Ag spokesman: Use of apartments for housing a 'win-win'

  The agricultural company that purchased two apartment complexes to house its temporary workers says it's a "win-win" solution for everyone.

  "Our goal is to create a quiet, clean, safe environment for our workers," said Eric Wexler, vice president and supply chain manager for T&A, who oversees the H2A federal guestworker program for the company. The program requires companies obtaining foreign workers through the program to provide free housing.

  In the past, the company had put its workers up in 13 to 18 houses scattered around the city, he said.

  A year ago T&A purchased Aloha Village, 1020 W. 11th St., and the Park View duplex complex in the 1100 block of West 20th Street for its worker housing.

  At the time of the purchase, Wexler said, Park View was in foreclosure and both it and Aloha Village were in need of repairs and "deferred maintenance." To ready them for occupancy this winter produce season, the company spent $400,000 in improvements to the two complexes, he said. "In the process, we put a lot of contractors to work."

  Not only is T&A striving to be a good neighbor by improving the value of those properties, it also has strict rules to ensure the workers aren't disrupting the neighborhood, Wexler said.

  He explained that all of the workers are subject to strict regulations that govern noise, crowds and consumption of alcohol. "We have a very low tolerance for infractions."

  To date, he said, there have been only a couple of incidents where people weren't in compliance and were sent back.

  Another thing the company had to do was move out the former occupants, he said, adding that neighbors have said they're happy to have had some of the tenants replaced. "They're not seeing the problems that existed before."

  Greg Hyland, spokesman for the city of Yuma, said he has heard positive things about T&A's use of the apartments for farm workers.

  "It's just in conversations around the community, but people feel the quality of the neighborhood seems to have gone up."

  The farm workers "are hard-working people," Hyland said. "They're part of our community this time of year and part of our economy. Without these workers, our economy would be in worse shape."

  Besides, he added, "we wouldn't be eating."

  The purchase of the apartments for farmworker housing raised concerns last fall that they would become bunkhouses with dense occupancies of unaccompanied males some feared would adversely impact the neighborhoods.

  City officials said they were able to resolve those issues with T&A and with another company that purchased Casa Linda Apartments at 502 S. 1st Ave. to house its farm workers.

  "My biggest concern is that they didn't have overcrowding," said Randy Crist, city of Yuma building official. After some discussion, the companies agreed to lower occupancy limits to levels that satisfied the city and the fire marshal.

  A still unresolved issue for Laurie Lineberry, director of community development, is the lack of city zoning provisions for agricultural housing.

   After surveying what other agricultural communities and even Yuma County require, she said she has concluded that "we are behind the eight-ball. The only thing we have now is for rooming and boarding houses," she told the Yuma City Council in October. "We don't even have a limit on the number of occupants. The house next door could become a boarding house and no review is needed."

  However, Lineberry is comfortable with the purchase by a harvesting company of two 4th Avenue motels - the Tropicana and Corcovado - for use as temporary farmworker housing.

  "That's a good thing," she said. "That keeps them on 4th Avenue in a commercial area. They have access to food, entertainment and shopping."