New affordable housing uplifts communities
Even in the Bay Area, where it dates back decades, affordable housing gets pigeonholed in too predictable ways. Critics insist it drives home values down, or drives crime up, or only belongs in big cities.
Yet, the reality is as diverse as the settings for three new Alameda County complexes: at the back of a San Lorenzo strip mall, across from the San Leandro BART Station and on the edge of a master-planned neighborhood on the island of Alameda.
Each new enclave houses people in need, from young families to senior citizens. Beyond that, the trio offer fresh proof of how low-income housing developments strengthen their communities as a whole.
This includes the most startling newcomer: the
Arbor at Hesperian in San Lorenzo. It’s a four-story counterpoint to the low-slung surroundings in the unincorporated community of 23,000, located 12 miles south of downtown Oakland.
There indeed is an arbor — a long wooden trellis shades the walkway outside the front courtyard and its young lemon, fig and apple trees. The courtyard, in turn, serves as an amenity for the older residents who might otherwise feel stranded on a site behind a gas station and a nearly empty retail block from the late 1940s. Another amenity is the views: The Arbor, with its 77 apartments for seniors, stands as the tallest building in San Lorenzo, even though it clocks in at just 55 feet.
The height is all that survives from a planned redevelopment of the shopping center that fell victim to the 2008 recession. Now, as designed by Van Meter Williams Pollack for nonprofit developer Mercy Housing California, it shows that extra density can be beguiling.
Most of the apartments are in a fairly standard L-shaped structure, but the boxy form is enlivened by such touches as metal sunshades cut in custom patterns, the better to cast distinctive shadows. Balconies are notched into the building, adding depth, while wooden railings complement the distinctive trellis.
Where the Arbor is jaunty and brash as it deconstructs the midcentury suburban norm, San Leandro’s Marea Alta packages a new scale of growth in familiar garb.
The five-story collection of 115 affordable family apartments was developed by Bridge Housing as a centerpiece of San Leandro’s decade-old downtown renewal efforts. This includes relatively tall buildings flanking the BART station, part of an effort to add workers and residents who’ll patronize the older commercial area to the east.
Architecturally, the design by the firm Ankrom Moisan strives to soothe: The look is stripped-down Mission Revival, complete with a tall, arched entrance and a faux red-tile roof. Yet, there’s more going on than with similar buildings in other suburban settings, where skin-deep Santa Barbara knockoffs are the norm. The beige stucco is applied in three different textures, for instance, adding welcome if subtle texture. The arches are traced by colorful tilework.
“This is not the old-fashioned housing project that people say they fear,” said Jeff Kay, San Leandro’s assistant city manager, referring to the still-potent images of troubled public housing projects from the 1950s and ’60s. “This is high-quality, it adds to the downtown fabric and it obviously will help us move forward” in getting other lower-income complexes approved.
The third newcomer, Stargell Commons in Alameda, doesn’t have the urbanistic aspirations of Alta Marea or the Arbor at Hesperian. But it’s a nifty example of how affordable housing can be incorporated into larger communities from the start.
The 32 family apartments are on land deeded to the city by master developer Catellus as part of its redevelopment of 218 acres within the former Alameda Naval Air Station. In all, more than 20 percent of the overall project’s 890 units will be affordable.
While the nearby housing is clad in traditional styles, HKIT Architects has packaged Stargell Commons in punchy contemporary lines, including several units where metal panels cloak the outer wall and then go up and over the roof. Perimeter walkways tie into the larger Alameda Landing development, which includes shopping as well as close-packed single family homes.
And if you want evidence of the demand for reasonably priced housing in today’s Bay Area, consider this: there were over 5,000 applications for the 32 rental apartments.
“We try to create good designs that add to the diversity of a community,” said Carolyn Bookhart of Resources for Community Development, which developed Stargell Commons. Though opposition is a given, “the housing crising is so apparent now in the Bay Area that the conversation has started to change.”
The three projects share attributes beyond the fact that each provides welcome shelter.
All three developers are local nonprofits with long track records in affordable housing. They know what they’re doing.
So do the architects: Van Meter Williams Pollack, in particular, makes such housing part of its mission, with complexes for low-income residents in seven Bay Area counties.
This experience shows, both in small touches for the residents — the Arbor has a room outfitted for a doctor to meet with a tenant — and gestures to the world beyond. With Marea Alta it’s a corner preschool, as well as the large-scale but neighborly urbanity. The Arbor’s shaded landscape flows into the small San Lorenzo branch library next door, a rare pedestrian-friendly nook in a community designed for the car.
Stargell Commons is selfcontained, yet the highly visible location along Willie Stargell Avenue shows that affordable housing doesn’t need to fade into the background.
Complexes like these won’t solve the larger housing crisis in our region. They begin to make a dent and, with luck, will help make the skeptics see that affordable housing is a Bay Area asset in more ways than one.