City Officials to choose developer to build affordable housing on City College parking lot

As recently reported in The San Francisco Examiner, a few developers have released plans to replace parking spaces with hundreds of affordable housing units at one of the city’s last vacant plots of publicly-owned land.

The three teams of developers proposed building between 340 and 623 units of affordable housing at the Balboa Reservoir, 17-acres of land that is home to a parking lot for City College of San Francisco.

City officials sought out a developer who could build homes for a wide range of incomes and designate more than half of the units as affordable housing, while still including enough parking spaces for City College students.

At a June 10 meeting, proposals to the public included 15 percent of the total units designated for moderate-income earners and 18 percent for low-income earners.

AvalonBay Communities and BRIDGE Housing Corp. would build 550 affordable homes, including 80 homes for rent at 55 percent of the area median income, 24 condos for sale at 105 percent of AMI and 83 homes for rent at 120 percent of AMI.

“At least 50 percent of the homes that we build will have two bedrooms or more, so we’re hoping to attract or retain a lot of San Francisco families,” Joe Kirchofer, vice president of AvalonBay, said at the meeting.

Related California, working with developers including nonprofit Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corp., would build 340 units of affordable housing, selling 116 of them at 80 percent, 120 percent and 150 percent of AMI.

William Witte, chairman and CEO of Related California, said at the meeting that 55 of those affordable units would be selected for public school teachers or City College faculty.

Mercy Housing and the Emerald Fun would build up to 623 affordable homes, including 212 units of housing at 150 percent of AMI for City College faculty, staff and students.

“We have senior housing, we have family housing, habitat for humanity will be building some of those for sale homes,” Marc Babsin, principal of Emerald Fund, said at the meeting. “We also have housing for City College faculty and staff.”

Currently there are more than 1,000 parking spaces at the Balboa Reservoir for City College students and faculty.

But the need for parking spaces may go up if City College grows its enrollment.

AvalonBay’s proposal includes 1,260 parking spaces with at least 500 in a public garage.

Witte said Related California, which includes 370 parking spaces in its proposal, could potentially put money toward building a new parking garage on City College property if the need arises.

“We believe that that is very do-able,” Witte said.

The Mercy Housing proposal includes 660 parking spaces, with 135 for faculty and staff.

City officials have not yet determined when they will select a developer.

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