April 9, 2024
California Department of Housing & Community Development (HCD) c/o Jose Jauregui [email protected]
Paul McDougall [email protected]
RE: Support for the draft of the City of Santa Clara’s 6th Cycle Housing Element
Dear HCD Representatives:
We are writing to express our support for the March 2024 draft of the City of Santa Clara’s 6th Cycle Housing Element. We have been working in partnership with the City on Monroe Commons since we were first awarded the site through a competitive Request for Proposals process in 2018.
Monroe Commons is a 65-unit affordable housing development completed in 2023 that serves as a model for inclusive mixed income housing providing housing for a board range of incomes between 30% - 80% of the Area Median Income, with a 25% set-aside for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
The project site was originally zoned as Single Family Residential with a general plan designation of Transportation Right-of-Way. As such, any density bonus based off the Single-Family Residential zoning would not have achieved the desired density. Moreover, given the project’s zoning and general plan designation, the project did not qualify for any entitlement/environmental streamlining available at that time. Nonetheless, given the project’s importance to the City and its desire to see this underutilized site become affordable housing, City staff helped expedite the entitlement process and environmental review to the greatest extent possible. It has taken us longer to get entitlements in other jurisdictions where we used density bonus and/or streamlined ministerial approval than it did for us on Monroe Commons.
In addition to support during entitlements, the City provided a significant amount of funding to the project including a $5.2 million seller carry back loan (the project site is City-owned with a long-term ground lease) and up to $9.5 million in gap funding for the project.
The City of Santa Clara has been a great partner on Monroe Commons, and we hope to continue to work with them on other critical affordable housing developments in the future. We encourage the State to certify the March 2024 version of the City’s 2023-2031 (6
th) Cycle Housing Element as soon as possible.
Please do not hesitate to reach out to me if you have any questions or need any additional information at 510-319-6959 or [email protected].
Thank you for taking our comments into consideration.
Sincerely,
Robin Zimbler
Manager, Freebird Development Company, LLC
Cc:
Mayor Lisa Gillmor
Santa Clara City Council
Jovan Grogan, City Manager
Reena Brilliot, Acting Director of Community Development