Thread: California in building boom

Construction begins on 50 Napa apartments; 111 more affordable homes planned

GARY QUACKENBUSH
FOR NORTH BAY BUSINESS JOURNAL | May 7, 2018

Napa, where the post fire residential vacancy rate dropped to near zero and now is just about 2 percent, saw the ground breaking April 26 for 50 new, affordable multifamily Stoddard West apartment units by developer Burbank Housing in south Napa next to the Peter A. and Vernice H. Gasser Foundation’s offices at 433 Soscol Ave.

According to Burbank Housing CEO Larry Florin, the $24 million project is the first affordable housing project to break ground since the North Bay fires, based on a survey of several regional housing authorities. Two other affordable housing projects are on the boards for the Napa area.


“One year ago last March, I received a call from the Gasser Foundation saying they had a site near by and wanted to build an affordable housing development,” Florin said. “Given the high demand for affordable housing, the speed of progress on this project is a tribute to the leadership of Napa Mayor Jill Techel, who helped obtain the approval of the Napa City Council, the Napa County Board of Supervisors and local planning and building staffs in record time. It is also the first affordable housing project in Napa County to receive a 9 percent federal tax credit.”

Prior to the fires, housing in Napa County had only a 2 percent vacancy rate. That fell to nearly 0 percent after the October wildfires, but has since rebounded to its prior level. With over 7,000 homes lost in the region as the result of the October wildfires, hundreds of low-income families working service and agriculture jobs lost their rental housing and income as a result.

Florin said that the Napa Valley Housing Authority estimated that its waiting list for affordable units has reached 10,000. At the same time, Napa Valley Community Housing reported that some 3,000 were on its waiting list.

To help close the financing gap resulting from the sudden rise in building costs after the October fires, funding for this project was achieved with contributions from the Tipping Point Relief Fund, the Gasser Foundation, Napa Valley Vintners, the Trinchero family as well as other local donors. Wells Fargo Bank is the construction lender and equity partner for this project.

The Stoddard West development received $1.5 million from the Tipping Point Relief Fund.

“This is a prime example of the work made possible by the $33 million raised by Tipping Point to support fire relief using proceeds from two sold-out “Band Together” Bay Area concerts, as well as from a responsive team of high-profile corporate sponsors and an influx of private donations,” said Karina Moreno, Tipping Point Community chief of staff and lead for the Tipping Point Emergency Relief Fund (www.tippingpoint.org/relief).


She said Tipping point has been honored to help facilitate North Bay community foundations, service providers and government partners
The Stoddard West project, scheduled to be completed by 2019, will offer multifamily housing below market rental rates to families earning at or below 60 percent of the area’s median income. It will have a mix of one-, two- and three-bedroom units, with eight of the units accepting Housing Choice vouchers.

On April 11, Partnership Health Plan of California announced that it was awarding a $1 million grant to the Gasser Foundation to help rehabilitate Heritage House that Gasser bought in 2016.

Florin said Burbank Housing is also in preliminary discussions with lenders about building affordable, auxiliary dwelling units (ADUs) in the North Bay from 400 to 600 square feet each. These homes could initially be built as temporary housing to accommodate individuals displaced from the fires. After being vacated, these homes could be placed on existing lots to accommodate lower income renters who live or work in the community.

State approves funding for Highway 101 in Petaluma

The two additional Burbank Housing affordable housing developments are on the drawing board for Napa. Through collaborative partnerships with the city and County of Napa, Burbank Housing will be offering 34 new affordable homes for sale to first time homebuyers at Redwood Grove, located at 2033 Redwood Road.

Construction is expected to start this fall.

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These homes will be new construction, single-family duet style attached homes with one-car garages. The homes will be restricted to households earning at or below 120 percent of the Area Median Income (AMI). Qualifications will be determined by household size. For Napa County, 120 percent AMI for a household size of four is currently $109,200.

The second project is a 77-unit apartment complex at 3700 Valle Verde Drive, former home of the Sunrise assisted living facility. This project has two components. One is the rehabilitation of Heritage House, with 66 single room occupancy studio units of permanent supportive housing for Napa’s most vulnerable homeless residents. The second component will involve the construction of 24 affordable multifamily apartments. The current estimated completion date for this project is late 2020.

http://www.northbaybusinessjournal.c...t-construction

Household size of 4

I hope so and these housing developments are not CRAMMED with 20 illegal aliens in them

All cities have building codes and I believe they should start sending in the Fire Marshalls into illegal alien neighborhoods and enforce codes and get the 20 illegals out of them!!

NAPA IS INFESTED WITH ILLEGAL ALIENS

653 new apartments coming to Brea

OCRegister › Finance › 3 hours ago


Brea will be getting 653 new apartments by 2020.

Real estate developer Hines has announced it will partner with apartment operator AvalonBay Communities to build the complex on the Brea Place mixed-use campus.

The property, acquired by Hines in 2014, already has six office buildings hosting the likes of Manufacturers Bank, Becton Dickinson, CoolSys, County of Orange, TP Link, Chevron, Sully-Miller, and Wells Fargo.

Hines says construction of the new apartments — designed by Architects Orange — should start early next year and be ready for tenants by the third quarter of 2020.

The residential project will be in two parts: 425 units in the southern building at State College Boulevard and Birch Street, and 228 units to the north along the Tracks at Brea.

https://firenewsfeed.com/finance/1650358

SANDAG Accepts State Housing Need Determination

The Department of Housing and Community Development officials determined that 171,000 units need to be built locally from 2021 through 2029.

By California News Wire Services, News Partner | Jun 8, 2018 5:16 pm ET



SAN DIEGO COUNTY, CA – The San Diego Association of Governments Board of Directors decided Friday to accept the state's determination of how many housing units San Diego County will need.

The state's Regional Housing Needs Assessment is a regular cycle used to determine how many homes each section of the state needs to build over an eight-year period.

In this case, it's from 2021 through 2029.
California Department of Housing and Community Development officials determined that 171,000 units need to be built locally over that span, but SANDAG officials voted in May to ask the state to accept a goal of 116,000 units instead.

Ahead of Friday's meeting, members of a SANDAG committee recommended the agency go forward with state recommendations without adjustments.

Subscribe"Committee members commented that negotiating with HCD to reduce the housing unit number in previous RHNA cycles has contributed to the housing crisis seen today," they said in a report.

"There was consensus by the Regional Planning Committee that accepting the HCD RHNA Determination could more effectively address that crisis and improve the region's housing availability going forward."

Following Friday's vote, SANDAG will take a few more procedural steps before beginning to develop a plan that addresses housing need in its 19 jurisdictions.

By City News Service / Image via Shutterstock

https://patch.com/california/san-die...-determination

PDF]California's Housing Future: Challenges and Opportunities

www.hcd.ca.gov/policy-research/plans-reports/docs/SHA_Final_Combined.pdf
Feb 1, 2018 - February 2018. California Department of Housing and Community Development ... Snapshot: The Current State of Housing Affordability in California . ... 1.8 Million New Homes Needed by 2025 . ..... Finance, determines the state's housing need for a 10-year period based upon Department of Finance...

Housing boom reshaping Santee

Karen Pearlman Contact Reporter


North County is pretty much built out. So is the city of San Diego. So housing developers are going where the land is — and one of those places is Santee.

To say the East County city is experiencing a housing boom would be a bit of an understatement. It's more like an explosion.

Consider:
In 2017, just 72 apartments, condos and homes were built.

But an additional 500 homes are under construction.

And seven times that number -- around 3,500 homes -- are under review by the city.

That growth is starting to raise red flags for some city officials and residents who are concerned about worsening traffic for already tough commutes along main streets like Mast Boulevard and Mission Gorge Road as well as state Routes 125, 52 and 67.

They also fear the things that make Santee special will be lost.

City Councilman Stephen Houlahan has consistently cast the lone council vote against the steady stream of developments, citing a need for improved traffic planning.

Houlahan and other council members also want to update the city’s onsite parking plan for new housing.

City Councilman Rob McNelis for several years has said the city needs to realize that most people use their garage to store items, not park their vehicles, and that impacts neighborhood streets.

Last month, even as the City Council gave its OK for a three-story, 40-unit development to be built at Buena Vista Avenue and Mission Greens Road, Councilman Ronn Hall joined Houlahan in questioning the high-density condominium plan.

“This whole project doesn’t feel right to me,” Hall said as the council passed the plan with a 3-2 vote.
And there’s more on the way.

Weston is one of 13 housing projects under construction. It's a sprawling housing development across from West Hills High School with sweeping views of Santee toward El Cajon, Lakeside and points beyond. It held a grand opening last month that drew hundreds of potential buyers.

The 415-unit Pardee Homes community adjacent to Mission Trails Regional Park and above Santee Lakes has been planned for nearly 10 years and the developers are busy grading land for the rest of the homes to go up next year.

For the past nine years, Jason Silvas has lived in a home on Medina Drive, directly below Weston’s model homes. The fifth-generation San Diegan shrugs his shoulders when talking about the homes on the slope behind his back yard.

Like most residents along Medina, and Pebble Beach Drive further down the way, Silvas has learned to accept the development. But he says he is alarmed by the growth in the city he grew up in and has lived in for more than 20 years.

“The growth is too much for what we have,” Silvas said.

“I work at Costco in La Mesa and it can take me 45 minutes to get there. It used to take me 15 minutes. We haven’t even seen the end of the growth and the roads are already way too crowded.

“I understand the need for development but the city is overdoing things. This is not taking a beautiful thing and improving it. And if Fanita Ranch comes, we’re totally screwed.”

The developers of Fanita Ranch have asked the city for clearance to build nearly 3,000 homes. And there are 500 additional homes being proposed.

Santee is playing a large role in the San Diego Association of Governments’s plan for the future housing needs of the people in San Diego County.

SANDAG says that by 2050, the county will need to accommodate another 1.2 million residents, a half-million new jobs and nearly 400,000 new homes.

According to Santee City Planner John O’Donnell, in the current Housing Element Cycle (2013-21), Santee’s allocation of the region’s housing needs is 3,660 dwelling units.

Santee is one of the few cities left in the county that has land available for expansion. And the city of about 58,000 has been very busy filling many empty plots of land — and replacing some commercial businesses — with new housing developments.

O’Donnell said there are about 962 acres available for housing in Santee and that according to information released by Santee’s Finance Department, as of 2017, there were 20,566 units currently in the city.

Houlahan said he was also concerned about some of the coming changes for housing needs in California after Jan. 1.

More than a dozen bills aimed at fixing the lack of affordable housing in the state, including two that will smooth and streamline the development process, were OK’d in September by Gov. Jerry Brown.

Houlahan said the new laws will make it more difficult for cities to turn down developers and make them susceptible to lawsuits should they try.

Resident Kelly Wright said she is with Houlahan in her concerns and that his vocal stance on the traffic issue should be heeded.

“I don't know anyone that wants more housing developments in our town,” Wright said. “ Any approvals on development should come after they improve traffic situations that we already have. Luckily, my job is within Santee but my husband gets stuck getting on the 52 in the morning. And I know traffic will be crazy for me when I have to start taking my kids to high school in 10 years if (Weston) is up and running.

“We all love the small town feel of Santee, but it’s just going away more and more. I'd like to see them take care of traffic and the homeless situation before we start adding to the problem.”

Santee Mayor John Minto said he is a stickler for as much local control as possible and that Santee intends to continue to “meet the needs of the residents in a very informed, caring manner.”

Minto said he “absolutely understand people’s concerns about traffic, and delays caused by traffic” but that developments don’t necessarily add to the congestion.

“The unknown factor is we don’t know where these people moving into the developments work, where they recreate,” Minto said. “Some people work from home, some work south or east and don’t go out to (state Route) 52.”

Minto said the city works along with environmental groups to be sure there is the least amount of negative impact on the environment as possible as developments go up around town.

He said that the city knows the developers it works with and that those developers “understand our needs and are willing to work with us.”

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/...211-story.html

They are building 11,000 new homes in Folsom.

But will there be enough water?

BY RYAN SABALOW, DALE KASLER AND TONY BIZJAK
rsabalow@sacbee.com
June 15, 2018 06:01 AM
Updated June 15, 2018 04:58 PM

It's like a new city springing to life: 11,000 homes and apartments, seven public schools, a pair of fire stations, a police station, a slew of office and commercial buildings and 1,000 acres of parks, trails and other open space. Expected population: 25,000.

But will it have enough water?

As construction begins this month on the first model homes at Folsom Ranch, a 3,300-acre development in the city of Folsom south of Highway 50, state regulators continue to have questions about the project's water supply. They still aren't convinced the city has secured enough water to keep showers and spigots flowing as California contends with increasing uncertainty about rain and snowfall.

City officials plan to keep Folsom Ranch hydrated by using water gained from conservation efforts elsewhere in Folsom, and they insist the water will be sufficient. The State Water Resources Control Board, though, has told the city that those savings might not be enough over the long haul.

It is premature to conclude that there is enough long-term savings to support the Folsom South Area," the board told city officials in a letter last September. "California is likely to see many more droughts in the future."

During the drought, the state board issued moratoriums halting 21 small communities, from Kyburz in El Dorado County to Big Creek in Fresno County, from hooking up new homes with water.

Board deputy director Darrin Polhemus said the orders are still in effect.

In Folsom, however, the state board isn't taking any steps to impede the development south of 50. State officials say, for now, Folsom isn't breaking any rules.

"It's kind of out of our bounds of jurisdiction at this point," said Erik Ekdahl, a deputy director at the water board. "In the future, if they start to take more water than they are licensed to, that's a different story. That's something we can enforce on."

The city, which gets most of its water from Folsom Lake, says the state's concerns aren't warranted.

"The city has taken all necessary steps to confirm the availability and use of that water supply," city officials responded in a letter to the water board last fall.

FOLSOM'S EXPANSION

The massive project south of Highway 50 covers 3,300 acres and will contain nearly 11,000 homes and apartments.



Tensions over Folsom Ranch illustrate California's ongoing struggle to achieve seemingly conflicting goals. State officials say more new homes are needed to meet a growing population and lessen the state's current housing crisis. Meanwhile, cities also are being urged to cut back water use following the historic five-year drought.

Environmental groups warn Folsom Ranch could become a cautionary tale.

"That old approach of 'Build it, and the water will come' can’t work any longer," said Peter Gleick of the Pacific Institute, an Oakland water-policy think tank. "We live in a state where increasingly all the water is spoken for. And the growing conflict between building more homes and accommodating a growing population is running up against limits to water availability. ... Their assumptions have been, 'We'll deliver whatever water is demanded.' Those days should be over."


Homebuilders in California started 113,000 new homes last year, or roughly half as many as what state officials say are needed to keep up with rising demand. Legislators last year agreed on a trio of bills designed to ease the gap; voters will decide in November whether to issue $4 billion in bonds aimed at providing affordable housing. Folsom officials have said Folsom Ranch will include affordable units in its housing mix, although it hasn't outlined any detailed plans for them.

A 2001 state law requires municipalities to demonstrate to state officials that they have secured adequate water supplies before they approve large-scale housing developments. Before the drought, the Legislature ordered cities to reduce long-term water usage, but also said they could use the saved water to serve new development. In effect, the savings can be categorized as sources of "new" water in development plans.

That's what Folsom is doing. For the past decade, the city has been conserving thousands of acre-feet a year by installing water meters and improving delivery systems. The Folsom Ranch developers also spent millions repairing leaky pipes in the city's existing water system, which adds to the water available to the project.

All told, the city has told state officials that they'll have 7,300 acre-feet of water each year to feed Folsom Ranch. The development will need less than 5,600 acre-feet when the new community is fully built. An acre-foot is 326,000 gallons, enough to supply one to two average households annually.

"The city would have (a) sufficient amount of water to serve (Folsom Ranch) in both normal and dry years," the city's environmental and water resources director Marcus Yasutake said in a letter to the state last fall.

Folsom Ranch's development website says the water supply is "a bedrock principle." Homebuilders say they're convinced the city has done what it needs to do to keep water flowing to the people who will eventually buy the homes that range from the high $400,000s to $1 million.

"It has been part of our whole planning process," said Kevin Carson of the New Home Co., which plans 1,000 homes in the Russell Ranch segment of the development. "We feel comfortable with the city of Folsom ... and their assessment" of the water supply.

Folsom Ranch has been on the drawing board for years. To prove it was following the state's rules, Folsom in 2013 took the unusual step of essentially suing itself through what's known as a "validation suit." The city's attorneys sought a court declaration that Folsom had properly lined up water supplies for the big development. A Sacramento Superior Court judge signed off.

Construction is underway on homes along Scott Road in Folsom south of Highway 50 on Wednesday, June 13, 2018.
Randall Benton rbenton@sacbee.com


But some experts say the policy that allows cities such as Folsom to use conserved water to count toward new developments could prove dangerously shortsighted as droughts become more common with California's changing climate.

After all, the whole point of "conserved" water is storing it for when it's needed for "a not-so-rainy day," said Jeff Mount of the Public Policy Institute of California, a nonprofit think tank.

"The best strategies for growth are to find real, new water supplies ... to meet that growth so that you have some cushion for a drought," he said.

Meanwhile, state officials have allowed development to proceed even in areas with water supplies already proven to be shaky.

In 2015, during the drought, the San Joaquin County community of Mountain House, a decade-old housing development with 12,000 residents near Tracy, faced potentially catastrophic water shortages after its wholesale supplier, the Byron Bethany Water District, had its water rights curtailed by the state.

Disaster was averted when Mountain House purchased surplus water from a neighboring irrigation district. Mountain House remains under a state order to find new sources of water to diversify its supply portfolio. But that hasn't slowed down development. Mountain House still is building as many as 500 new houses a year.

"California is definitely feast or famine; everybody's growing and supplies are tightening," said Edwin Pattison, general manager of the development's community services district.

The drought, which officially ended last year, seems to have done little to impede development. No cities or counties appear to have curbed their development plans as a direct result of water-supply limitations, said contributing editor Josh Stephens of the California Planning & Development Report, a newsletter that covers land-use and environmental issues.

Stephens said it's worth noting that new housing stock tends to use less water than the developments of decades past. "New development is generally more water efficient than older homes," he said.
They're required to be.

During the drought, the California Water Commission passed rules promoting drought-tolerant landscaping by limiting the amount of turf grass around newly constructed homes to 25 percent of the landscaped area. The largest source of water use in California's urban areas goes toward lawns.

Gov. Jerry Brown recently signed legislation that pressures water agencies to reduce indoor use as well.

Indoor and outdoor water efficiency is a cornerstone in the new Folsom Ranch project, developers say. Ian Cornell, a spokesman for the project, said the area's parks and street landscaping will be irrigated with recycled water. Builders also are installing water-efficient landscaping, low-flow shower heads and faucets and high-efficiency toilets.

Folsom Ranch's critics aren't satisfied. They note that Folsom struggled to meet the stringent cutbacks Gov. Jerry Brown ordered cities to undertake during the drought.

Folsom also had its own water shortage scare not that long ago.

In 2015, during the worst of the drought, Folsom Lake's water levels sunk so low that crews from the federal Bureau of Reclamation had to build an emergency floating barge to keep water flowing to 200,000 residents of Folsom and other cities that rely on the reservoir.

The barge was equipped with underwater pumps that would have enabled the reservoir to discharge water even if the lake had fallen below the level of the intake pipes.

The pumps ultimately didn't need to be used, and the barge was removed from the lake. But with those memories still fresh, Alan Wade, former president of the Save the American River Association, said it's baffling state water officials would tell Folsom they had doubts about its water supply yet would let the development proceed.

"The reply from Folsom essentially told them to go pound sand: 'We're going to go ahead anyway,'" Wade said. "I don't know how you can get away with that."

http://www.sacbee.com/news/state/cal...213042579.html

UC San Diego begins building largest complex in campus history, housing for 2,000 students

Sacramento approved 5,500 housing units. Fewer than 100 were for low-income residents

BY TONY BIZJAK AND RYAN LILLIS
tbizjak@sacbee.com
July 05, 2018 02:00 AM
Updated 5 hours 23 minutes ago

A stylish new apartment building opened last month in downtown Sacramento with the lowest rent prices for new units in years.

The Hardin, a block-long building in the shadows of Golden 1 Center, offered studios at $650 a month and one-bedroom apartments for $712 when it opened in June. The project's 84 most affordable units were gobbled up before doors even opened.

"We could have rented hundreds of units literally at those (lower) rent levels," co-developer Cyrus Youssefi said. "The appetite for affordable housing units is insatiable."

Why isn't the city building more places like it?

Eight years in the making, the apartments at 8th and K streets represent the last housing in the city built with government subsidies from the state's old redevelopment program, which was eliminated in 2012 as a California budget solution. The defunct program allowed cities to funnel local property taxes into blighted areas. The $60 million Hardin project was built with $12 million worth of redevelopment loans.

Meanwhile, Sacramento leaders, desperate in 2015 to meet soaring demand for new housing, relaxed a requirement that builders set aside 15 percent of any new development for low-income residents. To spur construction in the central city, the City Council went further by waiving fees for high-density, infill housing - funds that would otherwise have supported affordable housing.

Critics say the past three years have been particularly dismal for affordable housing in Sacramento, a city that had previously distinguished itself from affluent suburbs by requiring developers to accommodate low-income residents.

Of the 5,500 housing-unit building permits issued by the city between 2015 and 2017, only 98 were for apartments or houses that people with salaries in the minimum wage range or a little higher could afford, according to a city review. And none of those 98 got any city help.

That leaves the city less than 10 percent of the way toward its 2021 housing target for low- and very-low income households, based on goals set by the Sacramento Area Council of Governments.

At the same time, Sacramento rent hikes have topped the nation among large cities. The average rent in downtown and midtown Sacramento now stands at $1,786 for an 848-square-foot apartment, according to Colliers International research.

By government "affordable housing" standards, a Sacramento resident earning $33,660 can afford to pay about $900 a month to rent a one-bedroom apartment. People with that income level or lower include students; retail, restaurant and service industry workers; some health care employees; and state workers.

Builders contend they can't build projects with rents that low without some type of government subsidy or breaks on taxes or fees.

Veronica Beaty, the policy director of the Sacramento Housing Alliance, is among those critical of the city's affordable housing efforts. A recent study by her group determined that Sacramento County as a whole is 58,000 units short for people with low incomes, forcing people to pay more than 30 percent of their income in rent.

Statewide, a legislative housing analysis estimates 1.4 million low-income households are forced to pay more than is financially healthy for them.

"It means they don't have money for transit, for health care, for healthy food. It's a real loss for the local economy," Beaty said.

If it weren't for The Hardin apartments, that group would likely include Junnida Siribounthong, 25, a downtown bartender who left UC Davis and is saving up to go back. She just rented a $712 one-bedroom apartment, and is delighted she can walk or bike to work, have a little extra money to enjoy downtown culture and live in an apartment by herself.

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"This exceeded my expectations," she said. "I don't feel like I'm living in an affordable unit. You're going to have pull me out of this apartment. I'm never leaving!"

By comparison, market-rate apartments in the 137-unit Hardin building go for $1,300 to $2,600 a month.

Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg acknowledges the city hasn't stepped up on affordable housing.

"You can’t say with a straight face that we're doing all we can, because we're not," he said.

Sacramento housing officials say the city has been focusing instead during the last few years on a bigger housing problem: The recession in the mid-2000s caused almost all home construction to stop, further dampening the economy and creating a crisis of lack of housing of all types.

As part of its effort to kick-start housing construction, the City Council in 2015 eliminated its requirement that 15 percent of housing units in new developments be set aside for lower-income residents. Instead, the city now requires most housing builders to pay a fee into a fund for affordable housing.

The council, however, exempted developers of dense, infill-style projects from paying the fee to encourage them to build housing, especially in the downtown and midtown areas where construction costs typically are higher.

City officials say they believe those moves have helped replenish the overall housing stock. Last year, the city issued 2,881 permits for new housing units, a high-water mark since the recession.

But the fees set in place in 2015 have produced only meager revenues for investment in affordable housing.

Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency officials estimate they had accrued only $3.7 million for new housing at the start of 2018 from those fees and a few other income sources, and have gathered $3 million more since then from various sources, mainly federal funds. That's far below the $16 million they say they typically had at their disposal annually during the state redevelopment era.

LaShelle Dozier, head of SHRA, said her agency gets formal requests from developers who want financial help to build affordable housing, but said her agency doesn't have much money to offer.

Instead, SHRA has been focusing on rehabilitating existing affordable housing units that it manages.

"That is where our challenge is, the responsibility to preserve and maintain our housing stock," she said.

"If we don’t put money into preservation we start losing housing."

That includes one project that has drawn criticism from some council members as overly costly, a $300 million effort to remake the 218-unit Twin Rivers housing complex into a mixed-income community, leaning on funds being cobbled together from private developers and various government grant programs.

To raise more money, Steinberg is proposing a November ballot measure to create a permanent one percentage point city sales tax that would bring in an estimated $100 million a year. He says he wants a chunk to be used to help finance affordable housing projects.

"I will fight for housing dollars," he said. "There is a huge gulf between our ambitions, our real needs and our literal capacity to do more."

Dozier said her agency will entertain developer requests for funding this summer, but she declined to say if the agency will invest in new affordable units or continue its emphasis on rehab work.

That leaves some developers waiting. One of those is Hardin apartments co-developer Cyrus Youssefi.
His CFY Development company is teaming with the Capitol Area Development Authority in looking for funding to build a $64 million apartment at 17th and S streets that would have 32 apartments with affordable rents for very low wage earners, 15 for low wage earners, 35 for moderate earners and 75 for higher wage earners.

They've lined up most of their financing, but are $5 million short and have asked SHRA for help.

Besides Steinberg's tax plan, there are two possibilities for increased affordable housing funds:

• Sacramento and other cities could get some help later this year from voters on the November ballot. If passed, Proposition 1, the Veterans and Affordable Housing Bond Act of 2018, authorizes the state to sell $4 billion in bonds to distribute to the state's existing housing programs.
• The city plans to consider amending its fee program, specifically looking at whether it should begin requiring developers of urban infill projects to chip in.
• That discussion, however, is tentatively set for October 2019, more than a year away.

Michael Strech of the North State Building Industry Association said his group opposes a fee expansion.

The city needs all kind of new housing, he said, but it's wrong to focus fees on just one group.

"If you just hit the builders with this," he said, "the people solving the problem are the ones hurt the most."

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-kee...162157897.html

Southern California residential building permits in the first quarter 2018

(County, number of permits and percentage change from first quarter 2017)

Los Angeles County: 5,093, +18%
Orange County: 2,150, -5%
Riverside County: 1,841, +23%
San Bernardino County: 1,179, -15%
Ventura County: 298, -15%
San Diego County: 2,807, +99%
Santa Barbara County: 221, +77%

Source Real Estate Research Council of Southern California
http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/...611-story.html