What Price Affordable Housing?

PROJECT EIR RAISES QUESTIONS

As we first wrote back in October, Claremont's proposed Base Line Rd. affordable housing project hit a snag when the environmental impact report (EIR) for the project came about. The primary concern raised was the potential adverse effects of pollution from the 210 Freeway on the lung development of the children who would live in the units that would be built.

Tony Krickl had an article in the November 3rd edition of the Claremont Courier that mentioned the problems with the project, including a recent USC School of Medicine 10-year study that found that the vehicle pollution significantly impaired the development of lungs in children who lived within 500 feet of a highway.

The entire Base Line Project, parking lot and all, would be within that 500 foot distance.


COUNCIL UNWILLING TO ACCEPT EIR FINDINGS

Despite the problems evident with the project, it remains on track for development, pushed primarily by the League of Women Voters, City Councilmember Ellen Taylor and Mayor Peter Yao, and Claremont 400 power broker and former city commissioner Helaine Goldwater.

Mayor Yao's unwillingness to deal with the reality of the EIR's findings is particularly stubborn. The Krickl piece noted:

It is yet unclear where the city council stands on the project, with some council members declining to take positions. Only two council members thus far, Mayor Peter Yao and Mayor Pro Tem Ellen Taylor, have spoken in favor of the project, despite the health concerns cited in the EIR.

“As far as I’m concerned, we will do what we can to mitigate the pollution problem but now’s the time to move forward with this as planned,” Mayor Yao said.

“In terms of abandoning this project, that’s not an option,” he added.

One of the remedies the city is proposing for the project is the requirement that prospective tenants sign waivers that note that they have been informed of the problems with the site. This sounds something like the liability waivers parents sign for kids involved in sports or for school children going on field trips.

Our ambulance chasing readers, however, inform us that there are some potential problems with the city's and Yao's thinking that these proposed waivers would absolve the city of any future liability or protect it from lawsuits by children who grow up in the project and later find they have lung ailments.

According to our litigious readers, in California people who sign such waivers do not automatically forfeit all future liability claims. There apparently are certain types of liabilities, such as those created by gross negligence, that cannot be waived. That's why a kid who breaks an ankle in the course of a AYSO game and whose parents have signed a waiver or a hold-harmless agreement cannot make a claim, but a kid who breaks an ankle on an improperly maintained field (one with holes or obtrusive sprinkler heads) can sue. In the first instance, there was a certain assumption of the risk of injury during the course of a game; in the second, the party responsible for maintaining the facility did not execute its duties fully.


FUTURE COSTS

The question would be what sort of responsibility does the city bear to future tenants and their children after having been put on notice by the EIR, and does ignoring those problems constitute a non-waiveable sort of negligence?

As pointed out by our more knowledgeable readers, parents cannot necessarily sign away a child's right to sue. So, an adult tenant living in the Base Line Rd. project might not be able to sue the city for lung damage suffered by their children, but they could sue on behalf of their children. Or, the children could make claims to the city when they become adults.

Mayor Yao, in making some of his assumptions, may just be setting up the city for future claims on its general liability policy. Of course, as the 2003 Padua Fire showed, the city has no problems deferring dealing with liability issues. In the case of the fire, it was a $17.5 million goof. Oops! But isn't that what insurance is for?

Of course, Yao has more pressing problems than worrying about the long term good of the city. He's feeling the pressure Helaine Goldwater, Ellen Taylor, and their League of Women Voters friends are putting on him to get this project built with gross disregard to the impacts it will present.

Yao and Taylor, by pushing a problematic project without any willingness to compromise in the face of new information are simply demonstrating the old, inflexible Claremont 400 way of doing business. They're taking the easy way out in the short term, and possibly putting the the city and its insurer in position for a big fall down the road.

But, by that time, Yao, Taylor, and whomever they get for their third vote will be long gone, and some future council will have to deal with the mess they've created.

And you will get to pay the bill.