SENIOR HOUSING BUILT IN PARTNERSHIP WITH COUNTY
Linda Vista property with 126 affordable homes to be complete in 2024
A new affordable housing development for seniors broke ground Thursday on county property in the Linda Vista neighborhood.
Levant Senior Cottages will consist of 126 affordable homes for senior citizens as well as housing for the manager, and is slated to be finished by 2024.
“We are taking action, and doing everything within our authority to make more affordable housing available for working families and seniors,” county Supervisor Nathan Fletcher said at an opening ceremony. “By using available land in our inventory and providing it to developers at discounted prices, it gives them the ability to build new housing more quickly without the hassle of finding the land and acquiring it, which can drive up the cost.”
The project will be constructed on a 4.57-acre county property leased to the developers at $1 per year, with a $10,000 annual administrative fee. It’s part of an initiative to use county land to ease severe housing shortages throughout the county.
The development will include a mix of studio and one-bedroom bungalows, and seniors who live there will pay no more than 30 percent of their income in rent, said Elaine Camuso, a spokesperson for the developer, Wakeland Housing and Development Corporation.
At least 20 percent of the units will be reserved for seniors who receive 50 percent or less of the Area Median Income, and the remaining units will be for seniors with income of 60 percent or less of the median. The median family income in San Diego is $106,900, but the median for an individual is $74,850 and for a two-person household is $85,500, according to figures from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Nick Macchione, director for the San Diego County Health and Human Services Agency, which oversees county housing projects, said the site is the first of eight surplus county properties to break ground for affordable housing developments.
The Linda Vista Community Planning Group approved the $51.6 million project in October 2020, Camuso said. The firm also received a $6 million award from the San Diego Housing Commission and a $19 million award from the California Department of Housing and Community Development, as well as $23 million in tax-exempt bond funding.