Charities Housing leases VTA land for affordable townhomes in San Jose

Charities Housing has leased land from a Silicon Valley transit agency to build 45 affordable townhomes next to a railroad station in San Jose.

The locally based affordable housing developer inked a lease agreement with the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority for a 2.5-acre service parking lot at Branham Light Rail Station, at 751 Branham Lane, NBC Bay Area and the the Silicon Valley Business Journal reported.

Terms of the lease, and the cost of the project, were not disclosed. It’s not clear whether the proposed townhomes were approved for development.

Most affordable Bay Area housing developments are offered as rental units, but the 31 three-bedroom and 14 four-bedroom townhomes would be up for sale.

Ten of the proposed homes would be affordable to extremely low-income households in Santa Clara County, which last year was $55,300 for a family of four.

The VTA will lease the property to Charities Housing, which would spearhead the development and manage the property once it’s built.

Charities Housing aims to break ground by 2027 and complete the project by 2029.

While the VTA has plans for numerous transit-oriented housing developments, this is the first project in the agency’s portfolio to offer homeownership.

“At VTA, we are proud to be on the cutting edge of this opportunity, and we hope this is just the beginning, with other projects and developers following suit,” Carolyn Gonot, CEO of VTA, said in a statement.

Supporters say selling homes to low-income families helps them build wealth and stay in San Jose, instead of being priced out of the region.

“Families are working hard every single day, but the dream of owning a home is slipping further out of reach,” San Jose Councilwoman Pamela Campos said of the project, which is in her district. “These homes are for families who have been locked out of the market, forced to rent indefinitely, or move farther away.”

The project received grants for an undisclosed amount of funding from Destination Home, a public-private partnership working to end homelessness in Silicon Valley; the Metropolitan Transportation Commission; and the Santa Clara County Office of Supportive Housing.

It’s one of 28 sites the VTA has identified for transit-oriented housing, of which nine projects have either been completed or are under construction.

Last year, the VTA broke ground on a 100-percent affordable, 90-apartment development in Campbell, near the Winchester station. It has also been building hundreds of affordable apartments near the Tamien station and Berryessa Transit Center.

— Dana Bartholomew