The Concord City Council's decision to reject an Idaho-based developer's proposal to build an affordable housing project in the city's downtown business district has drawn a rebuke from the state housing agency.
Last month, the council in a 4-1 vote refused to grant permission to Pacific West Communities to accept up to $90M in state financing to build 183 apartment units, almost all designated as affordable, in the East Bay city's central business district.
The council majority argued that the project, located at 1650 Ashbury Drive in proximity to the Concord BART station, would concentrate too much affordable housing in the business district, according to a report in the Mercury News.
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Instead, council members at a May 28 hearing on the project encouraged Eagle, ID-based Pacific West to develop the multifamily campus as mostly market-rate apartments, which would be ineligible for state subsidies, the report said.
In a June 10 letter to the City Council, the state housing department wrote that by denying the financing, Concord may have violated fair housing regulations and its state-mandated commitment to approve affordable housing.
In a letter to the developer's attorney, Susanne Meyer Brown, the Concord city attorney, said the council believed it was following the state's direction to avoid a "concentration of affordable housing units in a lower resource area," Mercury News reported.
In the latest eight-year housing element plan for Concord, the state is requiring that the city add more than 5,000 new housing units by 2031.
Pacific West Communities, which has developed dozens of affordable housing projects in California, received initial approval from city planning officials for the Ashbury project in February.
The developer is counting on up to $90M in state tax-exempt bonds for construction financing. The City Council has the final approval to sign off on the financing plan, which has a deadline of June 24, the report said.
In March, the City of Concord and Brookfield Properties unveiled plans for a massive mixed-use redevelopment of the former Concord Naval Weapons Station, a $6B project that would be built in five phases over the next 40 years.
The plans for the former weapons depot include more than 12,000 homes, with 25% reserved for affordable housing.
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