If you haven’t heard, Laguna Beach has a new slogan: “Above Moderate.”
Enjoy above-moderate beaches, partake in above-moderate restaurants, live in above-moderate homes.
Also known as expensive.
It wasn’t talked about at the last City Council meeting because no one likes to talk about affordable housing in Laguna Beach. But the state of California does, and they have not forgotten about their mandates for affordable housing.
How is Laguna doing? It’s not.
In a telling graphic as part of the consent calendar on Tuesday, the council approved the latest numbers without comment.
Zero affordable housing to date.
But there are plenty of new above-moderate units.
The state mandate is 394 affordable units, broken into four categories: very low, low, moderate, and above moderate.
Almost all of Laguna’s above-moderate contributions are accessory dwelling units (ADUs) – backyard structures converted into granny flats.
If you subtract the above-moderate category, which Laguna will fill with ease, there are 277 low-income units needed by 2029. How is the city going to satisfy this requirement? No one really knows.
So far, the work has been window dressing.
“The city has completed a comprehensive ADU handbook, established a dedicated ADU resources webpage, and hosted a well-attended workshop to provide straightforward, useable information to Laguna beach homeowners who want to learn more about what is involved in creating an ADU on their property,” according to Tuesday’s staff report.
So a handbook, webpage and workshop.
If this trend continues, there will be very few ways Laguna will meet its affordable housing mandates – unless, perhaps, people get creative:
Let’s be real. Laguna is not Irvine, which has no problem building out “affordable” units. Just last week, the Irvine Co. announced plans for 4,536 new apartments – without blinking an eye. And 1,025 of them will be considered affordable. Plus, these won’t be those mega-block, Borg-like complexes that block the sun. They are just some underutilized “in-fill” areas where Irvine had some space.
Laguna doesn’t have unused space – except in the canyon and maybe a few back rooms of the Susi Q.
If Laguna can’t satisfy the state mandates, perhaps the city should think about eminent domain. Annex every nearby area that has “Laguna” in the name: Laguna Audubon, Laguna Altura, Laguna Hills, Laguna Woods, Laguna Niguel ….
That should cover it.
