The mouse that roared: Disney’s employer-obstructed housing
At a time when workforce housing, especially in blue states and cities, is becoming an ever-more-serious problem, particularly at the local level, some employers are forging partnerships with local government to create new affordable housing.
And then there is Disney, which appears to be doing everything it can to keep ‘those’ people — who make the
Bring your children, bring your dollars, but don’t try to live near us
As reported in the New York Times:
For 52 years, the Walt Disney Company has called Disneyland, its
But now Disney is angry that the city of
In February, Disney sued the city, hoping to force it to abandon the decision permitting the project. The development would have 225 subsidized units, and advocates of affordable housing are accusing Disney of turning its back on low-income residents, including many of its own employees.
“Yes, here’s the passage — tort liability.”
Disney argues that it is simply trying to make
In fact,
But the relationship between
Thanks, New York Times, for perpetuating stereotypes.
I’ve previously documented that mobile home parks are a very low-value use of land — because they are single-story, and therefore inefficient use of the development space — so I endorse the idea of creating high-density, mixed-income housing (provided, of course, that the existing mobile home park residents have their rights respected and a reasonable relocation plan). Swapping mobile homes for 1,500 apartments (sixty to the acre, meaning mid-rise and high-rise), of which 225 will be
affordable, has got to be in Anaheim’s long run interest — and in the interest of its lower-income households:
Theresa Medina, an
Such inclusionary-zoning-style housing affordability also eases both
The prices and the occupancy restrictions cause many workers to commute long distances to
Affordable housing not wanted here
Lorri Galloway, one of three on the five-member Anaheim City Council who voted in favor of the housing project, said, “Research shows that we have a need in and around the resort area for 27,000 units of affordable housing.”
In other words, the proposed development, dense though it will be, will add supply equal to about 6% of
By trying to block some of that housing, she said, Disney is showing “complete disregard for the workers who make the resorts so successful.”
Ms. Galloway is right.
But Rob Doughty, a spokesman for the Disneyland Resort, said the goal was simply to keep housing [‘those’ people NIMBYism — Ed.] out of an area zoned for resort development in 1994.
Once the special zoning district was created, “the state and federal governments invested billions of dollars to clean it up,” Mr. Doughty said.
Mr. Doughty’s logic is backwards.
No, I’m building up logical momentum
If the state and federal government invested billions to make the property — including Disney’s property — more valuable, does that give the government even more moral standing to change the zoning in the public interest?
Disney and other companies then began building lavish facilities, including Disney’s 745-room Grand Californian Hotel and Spa, which opened in 2001. “And now they want to throw all that away,” he said, referring to the City Council.
Here too Mr. Doughty is tacitly appealing to prejudice, because he is suggesting that adding affordable housing and ‘those people’ will lower property values. The evidence is that it does not — fact, because the site will be enormously more valuable, it will generate substantial new real estate taxes, and therefore more local services.
Mr. Doughty added that “companies like Marriott and Disney and Hilton make their investment decisions on what they assume the zoning is going to be.”
Wrong again, Mr. Doughty.
You know full well companies know zoning can be changed — and frequently try to change it themselves.
Mayor Pringle likes incentives:
In August 2005, the
He cites increasing affordable housing development:
The city has recently completed 663 affordable rental units and has another 1,243 under way, according to statistics provided by the mayor.
That’s good — though it falls far short of what
“I certainly think they have a legal right to protect their interests,” Mayor Pringle said, adding that “no one contemplated that three members of the City Council would turn their back on that engine [Block that metaphor! — Ed.] of economic development within the city.”
Mayor Pringle’s statements also make no sense to me. In what way is replacing an existing mobile home park with 1,500 new homes, of which 1,300 will be market-rate, bringing workers into
The controversy began when the SunCal Companies, a developer based in nearby
Frank Elfend, a project manager for SunCal, said the idea for affordable housing came about in consultation with the city. “Whenever you do a big project, you talk to the community about what their needs are,” he said. “In
Evidently.
SunCal’s approach won the support of several members of the City Council. In February, the Council approved the project, leading Disney to file its first lawsuit ever against the city.
I will be fascinated to hear on what legal basis Disney believes it can prevent a city from exercising a normal prerogative of local government.
In late April, at the end of a contentious six-hour public hearing, the City Council voted to reaffirm its support for the housing project, ensuring that the litigation would continue. The vote was 3 to 2.
Another reason for the lawsuit suggests itself — to raise the political stakes, in hopes of persuading one of the three stalwart councilors to change his or her mind.
Are you ready for some litigation?
Mayor Pringle, who opposed the new housing, said that
Mayor Pringle’s comments suggest he sees affordable housing as a noxious burden to be discharged rather than an asset to his community — a very curious perspective for an elected official.
It all makes sense from my point of view
—and that it would build more when it found appropriate sites.
A 26-acre mobile home park, that can increase its density sixty-fold, isn’t appropriate?
“We like you, but not living here.”
[Continued tomorrow in Part 2.]
