By GEORGE CHANDLER
Los Alamos
The proposed “East Downtown Los Alamos Metropolitan Redevelopment Area” is a mixed bag. bit.ly/losalamosmra for info. MRA for short. Council will be holding a hearing and may adopt a resolution creating this district on May 7: if you live or own residential property in the area bounded by Canyon and Central, 15th and 4th streets, I suggest that you attend and protect your vital interests. Why do I care about this? Gentrification. But first some background.
The proposed MRA includes some of the eastern portion of the “Los Alamos Downtown” designated by the 2021 Downtown Master Plan, and extends into the lands South of DP Road and East of Smiths. With most of this I have no quarrel, especially since it is focused largely on the old MariMac and adjacent commercial properties that have become a blight on Los Alamos for a number of reasons, some apparently rooted in the national economy and thus beyond local control, and some that I will politely term non-economic.
My gentrification concern is the inclusion of the apartments North of Central Avenue between 9th and 4th streets. The arbitrary inclusion of these well-maintained and fully functional residential units, which do not in any way fit the description of properties eligible for an MRA except that they are over 50 years old, suggests that this may be the latest attempt to transform older residential areas to higher density high-rise multifamily housing. As usual, it is justified by the mythical non-existent Los Alamos housing crisis (there are currently over two thousand housing units in the pipeline or feasibly developable). The ultimately targeted properties would be those within the boundaries I listed in the first paragraph.
If you live around here you may be excused for being a little paranoid about this. In 2017 it took action by dozens of citizens in the targeted area to persuade the P&Z and UNM-LA to drop a plan to tear down the low-rent studio apartments along Ninth street and replace them with 3- or 4-story modern 1 and 2 bedroom apartments. We saved 64 low-rent studio apartments that never could have been replaced – and a considerable amount of green space and sky view. Last year the P&Z and the Council, in the rewrite of the Development Code, approved the construction of Accessory Dwelling Units in new swathes of residential properties, arguing it would help solve the housing crisis – by effectively doubling the allowed density of several existing residential zones. A couple of years ago development interests persuaded the School Board to agree to development of the large green area abuting the old Canyon School for high-density town homes. Procedurally illegal, the agreement was rescinded after the next election. But the pressure to densify is palpable in Los Alamos.
In the MRA report, the authors attempt to support allegations that the apartments at issue are “blighted,” and thus appropriately included in the MRA. They included a picture of a corner of one apartment building I recognized because I walk past it every day, breathlessly encaptioned “Multifamily family housing facilities in need of renovation or repair.” The picture shows some stains on the side of a concrete stairway. Today I walked around that building with my dogs, to see what I must have been missing because it always looked pretty nice to me. Sure enough there were some stains I was unable to identify, but nothing structural that couldn’t be covered over with a paint brush. Some cracks in the concrete not visible in the picture had been patched. But around the rest of the building I saw no other negative feature of any description. Landscaping is kept up, paint looks good, no broken windows, no crap games on the picnic tables in the green area under those magnificent cottonwood trees. In fact, I walk among all the buildings in question and they are all well maintained.
I visited the Assessor website (on my own computer, from home, public access only) and found that building was built in 1948, but is so well maintained that it has an “effective year built” of 1995. It has 24 three-room studio apartments, which from my observations are occupied by students and other young people, many with out-of-state license plates, and few older folks. It’s hard for me to see anything there that meets the lengthy description of eligibility in the report and the statutes. Why else then the push to include these good properties? Do we have to tear down and build? Can’t we just fix up like the Ninth street apartments?
The 2017 proposed Ninth street apartments project was a classic “gentrification” move by Los Alamos – the term that describes how communities push out low-income residents or businesses by redeveloping older residential and business properties, increasing the cost to live or rent a business property. In Los Alamos this effectively forces those people and businesses to leave the county, because there is no comparably priced property to move to. Nationwide, worldwide, gentrification drives social, ethnic, age, and racial inequities – ironic in Los Alamos, where the county with one hand promotes expensive taxpayer-supported affordable housing projects and new services for the homeless while with the other hand it is considering the destruction of affordable existing properties. Even if for no other reason than that you’re living in a house you could not afford to buy, you should be concerned.
I addressed these questions to the authors of the MRA report today and they assured me that the Council can put language into the MRA Plan (the next step) that would limit assistance to the apartment owners to beautification or restoration, for example. I would find that acceptable – allowing them to keep the rents low while improving the properties.
Call me.
