Now, she’s building it
Building economical places to live for the vulnerable and needy is a top goal for executive carving out a new role at property company
Candice Gonzalez knows this about affordable housing: She knows what it felt like to get evicted as a child living in the East Bay. She knows what it meant to her and her sisters to land stable housing, and how it allowed them to flourish. She knows that many other Bay Area families desperately need that chance she was granted at a young age.
And as the newly appointed chief housing officer and managing director for one of the region’s most prominent developers, she’s ready to do something about it.
Formerly the CEO of affordable housing developer Palo Alto Housing, Gonzalez started work in September with the much larger for-profit development group Sand Hill Property Company. As Sand Hill’s chief housing officer, a new role for the company, Gonzalez aims to “build lots of housing,” particularly for the Bay Area’s most vulnerable and needy.
Gonzalez sat down with this news organization to discuss her new job, her solution to the housing crisis and Sand Hill’s most prominent and controversial ongoing project — the Vallco Mall redevelopment in Cupertino. This interview has been edited lightly for length and clarity.
Q
When Sand Hill announced your hire over the summer, it said bringing you on illustrated “a strong shift toward housing” for the company. What does that mean?
A
For the last few years I think Sand Hill was already pivoting toward housing. They had some smaller projects like Main Street Cupertino where they built 120 units. When they brought me on, they were making a drastic pivot. For example, with Vallco, that is going to include over 2,400 housing units, with 50 percent affordable. So I’ve always said they could have hired a market-rate developer, but they chose to hire someone with affordable housing experience because they really wanted someone who could understand the housing stability needs. That’s a drastic shift. Candice Gonzalez has been involved with the Hotel California building, background, through both Palo Alto Housing and Sand Hill Foundation. CANDICE GONZALEZ PROFILE
Title: Chief housing officer and managing director of Sand Hill Property Company
Last job: President and CEO of affordable housing developer Palo Alto Housing
School: Bachelor’s degree in psychology from UC Berkeley; UCLA School of Law
Residence: Palo Alto
Family: Husband and three children, ages 7, 5 and 4