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Dear Editor:

In covering the story “Council Unanimously Approves Affordable Housing Development at Religious Facilities,” your reporter weighs in with his opinion: “Ironically, a developer now could build housing with less public participation than it took to pass the amendment.”

Is it “ironic” that affordable housing developers who follow stringent rules will be able to build affordable housing without being stopped in their tracks? Or is it simple justice?

Your reporter is right that the zoning code amendment (which allows affordable housing to be built on vacant land owned by local churches in commercial zones) consumed years of exhausting hearings, studies, analysis and fierce political debate. Should every affordable housing project have to endure the same torture?

Some of the same people who complain about how much it costs taxpayers to subsidize “affordable housing” are the loudest in demanding “public participation” – which translates to “I demand the opportunity to raise hell if an affordable housing project is proposed anywhere near my neighborhood. ”  When a small group of neighbors exploit “public process” to oppose, delay or impose onerous new conditions on a project, they drive up costs, often killing a project altogether.

Of course “the public” should participate in how our community evolves. The place for that is deciding the rules, not in obstructing affordable housing projects that follow those rules. 

Under the new amendment, the public can participate in mandatory design review for affordable housing projects – but not in starting over again from scratch about whether affordable housing should be allowed at all. That’s a reasonable balance – one that allows religious institutions to make productive use of underutilized land without subjecting affordable housing to death by process.

Rick Cole

Got something to say, email Managing Editor André Coleman, at andrec@pasadenanowmagazine.com