Plan for 81 affordable apartments gets city boost
The Union City City Council has selected MidPen Housing to build affordable apartments on a vacant, city-owned lot and committed to helping it finance the project.
The city plans to spend more than $14 million in various public funds to help the Foster City-based developer construct 81 apartments on the 1.65-acre lot on Mission Boulevard between D and E streets. The city also plans to donate the land, estimated to be worth $3 million, according to a staff report.
Even with that financial help, MidPen needs to come up with an additional $4.2 million. But its president, Matthew Franklin, told the council he’s confident the money will be acquired.
The apartment complex would include about 7,500 square feet of joint office space for Centro de Servicios and the city’s Youth and Family Services division. Centro provides a range of services to low-income families including food, legal aid, job placement assistance, and interpretation and translation.
The project also would entail about 10,000 square feet of other community amenities, including a courtyard.
The plot of land has been owned by the city since around 2004. It’s the last chunk of city-owned land that can be designated for housing, Deputy City Manager Mark Evanoff said at the Tuesday meeting.
The apartments would be affordable to very low- and extremely low-income families, according to the staff report. Very low-income households earn 20 percent or less of the area median income, or roughly $23,240 annually for a family of four. There would be 16 extremely low-income apartments.
Two levels of low-income apartments will be available to households making up to 50 and 60 percent of the median income, or up to $58,100 and $69,720 annually for a family of four, respectively. The rest of the apartments would be reserved for these income levels, except for one manager’s unit.
The city plans to pour its entire share of Alameda County Measure A1 funding, $8.7 million, into the project, along with $3.8 million of its own housing funds and $1.8 million from its capital improvement fund.
In addition, the city expects MidPen to receive $4.2 million in Measure A1 “regional pool funds,” according to the staff report.
Franklin, the nonprofit’s president, told the council the funding gap could be closed if Senate Bill 3, the Veterans and Affordable Housing Bond Act, is passed by California voters in November.
The bill by state Sen. Jim Beall of San Jose — which would provide about $4 billion in affordable housing funds to the state — was signed by Gov. Jerry Brown last year.
If all the funding is in place, city staff estimates the project could begin construction by February 2021 and the apartments would be ready to lease by late summer of 2022.