The Concord City Council tonight will consider approving a resolution to issue bonds to buy The Lakes Apartments and convert the 102-unit building into affordable housing.
The city would try raising $45 million in tax-exempt revenue obligations to rehabilitate the 55-year-old complex, located at 1818, 1819 and 1850 Laguna St.
The bonds would be issued by the California Municipal Finance Authority (CMFA) at the request of non-profit Integrity Housing. Bond repayment would be the sole responsibility of Integrity Housing and CMFA.
“Concord is not responsible for the debts, liabilities and obligations incurred through this bond financing,” a staff report for Tuesday’s meeting says.
The city must hold a public hearing for the bonds to be tax-exempt, and become a member of the CMFA, which Tuesday’s resolution would accomplish.
“To date, over 300 municipalities have become members of the CMFA, resulting in over 500 affordable multi-family projects statewide,” Tuesday’s staff report says.
“Integrity Housing, a non-profit developer, will own The Lakes Apartments,” the report says. “Integrity Housing has over 20 years of experience as a nonprofit developer of affordable multifamily housing. Their portfolio consists of 3,000 units spread across 35 affordable housing communities. Nine of these communities are located within the Northern California region, with two new communities currently in development.”
The CMFA and Integrity Housing would restrict 75 percent, or 77 of its 102 units, to qualify for low-income and very low-income households for at least 30 years. Twenty-five units would remain market-rate. Integrity would complete renovations currently underway.
The Concord City Council meets virtually at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday and can be seen at https://bit.ly/3H5p6WE (webinar ID 821 1098 9369, passcode 254045).
22 comments
So Integrity Housing gets government money to run & financially gain from this arrangement. I need to setup a business where I get government money to run a business. I don’t believe cities need to get in the housing business, they have enough problems.
Affordable senior housing sounds better.
Amen
Maybe Concord can be the next Antioch by turning all if our neighborhood’s into Section 8 housing!!!!!!
So where will residents who do not qualify for low-income housing go? Or will they be charged higher rent than their neighbors? What California really needs to do is lower the government burden on building new units. And maybe free up some of that open space which is just sitting around right next to Treat and Ygnacio Valley Road.
Or we could free up a LOT of extra homes for people to rent if people weren’t able to own three or four of them and rent them out as added income. That would certainly decrease prices.
Yes, Komrade! How dare Anyone use capitalism to build a retirement for themselves. Sure, pass a Law that any vacant rentals MUST be rented out so the landlord can get screwed out of another 18 months of rent with the next lockdown.
Or maybe people could be responsible for themselves so those of us who made good choices can stop being punished for them???
Usually it’s the other way around: 75% market rate and 25% affordable so this sounds good for lower and very low income residents. Concord is not on the hook for any of this. My concern is upkeep and appearance so nobody will know these are not all market rate. Income has nothing to do with cleanliness and being responsible.
Any City that is a part of the whole “Sustainable Cities” program and received money from Federal government Must do this.
I’ve already witnessed this happen in Martinez, several privately owned apartments were purchased and converted into low income aka “affordable housing”.
Just so you all know, this is a Cities version of ‘Bussing’ – it brings in riff-raff from other Cities. Of course, we all know what happened to Antioch.
And like someone else already posted, where is the affordable housing for Senior Citizens???
It really doesn’t matter what the people want, we are getting this new boondoggle.
For a city that can’t even fix its streets, it now wants to add on another permanent tax drain on the community.
It won’t take long before we all hear “we need more money for the affordable housing project”. And they’ll want another “temporary” tax.
The council gets the accolades and the people get screwed, again.
The Lakes Apts. have bad reviews right now because of terrible property upkeep so with this renovation must come topflight landlord property maintenance guaranteed by the city so complaints by residents get addressed immediately.
Low-income housing priority should be given to seniors and the disabled and priority should be given to U.S citizens and legal immigrants. There are lots of illegal immigrants taking advantage of the system, including living in low income housing. Those who are not seniors nor disabled should be placed on an evaluation process where they prove to be working toward moving out of low-income housing or at least have their rent raise, as they improve their financial situation, to serve as a way of offsetting the cost of these services.
Agree with you 100% PESFG.
“Non-profit”
Who would want to pay full rent to live next to someone who qualifies for low housing? We know the calibar of the people that will not be taking care of their apartments. This is a bad joke.
They say that Concord must vote to become a member of the CMFA for the bonds to be issued. Well if CMFA is responsible, as it states, then that means that they will be at least partially responsible doesn’t it? What about other failed projects statewide? How much will it cost to bail out other failed Marxist boondoggles? Mitchoff? This non profit feels like a shady cutout operation. Who owns it? Will they later change the project to say a demo job and build an (unwanted) Mexican soccer stadium? LoL
Council should review process that gave Concord ‘affordable’ housing along Monument Blvd.and years of resultant problems. May have been sunset clauses that allowed owners to profit on back end of deals.
At least location is closer to Police headquarters this time.
Might be fun to ask council members about their knowledge of Monument housing history. Did staff bother to apprise them of history ? ? ? ?
Bigger question, . . . . what size and how many bronze plaques, listing council members, will there be ? ? ?
I remember when those were built and advertised as “luxury apartments”.
I live here and there are maintenance issues with the old pipes clogging and leaking. Maintenance is done when problems pop up at a fast pace. The rent is fair for the current market. Section 8 tenants don’t treat their residence well or their surroundings and shared space with neighbors. I have seen first hand growing up in Antioch. One of the properties has no elevators and would not be good for seniors or handicap people.
Are bonds another way for the government to get around Prop-13 to fund projects?
But who would want to live in the other 25 units? Might as well make the entire project a low income deal.
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