CC&R History

In 1948 the Peninsula Housing Association (PHA) did vote to include a race-restriction clause into their founding subdivision map and covenant documents, but it was a ‘quota based’ race-restrictive clause, which was actually intended to both allow non-white families into the cooperative while appeasing the real-estate financing industry just enough to be able to obtain needed financing. The formational ideals of the co-op had been to create a completely race-restriction free community that was intentionally welcoming of diversity and inclusion. So as a result of this vote, some white families left the co-op in protest of including this ‘compromise’ clause.
 
           
 
 
"The formational ideals of the co-op had been to create a completely race-restriction free community that was intentionally welcoming of diversity and inclusion."
 
 
 
This ‘quota’ clause, in the end, was not enough to appease the lenders, and later, when the PHA was desperate and on the verge of bankruptcy, they capitulated and made a deal with the Portola Development Group in Feb 1950 accepting a comprehensive race-restriction, requiring them to ask 4 families to leave the co-op. Once having secured the necessary 2/3 record owner signatures of PHA members at that time, which was required to allow this more restrictive amendment to be made official and recorded, The Portola Development Group then completed the purchase of the Ladera neighborhood, which was already under construction.
 
Interestingly, the Supreme Court had ruled against racially restrictive covenants in 1948. But it was the passage of the Fair Housing Act in 1968 which formally outlawed all such race-restrictive clauses making them legally un-enforceable, and laid out a lot-by-lot option for 'striking' out such language. As previously described in the Crier, our community's current efforts are at exploring options for a more sweeping elimination of this clause from our recorded CC&Rs for the neighborhood as a whole -- all 534 lots -- an act more in line with the original Ladera founding principles.