CONCORD — A large apartment complex along Monument Boulevard will remain affordable for the next 55 years, thanks to its recent purchase and renovation by a nonprofit housing developer.
Community HousingWorks, a San Diego-based nonprofit that renovates and builds housing for families making less than the area median income, on Thursday unveiled the renovations it made to the 198-unit Sun Ridge Apartments complex.
The nonprofit developer used a combination of private financing and low-income housing tax credit equity to buy and redevelop the property, so is now legally bound to keep the units affordable for the next 55 years.
After buying the complex for about $33 million in 2017, Community HousingWorks invested the equivalent of about $80,000 per unit — or roughly $15.8 million — to rehab the 16 apartment buildings containing one-, two- and three-bedroom homes, said its president and CEO, Sue Reynolds.
In addition to updating the units’ interiors, construction included adding amenities such as play areas, outdoor seating, a computer lab and conference room, updating the laundry rooms, installing free wifi for the complex and adding energy efficiency in the form of new windows and doors, LED lighting and solar thermal.
Residents at the apartments are individuals and families earning between 50 and 60 percent of the area median income. One-bedroom units currently cost between $1,000 and almost $1,300 per month, while two-bedrooms range from $1,244 to $1,506 and three-bedrooms between $1,432 and $1,734.
For resident Grace Mary Christelle Yao, 29, who moved to the Bay Area four years ago from Cote d’Ivoire in West Africa, the units’ affordability has been life-changing.
Though she has multiple degrees and worked as a paralegal before moving to the U.S., Yao needed more education to work in the legal profession here but found that homes large enough for her family of four would require most of their combined income, leaving almost nothing for other necessities.
Moving to Sun Ridge has allowed her husband to support the family on one income while she goes to law school.
While the units are “spacious,” Yao said, they needed updates when she moved in, so she is happy about the recent renovations that include new kitchen appliances and her favorite part: low-maintenance hardwood floors.
She hopes that after she passes the bar exam and finds work, she and her husband can afford to move out “to share the space with others.”
Mayor Carlyn Obringer called the renovations and new landscaping “superb” and praised the funding model used by Community HousingWorks that didn’t rely on subsidies from the city or state.That means Concord can keep its affordable housing dollars for other projects, such as potential plans for a 62-unit apartment project near downtown, Obringer told a crowd at Thursday’s unveiling event.
As in other Bay Area cities, housing affordability has emerged as a hot topic in Concord in recent years. Renters have pressed the City Council to adopt rent control and just-cause eviction ordinances because they fear being otherwise pushed out. The council has not implemented such policies yet but created an ad-hoc committee earlier this year to consider potential solutions.
After a number of market-rate apartment projects with little to no affordable requirements were approved by the city, the council recently rejected a proposal to build a 310-unit apartment building on a long-vacant city property because the developer failed to include more than five affordable units or to use union workers in more than 15 percent of the construction jobs.
Most of Community HousingWorks’ work has taken place in Southern California, but the developer is also renovating a project that it acquired on Wooster Street in San Jose and building a property in Sacramento, Reynolds said.
She said the company’s plan for affordable housing is three-pronged: “produce, preserve and protect.”
