With plans to sell a handful of city-owned properties and reinvest the proceeds into affordable housing, the Belmont City Council Tuesday approved a tenant relocation plan for the eight residents who currently occupy those properties.
The properties are a single-family home at 30 Oxford Place and two condominium units at 3507 and 4606 Davey Glen Road plus a vacant property at 780 El Camino Real. The city acquired them from its redevelopment agency upon its dissolution, according to a staff report. The plan is to sell the properties to market-rate buyers and the reinvest the proceeds into affordable housing projects such as the Firehouse Square development proposal on El Camino Real or the LINC Housing project also on El Camino Real, said Jennifer Rose, an analyst in the city’s finance department.
“So we’re going from three affordable units to a much larger number of affordable units,” Rose said.
Councilman Charles Stone also said the goal of selling the properties is to maximize funding for affordable housing, adding that the council made the decision to sell in 2014.
“We all know there isn’t anywhere near enough money available from the state, regionally or locally to help fund affordable housing projects. If we could relocate people effectively and within the law and aggregate those resources, we could use them to create more affordable housing,” he said. “We wanted to make sure we were able to relocate folks in a way that made sense for them and that’s a large part of the reason why this has taken four years.”
The three-bedroom single-family residence is occupied by two adults and two children paying $1,440 per moth in rent, which is considered “low income.” One of the condos is occupied by two seniors paying $708 in rent and the other condo is currently home to an adult and child paying $1,192 in rent. Both households count as “very low income.”
The city has retained relocation consulting firm Autotemp to assist the three households in finding a new home by providing referrals to residential dwellings, explaining the relocation process and helping tenants apply for benefits, according to the report.
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Benefits are based on the difference over a 42-month period between the amount the tenant must pay for a comparable replacement dwelling and the lesser of their rent plus estimated utilities or 30% of gross monthly household income, according to the report.
“The money can be used to augment new rent or pay for a down payment — whatever the tenants choose to do and wherever they choose to do it,” Rose said.
The tenants were notified of the city’s intent to sell in 2016 and were given a draft copy of the relocation plan in March of this year, according to the report.
“This is not something I’m excited to do, but it’s gone well so far,” Rose said.
In addition to the aforementioned units, the city also acquired from the redevelopment agency two other affordable ones, two special needs group homes and several other vacant or underdeveloped sites. Rose said the city is looking for a new operator for the group homes, but has no plans to sell those units or the vacant properties.
Why doesn't the council build the affordable housing FIRST AND THEN move the low-to-moderate tenants at Oxford and Davey Glen to these new low-to-moderate housing after they build them?
Where are these people that will be forced to move out move to? Are there guaranteed places for them to move to?
Also the residents should have been interviewed. Totally one sided article.
So what is next? The historical Emmett House at 6th and O'Neil? Tenants living there are also in low-to-moderate housing so will they be forced to move unless they pay full price in the future?
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(1) comment
Cart before the horse!
Why doesn't the council build the affordable housing FIRST AND THEN move the low-to-moderate tenants at Oxford and Davey Glen to these new low-to-moderate housing after they build them?
Where are these people that will be forced to move out move to? Are there guaranteed places for them to move to?
Also the residents should have been interviewed. Totally one sided article.
So what is next? The historical Emmett House at 6th and O'Neil? Tenants living there are also in low-to-moderate housing so will they be forced to move unless they pay full price in the future?
Welcome to the discussion.
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Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who make comments.
Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
Don't threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Anyone violating these rules will be issued a warning. After the warning, comment privileges can be revoked.