Affordable housing set aside for school employees
Twenty of the 78 units will be prioritized for qualified district staff
ALAMEDA >> Teachers and others who work for the Alameda school district could have additional housing options under a $77 million project underway in partnership with the city’s Housing Authority.
Forty apartments at the authority’s 53-unit Rosefield Village have been demolished in the West End near Webster Street and are getting replaced with a 78-apartment building.
People who live or work in Alameda will get preference for the future apartments, Sylvia Martinez, the Housing Authority’s director of housing development, said in an email. But Alameda school district employees will be pushed to the top of the list for 20 apartments.
The City Council today will consider releasing $2 million as part of the city budget for fiscal years 2021-23, which the council will consider adopting in June.
School district employees who earn 20% to 80% of the area’s median income will be eligible to apply to live in the apartments, Shariq Khan, Alameda Unified School District’s chief business officer, said in a Dec. 16 letter to the city.
The current 20% percent of the median income in the Bay Area is $17,950 annually for a single person and $25,600 for a family of four, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
A single person earning $71,700 and a family of four with an income of $102,500 fall under the 80% threshold.
Rosefield Village is now a fenced- off construction site.
“The tenants that lived in the buildings that were demolished on the site were relocated earlier in 2020,” Martinez said. “They were assisted in finding affordable dwellings, mostly to other locations in Alameda, unless they requested other al
ternatives. There are some buildings that are only being renovated, and those have some remaining families.”
Rosefield Village is in the 700 blocks of Eagle and Buena Vista avenues, across the street from a Walgreens and Starbucks and just one block from College of Alameda. The Marina Village Shopping Center is a quarter of a mile away.
The Housing Authority has owned the property since the 1950s.
The expansion project broke ground in August 2020 and is scheduled to be completed in mid-2022.
“It’s great to see that something finally will be made of the housing money that the city had for many years set aside for AUSD,” City Councilman Tony Daysog said via an email. “Since I live relatively close to the project site, I can see great progress has been made already in terms of removing some of the old Rosefield Village units, to eventually make way for modern, new affordable housing that will also include AUSD employees.”
Currently, four households of tenants remain at the property, Martinez said.
Two households can stay on- site during construc
tion because their building will not get renovated, and the other two will be moved temporarily for up to six months, including possibly to another Housing Authority apartment, until the work is finished, she said.
The future apartments will range from studios to three-bedroom units, ranging in size from 420 to 1,080 square feet.
A 2017 survey of Alameda school district employees found that nearly 20% of those responding indicated they were considering leaving the district because of concerns about the
cost, availability and proximity of housing.
Almost 50% of renters who responded said they pay more than 30% of their household income on rent, and 45% of renters said they do not live in Alameda, with nearly 80% citing cost as the primary reason.
The survey included 523 district employees, about evenly split between renters and homeowners, according to the survey by Oakland’s Education and Planning Systems. The consulting firm was hired by the Alameda school district to evaluate employees’ hous
ing needs.
If the council approves the funding Tuesday, it will be part of the city budget for fiscal years 2021-23, which the council will consider adopting in June.
The school district and the Housing Authority entered into an agreement in 2018 to supply housing to low-income district employees. It calls for the school district to occasionally channel funds into the authority when housing is getting built.