Low Income Housing

A federal judge blocked the sale of four Sacramento County apartment complexes until the owner complies with a state law designed to guarantee low-income housing. At least 350 poor families feared having no place to go without rental assistance. U.S. District Judge Lawrence K.

This discreet enclave of wealth has no overhead power lines marring the desert sky, no noisy schoolyards, no unsightly curbside trash (cans are fetched from backyards) and not a single gas station or pothole. The idea of low-income housing here is the maid's cottage behind the main house. But Indian Wells, by some measures the wealthiest city in California, has gotten itself into the low-income housing business, and now confronts a ticklish public policy conundrum of its own making.

The County Board of Supervisors, rejecting a last-ditch appeal by a group of housing advocates, on Tuesday unanimously approved construction of a $140-million Hyatt Hotel resort south of Newport Beach. The vote marked the final hurdle for the long-debated, 450-room hotel project to be built just off Newport Coast Drive, formerly Pelican Hill Road. Construction is expected to begin in early 1992 and could be completed sometime in 1994.

About 200 angry homeowners who packed City Council chambers Tuesday night to protest a low-income housing development were told at the beginning of the marathon-length meeting the city could not legally deny the project. But that did not stop more than four hours of public debate over the proposed apartment complex, which was approved by the Planning Commission in September. Residents of the Westpark community asked council members to overturn approval of the 84-unit apartment complex.

Unlike other buildings in the run-down neighborhood, the Siejay Apartments at 1421 S. Hoover St. have grass, trees, flowering rosebushes--and subsidized rents. Joe Henshaw, a 70-year-old retired stock clerk, says he drove past the 72-unit complex for years, "wishing I could live there." Four years ago, he got in and pays only $224 a month for his one-bedroom apartment. If he had to leave, Henshaw said, "I don't know where I would go."

When the imposing Bay Towers apartments were built on a grassy field overlooking Boston harbor in 1974, they seemed to be an ingenious solution to an old urban problem: decent housing for low-income people at a price that developers could afford. The harbor-side high-rise, constructed with private funds backed by federal mortgage subsidies, offered rents of $200 to $300 for working-class tenants, largely of Irish descent.

The state Supreme Court has agreed to review a far-reaching challenge to the way Los Angeles and other California cities have obtained voter approval of low-income housing projects. The justices, acting in a Berkeley case, said on Thursday that they will decide what information public agencies must provide voters about proposed projects.

Touting President Bush's commitment to provide better housing for low-income Americans, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson announced Wednesday that $161 million would be made available this year to help thousands of first-time home buyers enter the market. Bush's program to aid families with down payments, which was signed into law in December, would be available for those earning up to 80% of the median income in their area, which in Los Angeles would be $47,600.

An estimated 240,000 low-income and homeless families would be housed under state and local programs, according to an agreement approved by House and Senate conferees late Monday. The $57.7-billion compromise legislation, which now must be approved by both houses of Congress, is expected to be signed into law by President Bush.

A consortium of 46 banks statewide officially launched a program Thursday to provide $100 million in long-term, fixed-rate loans to developers who build affordable housing for low-income families. The formation of the California Community Reinvestment Corp., a nonprofit mortgage banking corporation based in Burbank, comes a year after preliminary plans were announced.