The City’s Largest Affordable Housing Project Yet

San Diego’s largest affordable housing development has officially broken ground. Located in the Sudberry Properties’ Civita master plan community, the 306-unit project will have two components that house seniors and low-income families with 203 units dedicated to families and 103 units dedicated to seniors. The units are being constructed as part of San Diego’s inclusionary housing measure and were funded through government tax credits. Chelsea Investments Corp. is developing the affordable housing community and secured the funding for the project. We sat down with Cheri Hoffman, president of Chelsea Investments Corp., to talk about the project, the funding and the demand for affordable housing in San Diego.

GlobeSt.com: This is the largest affordable housing project to come to the San Diego market. Tell me about the impetus for the development.

Cheri Hoffman: The project is part of the Civita master plan community, and the project fulfills the inclusionary housing requirement of Sudberry Properties. The inclusionary housing requirement is a zoning ordinance through the city of San Diego, and it requires that a certain percentage of all housing built be dedicated to affordable. This is the second project in the Civita master plan community that is part of the inclusionary requirement for affordable housing.

GlobeSt.com: Was the size of the project dictated by the inclusionary housing requirement?

Hoffman: Yes. At first we were going to build two separate projects, but when we worked with Sudberry Properties, it was determined that we would build the two projects together.

GlobeSt.com: What is your vision for this project?

Hoffman: The idea is that the inclusionary and affordable are low-income, and the families and seniors are integrated into a larger community, both the Civita community and the community of San Diego, with access to public transit, services and schools. I think that it is the perfect integration to allow workforce housing and housing for people earning less than 60% of the area’s median income. We will provide onsite services that are appropriate to each community, like after school programs or cooking classes for seniors. We are creating our own little community within the larger community.

GlobeSt.com: You also led the financing for the project. Tell me about the financing package.

Hoffman: The project consists of four different owners, and we are constructing the affordable housing over retail that will be owned and operated by Sudberry Properties and financed by Sudberry Properties. Chelsea Investments responsibility was to finance the affordable component. The senior project was financed with the 9% low-income housing tax credit and the family project was financed with the 4% low-income tax credits. We raised approximately 46% of the total project cost through the tax credit equity.

GlobeSt.com: Is there strong demand for affordable housing in San Diego?

Hoffman: We have developed close to 10,000 units in San Diego, and we have hundreds of people on the waiting list for both family and seniors. We usually begin preleasing three or four months before the anticipated certificate of occupancy, and we expect to be 100% preleased. It takes time to take this many people in, but the project is usually fully occupied within the first few months of occupancy.