Napa City Council to discuss affordable housing grant applications

The city of Napa and the nonprofit affordable housing developer Heritage Housing Partners will likely pursue $50 million in assistance from the state to help increase the number of affordable units offered at a housing project planned for 2344 Old Sonoma Road, and improve the affordability of those units. Grant funding would also support bicycle and pedestrian transportation upgrades in the area.

The City Council is set to consider sending the grant application — for an Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities grant — to California at a meeting Tuesday.

A staff report notes that the grant program is specifically aimed at projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions through the development of affordable housing.

Much of the funding — as much as $35 million of it — would be used to boost the number of for-sale affordable homes offered by the project known as The Crescent, which is currently planned to offer 154 condominium units and eight single-family units, according to the staff report.

A preliminary plan for the project received positive reviews from the city's planning commission in August, although Napa hasn't yet officially approved it. At that point, the plan included retaining three historic Mission-style buildings from an old Napa County infirmary, a crescent-shaped driveway and most of the redwood trees in the 8.9-acre area.

The developer and city would use the grant funds to subsidize the price of the units. That would involve increasing the number of units affordable to low-income households — those with household incomes at or below 80% or area median income — from 25 to 49, and increasing the number of units affordable for moderate-income households from 24 to 47, according to the staff report.

Funding from the grant would also be used to design and build cycling and walking upgrades along West Imola Avenue, Old Sonoma Road and Walnut Street. And it would be used for pedestrian-specific improvements on about a dozen other streets in that area.

City staff noted that funds could also be used by the Napa Valley Transportation Authority to purchase an electric bus, charging stations at the Imola Park and Ride, or other transit improvements.

Other transportation upgrades may come about from a separate AHSC grant that's set to be submitted by Napa Valley Community Housing, not in partnership with the city, for up to $30 million to build the 77-unit Monarch Landing affordable housing project planned for 1000 Shetler Avenue.

According to the staff report, the city doesn't need to be a co-applicant on this grant submission, as they do for the Heritage Housing Partners grant, because the project would create rental units instead of for-sale ones.

Council members on Tuesday will be asked to approve a cooperation agreement with Community Housing for that purpose, to use up to $5 million to construct similarly sustainable transportation infrastructure in areas near the project, should the grant be approved.