Low-income housing scarce in Henderson

Greg Harman

Thursday, Aug. 10, 2000 | 11:08 a.m.

Henderson is easing out of its bedroom community years spent feeding its wealthy white-collar executives to Las Vegas.

The entrance of several major casinos, local manufacturers, call centers and a pending state college all demand an increase in affordable low-income housing in a town that in the past decade has catered to a more affluent set.

But a new report says that Henderson has not done enough to provide for its poorer residents.

"The problem in Henderson is that land is so expensive," Kristen Cooper, a Clark County senior planner, said. "The people who would be working there have to commute long distances."

For single parents and families laboring at low-paying jobs, ownership of one of the many new homes going up in the city is a virtual lock-out.

Despite the city's participation in numerous U.S. Housing and Urban Development programs, it still takes an annual salary of $43,700 to afford even one of Henderson's least expensive new homes, according to Henderson's five-year consolidated plan being reviewed by HUD. That's an increase over 1996 levels, when $30,000 was the minimum salary needed to enter the home market.

Efforts to provide affordable housing have been a small part of the city's development mission, Skeet Fitzgerald, Henderson's housing and grants manager, said. That is not uncommon in fast-growing cities enjoying a strong sellers' market.

Left unrestrained, developers would probably continue to build nothing but upscale residential communities.

"You can't blame them," Fitzgerald said. "It's selling. It's selling strong. It's a good product. But we have to try to encourage them to include those who maybe need a little assistance."

Henderson's efforts at providing affordable housing may have been muddied by the city's strict design standards and flat-rate development charges that make it costly for developers to build low-rent complexes.

Density disputes

City policies make it difficult for developers to build more affordable high-density residential units, the consolidated plan found. Meanwhile, about 1,000 residents are enrolled on waiting lists for public housing in Henderson.

"For whatever reason, these various jurisdictions have been trying really hard to get the density of housing down," said George Mehocic, president and owner of Castle Property Co. and board member of the Southern Nevada Homebuilders. "All of these jurisdictions -- especially Henderson -- they don't really want density."

In the suburban city where residents routinely band together to oppose everything from day-care centers to supermarkets out of fear of rising traffic, the upper- and middle-class residents aren't the only ones opposing affordable housing in Henderson.

The City Council and Planning Commission routinely favor low-density residential development despite the consolidated plan's emphasis on "multiple marketplaces," according to consultants Prior & Associates, which prepared the plan.

High-density residential housing, currently representing about 7 percent of Henderson's land use, is expected to shrink to only 4 percent in coming years, despite the efforts of some city employees to make it easier to build affordable housing.

"Here's one hand trying to do whatever they can to help create affordable housing, but at the City Council level they're pushing in the other direction," Mehocic said.

After all, nicer homes bring in more tax dollars. They attract large entertainment venues and shops. But where are the employees of the casinos and retail stores supposed to live, asks Mehocic.

"Who's focusing on the guy way down the economic ladder with two kids and not much of a job?"

Even in older neighborhoods such as Pittman and Townsite, there continues to be growing disparity between rising rental costs and the incomes of residents -- with three of every five rental houses exceeding federal guidelines in 1996.

Between 1990 and 1999 the average income in Henderson increased by 2.6 percent while rental costs increased by 4 or 5 percent.

And many low-income homeowners -- mostly in the Pittman, Townsite and Valley View planning areas -- are in need of money for major renovations on those older homes.

Those who slip through the cracks in Henderson are out of luck. In a city with an estimated 300 homeless, there are no emergency shelters.

Senior housing

Senior centers are an easier sale when it comes to affordable housing.

"It's a lot easier to convince the community," Fitzgerald said. "They know, I think, the difficulty a senior goes through to get nice housing."

Mike Mullin, president of Nevada HAND, a nonprofit affordable housing developer, said his company is on the verge of opening one senior center in Henderson while preparing to break ground on another.

Mullin said even for those projects he had problems getting the needed density approved by city officials.

But the Henderson City Council may soon make such projects easier. It is poised to approve an increase in maximum density for developments in an area of southwestern Henderson -- raising the limit from 16 units per acre to 22.

Mullin also defended Henderson's strict development standards.

"Affordable housing is not low-cost housing. There's a better way to do it than cheap and ugly," he said. High density can be taken too far when encouraging affordable housing, he noted.

"Density certainly helps, but on the flipside we've seen a problem with too-high-density in the '60s and '70s that are just now being torn down."

New solutions

Fitzgerald has begun to devise ways to work with developers to both provide affordable housing and live up to the city's strict design standards.

He is looking into a new federal law that may allow municipalities to buy U.S. Bureau of Land Management parcels at less than fair market value if they are slated for affordable housing projects.

And he has begun talking with tract home developers about breaking up the units into smaller parcels and injecting them randomly into more affluent areas.

But don't call it "low-income" housing, Fitzgerald urged. The connotations of "low-income" residents represent the "kiss of death" in Henderson when it comes to attracting other developments to the area.

Behind Henderson's approach is a faith in the market to provide for its own.

"The city has to serve the broad range of our residents," Fitzgerald said. "In a lot of cases the market is going to take care of itself."