This Daly School District is honest—hey have excess land and face cut backs due to lack of money. Next year, when he will only be paid for real students, it could mean bankruptcy. So they are selling off or developing a partnership with developers to build homes—1100. One sold, the district gets the money and the taxpayers get a little relief with 1100 homes paying property taxes. But NIMBYs are stopping the project.
“But critics in the community, including a school board trustee, argue that the 10% is not enough for a region that they say desperately needs more affordable housing. They’re also fighting to save a community garden that would be bulldozed and relocated to make room for the development.
A banner outside a garden at Serramonte Del Rey campus in Daly City, which the school district allowed neighbors to use during the pandemic. Now, as the district plans to rebuild the campus, some residents do not approve of the district removing the garden.”
Lots of excuses by the Luddites—time to build
Peninsula school district’s huge housing plan would be ‘unaffordable’ for renters, critics say
Jessica Flores, SF Chronicle, 1/7/22
An ambitious plan by a Peninsula school district to build more than 1,100 apartments on a former high school campus is poised to take a key step forward next week — but some community members are pushing to double the affordable housing proposed.
Saying it badly needs the revenue the project would generate, the Jefferson Union High School District in Daly City plans to find a developer to build five rental apartment buildings over the next 10 to 15 years on its Serramonte Del Rey campus. The development would include mostly market rate units, with 10% designated as affordable, as well as retail, restaurants, parks and trails at the site, perched on a hill near the Serramonte shopping center.
If eventually approved and built, city planners say it would be one of the largest multifamily housing projects the Peninsula city has seen in decades — arriving amid a chronic, severe housing shortage in the Bay Area, with demand far outstripping supply.
The project has widespread support among staff and families, and the district says the plan for 10% below-market rate units meets Daly City’s requirements.
But critics in the community, including a school board trustee, argue that the 10% is not enough for a region that they say desperately needs more affordable housing. They’re also fighting to save a community garden that would be bulldozed and relocated to make room for the development.
A banner outside a garden at Serramonte Del Rey campus in Daly City, which the school district allowed neighbors to use during the pandemic. Now, as the district plans to rebuild the campus, some residents do not approve of the district removing the garden.
The City Council is expected to vote on the district’s preliminary plan Monday, after delaying the decision twice to allow city and district officials to discuss potentially adding more affordable units. A final plan and environmental reviews would also need City Council approval, though the timeline is not yet clear.
Some have continued to lobby for changes to the plan leading up to Monday’s vote.
“The project as currently designed replaces public use with private use of publicly owned lands,” Sabrina Brennan, with the Sierra Club’s Loma Prieta chapter, said in a statement.
“Ninety percent of [the project’s] units will attract families with six-figure incomes. We hope JUHSD will prioritize the needs of Daly City families and include more affordable housing and green space,” she said.
Council Member Juslyn Manalo has asked school district officials if they could double the amount of affordable housing to 20%.
“This is a very large project, and that’s why I’ve asked for more conversations to be had with Jefferson Union High School District to see what the possibilities are,” Manalo told The Chronicle.
It’s really important is being able to ensure that there’s a mix of housing (for) residents in the city of Daly City,” she added. “It’s understanding that not only the teachers but also the residents, the students that go to (a school within) Jefferson Union High School District are also able to hopefully live in the units.”
Evelyn Stivers, executive director of the Housing Leadership Council of San Mateo County, which supports the proposed project, said the county needs both market rate and affordable units. One of the district’s trustees is also a board member for the group.
“To build affordable housing, we need land, money, and political will,” Stivers wrote in a letter to city officials. “The dedication of a 1.8 acre site from the school district is a wonderful opportunity to create a partnership between the city and a housing provider.”
Like many Bay Area school districts, the district is struggling to boost teacher pay, update facilities and expand programs for students.
Jefferson Union officials say they receive less per pupil — about $15,600 in the 2019-20 school year — than the county’s two other high school districts.
The district 30 years ago built an apartment complex on the Serramonte Del Rey campus, also to raise revenue. Some residents there recently wrote to city officials asking them to go even further with the new project and support a minimum of 33% affordable housing.
According to their letter, the affordable housing at Serramonte Ridge — which has 396 units with 20% below market rate — expired in September. Occupants of those units are now facing 3% annual rent increases, and as below-market tenants move out, the owner can rent their units at market rate, said Stephen Stotle, Daly City’s assistant city manager.
“Daly City residents do not benefit from market rate apartment units,” the renters wrote. “We are very concerned that the proposed Serramonte Del Rey project is 90% unaffordable.”
In addition to the proposed Serramonte Del Rey development, construction has already begun on housing for faculty and staff on the campus at 699 Serramonte Blvd. Approved in 2018 through a bond measure, that 122-unit project is expected to be completed in the spring. Of the apartments, 110 are designated for staffers whose households earn no more than 80% of the average median income, and 12 are for those earning 70% or less.
The projects come at a time when the state is finalizing each city and county’s housing production requirements for the next eight years, a process called the Regional Housing Needs Allocation. But unlike past RHNA cycles, when the majority of cities ignored their production goals, the state now has an enforcement unit tasked with making sure housing is approved as long as it meets local zoning and general plan goals.
Tina Van Raaphorst, the district’s associate superintendent of business, said in a statement that the proposed Serramonte development is meant “to create a vital and stable funding source for the Jefferson Union School District while providing hundreds of new homes in an area that needs and can accommodate housing.”
When asked whether the school district plans to increase the share of affordable units, Van Raaphorst said the district was confident that the proposed 10% “is the right fit” because it “helps the district ensure the project is profitable for the school district, putting money into the local schools.”
Once the preliminary plan is approved, she said, the district plans to find a nonprofit affordable housing development partner to “fully explore what levels of affordable housing are truly feasible and best meet the needs of our community.”
It is not yet clear whether or when the affordable housing at the proposed project would eventually expire, Van Raaphorst said.
She added that the district is “very interested” in keeping the project’s affordable housing indefinitely, but would like to work further with the city once the preliminary plan is approved.
