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The San Antonio City Council will vote on using $30 million from the city’s 2022 housing bond and federal grants to support proposed affordable housing projects over the next several weeks.
If approved, the money will result in 737 new or preserved affordable housing units; six projects resulting in 686 rental housing units, and one project resulting in 51 homeownership units.
Neighborhood and Housing Services Director Veronica Garcia described how the projects would add to what the city has already accomplished in the last several years with the $150 million housing bond voters approved in 2021.
“With these awards under consideration, we have done 27 different types of housing projects,” she said. “In total, over 4,700 units produced or preserved. Over 1,100 of those units have already been completed, with families living or moving in.”
Garcia said one of the requirements for proposals to receive funding was that they set aside at least 15% of their units for families making up to 30% of the Area Median Income (AMI), which is roughly $24,000 for a family of three in San Antonio. Altogether, the projects NHSD recommended to council would set aside nearly 20% of units —144 units — to that income level.
Another 18%, or 133 units, are for families up to 50% AMI; 37%, or 270 units, are for families up to 60% AMI; 18%, or 139 units, for families up to 70% AMI; and 7%, or 51 units — the homeownership units — are for families up to 80% AMI.
The largest of the rental projects is a recommended $6 million, 0% interest loan for Central at Commerce, a District 2 apartment project developed by Union Development Holdings that will contain 279 units. The city’s loan helps the developers meet their total $82 million development cost and the project comes with a 40-year affordability covenant because of its utilization of a 4% Low-Income Housing Tax Credit.
Central at Commerce is scheduled to be completed in September of 2027.
Another major recommended project is a nearly $5 million 0% interest loan to the San Antonio Housing Trust (SAHT) to renovate the Robert E. Lee apartment tower downtown. SAHT announced on Wednesday that it had successfully purchased the building, beating efforts by local developer Weston Urban and a Chicago developer to buy it. SAHT has said they will keep the building affordable for at least 40 more years and use the bond money to improve units currently being lived in.
The renovations are anticipated to be completed by June of 2027.
NHSD also recommended that the council award just over $3 million for two homeownership production projects, including a $2.6 million grant to Habitat for Humanity. That grant would provide a significant chunk of funding for the nonprofit's $9 million project in District 4 to build 42 units of affordable housing, scheduled to be completed in March of 2028.
Garcia said the city was on pace to meet its goal set in the 2021 Strategic Housing Implementation Plan of creating or preserving 28,000 housing units, with 10,000 units funded or completed.
She said there was just one area where they were lagging behind, which they’ve taken steps to address.
“The one category where we still need to make progress, as [Chief Housing Officer] Mark [Carmona] mentioned, was the creating new rental housing for families at 30% AMI or below,” she said. “That is when we are only at about, you know, 14% of the way to our goal instead of a third of the way to our goal. That is the hardest housing to build. It requires a lot of incentives to do that, and that's why, on this funding round, we increase that minimum for that particular housing product.”
Mayor Ron Nirenberg said he believes the strides the city has taken during his time as mayor to build and preserve more affordable housing will continue regardless of who fills his seat and the rest of council in the nearing runoff elections.
“I know we're in the midst of election season, but the question will always be for these generational efforts, will it continue?” he said. “I have great faith, though, given the demonstrated success that you all had in [NHSD], that it will.”
The council will vote on the first batch of projects next week, and the second will be voted on near the end of the month.
