Soledad needs affordable housing, not just for the lowest-income residents, but for middle-income working-class families as well.
While that need was acknowledged and baked into the initial agreement of the 132-unit Miravale housing project back in 2003, 22 years later, developer HMBY, LP, returned to Soledad City Council with a revised plan, citing difficulties in getting a builder on board to meet the requirements to build the 24 moderate-income for-sale units.
“I sat in the first subcommittee, and I fought hard for those affordable units to be part of the conversation—the moderate units that are now up for debate,” Mayor Anna Velazquez said at the Soledad City Council meeting on Wednesday, June 4. “We want you to honor that.”
The new plan proposed by the developer sought to reduce the number of moderate-income homes from 24 to one, pay the city a $460,000 in-lieu fee to cover the remaining units, and donate a 16,000-square-foot parcel of land (valued at $218,000) for a future affordable housing development.
Mayor Pro Tem Fernando Cabrera made a motion to accept the amendment with the exception of increasing the in-lieu fee to $25,000 per unit, for a total of $575,000 for the 23 units. Councilmembers Evarista Banuelos and Ben Caldera voted in favor of the motion, while Velazquez and Councilmember Fernando Ansaldo-Sánchez voted against.
“I really hope this does not set a precedent for the Miramonte project,” said Ansaldo-Sánchez, referring to another, larger project in the works with the same developer. “I’m disappointed because since I was elected last March, I have been beating a dead horse about how we are not building houses for our missing middle.”
The project was initially approved on the condition that HMBY, LP provide 52 affordable units—24 moderate-income for-sale units and 28 rental units for low- and very low-income households. While Eden Housing, the nonprofit affordable housing developer that HMBY partnered with in 2013, is in the process of taking over responsibility for providing the low-and very low-income units, the transfer was contingent on Soledad City Council approving the new plan provided by HMBY.
Nader Agha, owner of HMBY, added that if the council accepted the proposal to amend the agreement—substituting the moderate-income units with land and in-lieu fees—the developer would be able to pay off a bank loan, which would release the necessary parcel to Eden Housing.
“We’re backed up against the wall,” Velazquez said.
Her misgivings, joined by other critics of the proposal, including LandWatch, an environmental watchdog group, were over concerns about insufficient information on the financial feasibility to construct this housing, as well as a lack of a financial plan moving forward of how building the homes will pencil out in the future.
However, City Manager Megan Hunter and Community and Economic Development Director Beatriz Trujillo said that the agreement, as it stands, doesn’t adequately protect the 24 moderate-income units intended for local families. Because the units are not deed-restricted and lack resale restrictions, they argue someone could buy and resell them at above-market prices—while the units would still count toward housing goals in RHNA progress reports.
“My take on this is that, [since] we have the property back, we’re going to be taking it over, we can have the control over who’s going to develop and how we’re going to turn it into [affordable] housing,” Caldera said. “I think that’s a good move because we’re either going to hold it or wait another five, 10, 20 years.
"It’s time to move forward.”