4 SLO County affordable housing projects advance as supervisors OK $2 million in funding
Four affordable housing projects in San Luis Obispo County took a critical step toward reaching the market on Tuesday at the Board of Supervisors meeting.
The board voted unanimously to approve new affordable housing projects in Cambria, Paso Robles, San Luis Obispo and Nipomo and approximately $2.22 million in funding from Community Development Block Grants, the Permanent Local Housing Allocation, a Department of Housing and Community Development HOME grant and the general fund.
Combined, the four affordable housing projects will add 161 new units to the county’s housing stock as the projects finish construction over the next three years.
Where will new affordable housing be built?
The approval of $953,426 in HOME funds from the California Department of Housing and Community Development and $27,093 in general fund money means Cambria will get new housing units for the first time since the 2001 building moratorium went into effect, essentially halting all building in the small coastal town.
Cambria Pines Apartments, a 32-unit development with supportive services for families built by People’s Self-Help Housing, will be able to proceed with development now that its funding is secured.
People’s Self-Help Housing has owned the land for the project in Cambria since 2006, CEO Ken Triguiero told The Tribune in March, but it stalled in 2019 when the organization was unable to pick up the adequate funding.
“The last affordable housing that (Cambria) did was back in 1997 — that was the last wave,” Triguiero said. “That’s like ancient history.”
That 1997 affordable housing complex still has a wait list of more than 100 applicants to this day, Triguiero said, highlighting the need for affordable housing in the notoriously water- and housing-poor town.
In the South County, Summer Holly Lane Homes — another People’s Self-Help Housing development — will bring 10 affordable single-family homes to Nipomo thanks to $149,238 in PLHA funds set aside by Senate Bill 2, better known as the “Building Homes and Jobs Act.”
Approving these PLHA funds used all of the county’s allocated money designated for homeownership projects under the Five-Year PLHA Plan, according to the meeting agenda.
The city of San Luis Obispo will get 39 housing units geared toward extremely low and low-income individuals experiencing or at risk of homelessness through the funding approved for the Housing Authority of San Luis Obispo.
These units at Orcutt Road Apartments received $420,541 from the county’s CDBG funds.
Finally, River Walk Terrace, the largest affordable housing project to receive the board’s approval and funding, will provide 78 units restricted for Paso Robles seniors.
The Housing Authority of the City of Paso Robles’ project received $667,398 in HOME funding, which will be used to provide low-income residents of the area over the age of 55 with 70 one-bedroom units and eight two-bedroom units.
Repeal of inclusionary housing ordinance cost county more than $700,000 in affordable housing funds
In June 2022, the Board of Supervisors voted to repeal the county’s inclusionary housing ordinance, effectively removing a built-in means of collecting affordable housing funds.
The repeal of that ordinance, and the funding it provided under Title 29 of the County Code, left $723,272 worth of Title 29 funds collected as of June 7, 2022, in limbo, Homeless Services Division administrative services manager George Solis told The Tribune.
That’s because, according to the June 7 Board of Supervisors report on the repeal of the ordinance, the affordable housing funding provisions of the ordinance will only remain in effect so long as the county can allocate and expend the funds collected prior to June 7, when the ordinance was repealed.
That pool of funding was included in the Notice of Funding Availability the county announced in September, Solis said. In November, the board voted to award around $138,000 of the money to a Habitat for Humanity project on Vine Street in Paso Robles, leaving around $585,000 still available for application, Solis said.
However, when county staff conducted a fiscal analysis of the Title 29 funds, Solis said, they found a potential issue with further uses of the money.
If developers paid in-lieu fees on their projects under the old inclusionary housing ordinance and were still early enough in the development process, they may be entitled to a refund of those fees, Solis said.
As it is unknown how much of that money could be refunded in those cases, the remaining money was not distributed.
As of February, a refund of around $2,508 has already been issued, Solis said at the meeting, and a county staff analysis identified another $193,750 in funding that could be at medium to high risk of being refunded to developers, based on how far though the inspection and development process the projects were.
Including the projects that are at medium to high risk for a refund with what was distributed in November, that would leave around $389,000 available for use, which wouldn’t be enough to cover all the potential refunds.
“If that happened and we had allocated the rest of the $585,000 right now, then there’s a risk that those refunds would have to be paid out of county general fund,” Solis told The Tribune.
Solis said the county will conduct a review of the remaining Title 29 money on an annual basis, starting later this year, to understand whether it can be used in future funding awards.
This story was originally published April 6, 2023 at 12:01 PM.
