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Developers and the San Ramon Planning Commission met last week for a study session that served as the first major public meeting on a planned 100% affordable housing project slated for development in Bishop Ranch.
Development on the 200-unit Camino Ramon Apartments project is set to be led by the affordable housing nonprofit Eden Housing, with Sunset Development Company providing the space for the site at 2453 Camino Ramon pending the demolition of existing office space in the area.
While the study session served as a milestone for the project and a first glimpse into details of the plan, the Feb. 4 discussion was informational only, with the application still in its 30-day review period for completeness, and feedback and questions from commissioners that evening aimed at helping to guide the application process.
“I would use some color, and maybe on the architectural workings to not make it so stark so it looks almost like a hospital – try to make it a little more homey, especially for the old people, because they’re going to want it,” Commissioner Eric Wallis said.
The proposed project would consist of two buildings, one hosting 80 units age-restricted to senior residents and the other 120 units in the second building being available to families and residents of all ages.
In addition to the application process, financing for the project remains to be secured as well – which Dixie Baus, director of real estate development for Eden Housing, noted can only be done after the application is approved.
Until then, Eden Housing is seeking to leave the door open to develop the two buildings concurrently or separately depending on what funding they’re able to secure, with no estimation yet of when construction on the project might begin.
However, Baus noted that it was possible to consider a project of this size at the current point in time based on favorable financial circumstances in the investment and lending spheres that have recently changed.
“Last year if you would have asked me to do 200 units the answer would have been I don’t know how I’d do that – it’s too big,” Baus said. “This year it’s not too big. So it really does depend on the environment of the investors out there who are buying the tax credits, but also very much so the lending environment.”
She added that developments in high income areas are also favored by some investors, even when those projects are still slated to be affordable to low and very low income households.
“What you end up having is a little bit higher average, but you’re still meeting those extremely low income and low income, so it attracts a certain investor who’s willing to pay much more top dollar, certainly for San Ramon, as well as it attracts lenders who like the Eden brand very much, in which we can push them around a little bit and get some better interest rates,” Baus said.
While the financial tides have turned in favor of the project in the present day and in San Ramon in particular according to Baus, affordable housing in San Ramon has been a hot topic for longer than that as the city prepared its current Housing Element with the aim of allowing for the development of 5,111 new homes between 2023 and 2031. Of those, 1,497 are required to be affordable to very low income households and 862 are required to be affordable to low income households.
Many of those new housing projects have centered in Bishop Ranch, with the requirement to facilitate new housing in the current RHNA cycle coinciding with Sunset Development’s goal of reinventing the former office park into a mixed-use downtown neighborhood, but the project on the table last week is the first that is set to be 100% affordable.
“Our vision is to turn Bishop Ranch into a 15-minute district seamlessly blending homes, the workplace, shopping, entertainment, and parks and open space,” said Stephanie Hill, senior VP of development for Sunset. “Developing a vibrant, mixed-use community requires diverse residential options. Within Bishop Ranch, over 1600 homes have received project specific approvals. With every development, we discuss the need for affordable housing.
“This is the first community that is 100% affordable homes,” she continued. “These homes offer people the opportunity to call San Ramon home who otherwise have been priced out. Future residents may include service industry professionals from retail and restaurants, nurses, and public servants including police, fire, and teachers.”
Hill added that engineering and building services at the existing service center at the site are set to be consolidated into facilities at Sunset’s lakeside property, and that the company was in the process of converting to all electric vehicles and maintenance equipment.
“These changes create the opportunity to develop a residential community in the center of Bishop Ranch,” Hill said.
While a 130-unit Eden Housing project set for Downtown Livermore has been the subject of a years-long debate including appeals and legal battles, no such controversy was apparent at the initial hearing on the San Ramon project, with the only public speaker that evening – Windermere Ranch resident and research manager for Generation Housing Max Zhang – voicing support for that and other affordable housing options in the city.
“If San Ramon and the Contra Costa County supervisors had not approved the Dougherty Valley Specific Plan about 20 years ago, my own neighborhood could not have been built, and me, my family, my friends, my classmates would not have had the chance to grow up in this great, safe community where we have access to some of the best schools in the Bay Area and a really great job market, lots of great career prospects after graduating,” Zhang said.
“I want more people, San Ramon’s future residents, to have access to the same opportunities that I had growing up,” he continued. “And that can’t happen unless we build homes for them.”
