SLO County city named one of 5 sites for state affordable housing projects
A state-owned site in Atascadero is among five spots around California selected by the state Department of Housing and Community Development for new affordable housing projects, Gov. Gavin Newsom recently announced.
Affordable housing developments will also be built on state-owned properties in Covina, Fresno, Oceanside and Sacramento, Newsom said in a news release Sept. 19.
When Newsom took office in 2019, he issued Executive Order N-06-19, which created the Excess Land for Affordable Housing program, which is intended to create affordable housing on state-owned excess sites, according to the release.
“California’s housing affordability crisis has been more than a half century in the making and the state is tackling this foundational challenge with an innovative ‘all of the above’ approach,” Newsom said in the release.
California aims to build 1 million homes by 2030 to combat a statewide housing shortage.
The Atascadero site is located in a buffer zone near Atascadero State Hospital, according to the release.
“The city of Atascadero does not have a lot of inventory for available land for new development, so the news is very positive that the state is declaring some of the vacant land as a potential site for a new housing project,” said Phil Dunsmore, community development director for the city of Atascadero. “The new housing available to people in the workforce will help to continue to bolster our local employment shortage.”
Currently, development is in its earliest stages, Dunsmore said, while the state has released a request for qualifications to create a list of qualified home builders.
At this time, there’s no official timeline for the development, Dunsmore said, adding that details that will be more clear once the selection process for builders is finalized. It’s also not clear what the final product will look like.
However, some parameters of the site are already in place.
For example, the Atascadero housing project will not have to follow local zoning laws, but will need to follow the California building code.
“With the state declaring the site as surplus, the state will sell the property to an affordable housing developer, subject to certain conditions,” Dunsmore said. “The city is hopeful that the future developer and the state will work with the city to design a project that is compatible with the neighborhood and respective of local zoning laws.”
Dunsmore said the project will need to work with the city of Atascadero to connect local services such as water, sewer and power.
Dunsmore said the state’s use of surplus land will help “fill the gap” in housing on the Central Coast.
However, he said, “More work needs to be done to help local communities with infrastructure and financing to support these additional units.”
“Simply creating land and policies to add housing into communities absent a long range plan to supply the necessary infrastructure and financing does not solve the entire problem,” Dunsmore said. “This small surplus land will help, but a broader plan to assist rural communities like Atascadero to help balance their needs for economic development, jobs and infrastructure would complete the picture.”
This story was originally published September 30, 2022 at 2:39 PM.
