Wednesday, Sept. 18, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.
The Clark County Commission has adopted a landmark strategic plan to help provide homes to families that can't afford decent housing.
Tuesday's decision marks the first time the county has developed a comprehensive plan for providing low-cost housing to people who otherwise can't afford it, with $500,000 in county funds earmarked this year.
"This is an ambitious plan to ensure existing housing stock is preserved, and make opportunities for affordable housing," said Pam Borinstein, chairwoman of the Affordable Housing Committee, created in 1994 to find solutions to the shortage of low-cost housing in Clark County.
Borinstein said three major Las Vegas banks have agreed to kick in $20,000 apiece, and the committee's goal is to get $250,000 in matching private donations.
"This is a major step in the right direction," said commission Chairwoman Yvonne Atkinson Gates, who first proposed the plan, following the lead of the Legislature's State Low-Income Housing Trust Fund. Clark County received $1.7 million in 1994 from the fund.
And legislation sponsored by Assemblywoman Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, approved in 1995 would prevent the county from succumbing to "Not in My Back Yard" pressures.
Most of the seed money -- $200,000 -- is set aside for a single-family housing rehabilitation program. Another $100,000 will be used to create a first-time home-buyer lease-purchase program.
Commissioner Jay Bingham, who had reservations about the plan when Gates first proposed using property transfer tax revenue to launch the program, said he was now "pretty comfortable with the basic program."
Bingham, along with Commissioner Paul Christensen, wasn't certain the county should be getting into the business of building affordable housing. But Bingham said he could see its value as long as the commission had final say when it came time to appropriate funds.
"I just want to make sure it's broad-based as to how it's spent," Bingham said. "That's all I care about."
Christensen, who was at the County Commission meeting earlier, was not present for the vote on the housing program.
Borinstein said the county's program targets unincorporated areas of Clark County, where there's a dearth of housing for the working poor.
Citing the most recent available statistics, county planner Bonnie Rinaldi said 25 percent of all Clark County households can't afford decent housing, or spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing.
That's based on 1990 statistics, and the situation has gotten worse since then, Rinaldi said.
Using current statistics, the median annual income for a maid is $18,720, Rinaldi said. Thirty percent of that would be $468 a month, but the average rent on a two-bedroom apartment is $626, she said.
According to federal guidelines, people earning less than 80 percent of the county median income of $40,000 a year shouldn't spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing.
Part of the plan calls for setting aside county surplus land for housing projects, which Commissioner Lorraine Hunt wanted to make sure would only happen if there were no other county priorities or demands.
"County surplus land is an asset of the taxpayers," Hunt said. "I don't want to make it so broad so that we are using surplus land when the priority demands it be sold for other needs."
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