 20 residences and 10% low-income units for complexes with more than 20 dwellings.

Kaiser Marston also suggested developers have the option of paying a fee in lieu of adding affordable units to apartment buildings with up to 20 living spaces. The consulting firm’s report to the council suggested fees of $397,300 or $29.40 per square foot of the total building size for “ownership housing developments” such as condominiums. For apartments, the firm suggested $468,000 or $24.50 per square foot.

“Housing affordability is a big issue,” Monrovia Community Development Director Craig Jimenez told council members, noting that the average rent in Monrovia is between $2,900 and $3,000 for an 800-square-foot unit.

“Housing sales are over $1 million for a dwelling unit,” Jimenez said. “That’s a lot of money, it’s just very expensive. All of this would be affected by our inclusionary ordinance because what that would do would be to dedicate a certain number of units based on a certain percentage based on the council’s direction that we would have affordable units included in new housing developments.”

According to the presentation, an affordable unit for a low-income household of four should rent for no more than $1,964 a month and very-low-income units should cost no more than $1,228. Moderate-income renters should pay no more than $2,964 monthly.

Deputy Director of Community Development Sheri Bermejo discussed findings from research by city staff and consultants.

“Some of the obvious takeaways are Monrovia is producing housing,” Bermejo said. “We’ve exceeded all of our above-moderate-income across all levels. The other takeaway is we’re not really achieving affordable housing to reach our goal. … We’re not achieving the amount of affordable housing that is set forth in our goal. I really don’t think there’s anywhere in California that’s been able to produce the amount of housing in these affordable categories.”

David Blumenthal from Sagecrest Planning+Environmental said, “Establishing a threshold (of required affordable units) that’s too high could discourage development, and that’s why we do the fiscal analysis. … We see that it’s just not true that it discourages development, we actually see an increase in development with the inclusionary housing.”

Jimenez cited LA County’s median income of $98,200, which is how city officials will provide the baselines for setting the limit of rent prices. Moderate income is up to 120% of the median, low income is up to 80% and very low is 50%. Moderate annual income for a four-person household in the county is $117,850, low income is up to $100,900 and very low is $63,050, with an extremely low subset that caps at $37,850.

Tuesday’s study session and supporting documents are available on the city’s website: monroviaca.gov/Home/Components/Calendar/Event/8914/125?toggle=allpast.