Want another sign of the hurdles many households face in finding housing that won’t bust their family budgets?
An affordable apartment project in Irvine drew 6,818 applications for 80 units.
The city-inspired Irvine Community Land Trust has closed the interest list for the new Salerno complex where income-qualified rents will start as low as $590 monthly. Salerno, the trust’s fourth affordable rental project, will have 24 one-bedroom, 16 two-bedroom and 40 three-bedroom apartments with rents far below market value.
“Oh my God, we have so much work to do,” said the trust’s Executive Director Mark Asturias of the low-cost housing shortage. “We will be in business for the next century at this rate.”
The projected rents, depending on a tenant’s income, will run from $590 to $1,175 for one-bedroom units; $1,100 to $1,325 for two bedrooms and $735 to $1,470 for three bedrooms. According to rent tracker RentCafe, only 1% of apartments in the city have rents below $1,500.
Salerno’s qualifying income levels vary depending on family size, ranging from 30% to 80% of the area’s median household income. For a two-person household, for example, this ranges from $28,500 to $82,000. The trust will soon begin informing the project’s lottery winners — randomly chosen applicants who will now have their qualifications verified.
Also, some of the Salerno apartments will go to people with specific needs: 15 units are set aside for veterans, 10 for people with developmental disabilities and 10 for families at risk of homelessness.
Salerno, developed with Chelsea Investment Corp., cost $38 million to build on land donated by the Irvine Co. in a deal that helped the developer meet its affordable-housing construction requirements.
The project’s construction costs — running $475,000 per unit, and that’s with “free” land — were boosted by various fees and wage requirements.
Fees included a district assessment that was pre-paid. A new law, enacted too late for this project, exempts “affordable” housing from paying those levies. Also wage minimums set by the project’s state and federal funding sources bumped up labor costs by 30%, Asturias estimated.
“I’m not saying these objectives are wrong, it’s just that it drives costs up,” Asturias said. “In the long run, people make choices that have different levels of impact both positive and negative.
“For affordable housing that uses public funding, we are providing value to the community in the form of higher wages and jobs, and we are providing affordable housing, which is our primary mission,” he said. “The downside is that we must use more funds per unit and that affects our ability to create more housing.”
Salerno’s 80-plus applicants for every unit suggests heavy demand for the trust’s next effort. It recently won city approval for an ownership opportunity: a 68-unit townhome project to be built in the Portola Spring neighborhood.
“The number of applications shows that there is a great need more affordable housing in Irvine and throughout California,” said Melissa Fox, the trust’s chairwoman and a city council member.
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July 22, 2020 at 12:05AM
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6,818 apply for 80 Irvine apartments with rent as low as $590 - OCRegister
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