State Details Flaws in Encinitas’ Plan for Migrant Homes

The controversy over Encinitas’ reluctance to provide housing for migrant farm workers escalated Friday when state officials in Sacramento sent their own letter to City Hall.

In a letter to Encinitas City Manager Warren Shafer, the state Department of Housing and Community Development detailed flaws in the housing portion of the city’s general plan. The housing element, in part, outlines the city’s state-mandated plans to provide low-income housing for the poor and homeless.

“The letter cites the various provisions they’re out of compliance on and provides specific recommendations of what they can do about the problem,” said Nancy Javor, chief of Housing Policy Development, a division of the state agency.

She would not elaborate on the letter’s contents until certain that the city of Encinitas had received the correspondence.

“There was no threat of enforcement,” she said. “Our comments are only advisory. That action usually comes in the form of third-party lawsuits.”

The state’s letter follows on the heels of a lawsuit filed Thursday in Vista Superior Court by an advocacy group representing migrant farm workers in San Diego County.

Suit Claims Stymied Plans

The suit, brought by the nonprofit California Rural Legal Assistance, claims that Encinitas has purposely stymied plans to build affordable housing for the poor within its city limits.

The legal action is the first of its kind in San Diego County to represent the interests of migrant workers in relation to state housing laws, according to Claudia Smith of the legal-assistance group’s regional council.

According to the complaint, the city’s zoning, land-use and housing policies are neither an honest nor reasonable attempt to provide “decent and affordable housing to the hundreds and perhaps thousands of homeless workers, much less the stable year-round population of workers who live in badly overcrowded and substandard conditions.”

Encinitas’ low-density zoning laws, for example, preclude the building of sufficient low-income housing, according to lawyers involved with the suit.

“Through the year 2010, the city’s land-use plan allows for only 13 of 1,340 available vacant acres to be developed at density levels that are normally used for rental multifamily housing,” said lawyer Jonathan Lehrer-Graiwer.

“They quite clearly and consciously want to maintain a single-family-home character to their community.”

Craig Jones, senior planner for the city of Encinitas, said that, although he knows of the state’s letter, he has not seen its contents.

Jones said he has been contacted by Housing and Community Development officials in recent weeks concerning potential flaws in the city’s housing element.

“We really won’t know what’s in the letter until we open it up,” he said. “We’re anxious to get it. We’ll look at it very carefully.”

City Manager Warren Shafer declined comment on the letter Friday.

Thursday’s suit was filed on behalf of six migrant workers, including three homeless day laborers who have been driven from several hastily constructed rural encampments over the past six months, including one situated over a former city dump.

Living in Rundown Structures

Although the three other workers named in the suit have jobs at Encinitas nurseries, their salaries, none more than $1,200 a month, force them to live in rundown structures such as converted garages.

Such details of the suit highlight the shortage of immigrant labor housing in San Diego’s North County, where crowded camps of laborers dot the fertile landscape, often in view of newly built luxury homes and condominiums.

One such camp, known as Valle Verde, or Green Valley, was evacuated earlier this year by county health officials. But many of the residents simply relocated to other camps.

Local lawmakers and growers have said they have limited funds with which to underwrite low-income housing for the migrants.

Encinitas, however, has taken a harder line on the issue. City officials have said they have little legal responsibility to provide shelter for the migrants, many of whom have entered the country illegally, they reason.

Smith said Friday that the Housing and Community Development letter to Encinitas is further proof that a problem exists.

“There’s just no way of overstating the dire living conditions under which homeless day laborers and farm workers must live in Encinitas,” she said.

“How could one possibly overstate the indignity of what takes place when people are hounded from one camp to another.”

Smith said that the legal-assistance group has lobbied to include migrant workers in state legislation, and that the state housing law specifically mentions migrant workers.

“This lawsuit represents the first time in the county, and possibly the state, that members from the farm community-the day laborers and migrants-have had asserted their rights in term of the housing element law,” Smith said.

State Decision Seen as Help

In preparation for its suit, the legal-assistance group requested in March that the state review the newly adopted Encinitas city plan and determine whether the document meets legal standards.

“The state’s decision should help us,” Lehrer-Graiwer said. “The court should give some deference to the agency’s opinion because, by statute, the HDC’s job is to review housing elements.”

City planner Jones said Encinitas’ city plan was adopted March 29 after settling “virtually hundreds and hundreds of issues through the public participation process.”

“We asked for their comment and were told that there was no problem,” Jones said of state officials. “During the drafting process, we were confident that we were meeting the required laws.”

“Apparently, the CRLA asked the state to look at the plan a second time after it was adopted.”

Jones acknowledged that the housing element may lack details in certain areas.

“One of those areas might be a quantitative account of the homeless situation in Encinitas,” he said. “But this is not an easy thing to do.

“We believe the majority of the homeless are transient workers, both legal and illegal, and these people don’t always want to be found.

“They’re not easy to find, and they’re not easy to count.”