Developer gets green light for 384-unit mixed-use complex in Bay Point

An Idaho developer has been granted approval to build a 384-unit affordable housing complex with shops, restaurants and a public library in the unincorporated East Bay community of Bay Point.

Pacific West Communities was given the go-ahead from Contra Costa County supervisors to develop seven acres of county land between State Route 4, Bailey Road, West Leland Road and Ambrose Park, the San Jose Mercury News reported.

The affordable housing project will include 38 units set aside for extremely low-income households, 38 for very low-income households and 304 for low-income households earning between 30 percent and 80 percent of area median income.

The brown-and-white mixed-used complex, to be built in three phases, will include 11,558 square feet of commercial retail space and a 20,900-square-foot county library.

The first phase calls for the sale of 3.3 acres of county land to Pacific West Communities for nearly $1.79 million — including a loan for that to the developer — to build 150 apartments with parking for 189 vehicles and the library, projected to cost $4.2 million.

Phase two of the project known as Orbisonia Heights would include 156 more residential units, with 156 parking spaces, plus the commercial space, according to SFYimby.

The final phase of construction would add 20 housing units, and 41 parking spaces.

The county acquired the property using a former county redevelopment agency housing fund, capital tax allocation bonds and capital tax increment. The land has been assessed at $4.6 million.

The redevelopment agency bought most of the property between 2008 and 2010, and then demolished about two dozen buildings that had housed almost 70 people, almost three-quarters of whom were low- to extremely low-income.

The land had once housed a small, dilapidated neighborhood, with several homes boarded up and uninhabitable, according to press reports. The demolished plot soon became an ugly magnet for transients.

The county took over the project after Gov. Jerry Brown dissolved all redevelopment agencies in 2012. The property will not require a full environmental review because an earlier environmental study was prepared in 2002.

Pacific West Communities, a division of The Pacific Companies, has developed multifamily or senior housing in a dozen western states, according to its website. The Pacific Companies, founded in 1998, has completed more than 160 multifamily and charter school projects across the West.

In April, it scored $130 million in financing for nearly 280 units of affordable housing in Oakland and in Milpitas.

Pacific West also struck a deal last year with KT Urban to develop 48 rental units for low-income seniors in Cupertino.

[San Jose Mercury News] – Dana Bartholomew