Malibu can't pass off guesthouses as low-income housing

[Liberal_in_LA]

By CARLA HALL contact the reporter

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-malibu-guesthouses-lowincome-housing-20150330-story.html

Malibu guesthouses are no dream houses for low-income earners.
A judge’s recent ruling that the city of Malibu couldn’t count guesthouses toward its state-mandated plan for low-income housing came as something of a shock. Who knew Malibu was even required to think about low-income housing? Not much, mind you — just 188 units of low-income and very low-income housing, as determined by the Regional Housing Needs Assessment, which is overseen by the Southern California Assn. of Governments (which goes by the dreadful acronym SCAG.) The city counted 30 of those “second units” (essentially a second fully-equipped residence near the main house on a property) as available for rent by people with low incomes.

What a great scenario for a TV sitcom: “A once homeless man who lost his job at a carwash during the recession rents a guesthouse from a powerful movie studio chief. Zany adventures ensue."

Except it wasn’t quite working that way, L.A. County Superior Court Judge Richard L. Fruin Jr. found. “There is no evidence … that second units in Malibu are available to be rented for low and very low income occupancy.” Turns out, according to a survey that the city included in its Housing Element plan, most of those units are lived in rent-free and the rest are rented at market rates (far out of reach of low-income folks.)

The rent-free guesthouses appear to go mostly to family members or the help. That’s not a bad thing, in and of itself. Why not let the nanny or the housekeeper live in the guesthouse? They are unlikely to be able to afford market-rate rents in Malibu near the homes in which they are working. But that doesn’t satisfy the city’s housing obligation under the law. “Housing stock that is made available only to family members or domestic employees does not qualify as low income housing, because, first, such housing is not offered on the public rental market,” Fruin wrote.

[Warpy]

1. Not only that, but employees and family are trusted

to look after the property while the owners are flitting about from one pleasure spot to the next--or filming on location if they still work.

There was a guesthouse scene on parts of Cape Cod, too. None were rented out to people who had to work for a living unless they worked in the main house.

I could have told them 40 years ago passing them off as low income housing was a scam and always would be.