South County Housing broke ground last Thursday for a 95-unit
affordable housing development in Morgan Hill that is slated for
completion by summer 2008.
Morgan Hill – South County Housing broke ground last Thursday for a 95-unit affordable housing development in Morgan Hill that is slated for completion by summer 2008.
The Madrone Plaza development, located at Butterfield Road and Jarvis Drive, spans 6.48 acres and will offer 95 housing units including 69 townhomes and 26 single-family homes.
“Our goal is to make affordable housing opportunities more available,” said Jan Lindenthal, head of real estate and building departments for the Gilroy-based South County Housing. “With the assistance of the city of Morgan Hill we are going to make this happen.”
Townhome prices will range from $278,000 to $440,000 and single-family home prices will range from $530,000 to $550,000, Lindenthal said.
Lindenthal said the housing units are being offered to middle-income and low-income residents. She also said people who live or who work in Morgan Hill will be given preference.
Following the ongoing housing slump, more middle-income and low-income people are struggling to get housing, Lindenthal said.
“We’re seeing tremendous demands from the smaller developments,” she said. “We had developed several smaller affordable home ownership projects in the city in recent years and we wanted to try something on a larger scale.”
Seventy-one of the 95 units are below market rate, or priced below the prevailing interest rate to be affordable to people who are of moderate income or below. Only first-time buyers with a minimum credit score of 620 are accepted for BMRs, Lindenthal said.
To improve the availability of affordable housing to low-income residents, the California Housing Finance Agency will provide them deferred payment loans and down payment assistance, Lindenthal said.
Lindenthal said the development plan aims to do more than offer affordable housing to low- and middle-income residents.
“Our aim is to allow them to get the tools to improve their lives,” she said. “Often their clients will be first-time home buyers. They may be the first in their family who will buy a home.
“Often some of the low-income families don’t have a lot of history dealing with banks, have never lived in a real neighborhood and we hope to let them get situated and become productive, contributing and involved members of the community”
All units will have private garages, access to a homeowners association clubhouse, pool, bocce ball court, basketball court and a barbecue picnic area, according to a South County Housing advertisement.
Jack Foley, spokesman for South County Housing, said the units will be infused with “green features” such as Energy Star appliances, water saver toilets and shower heads and super low-E glaze windows that are efficient heat retainers.
“The extent to which we engineered green construction into it is a first for us in a lot of ways,” Foley said.
South County Housing is one of the leading non-profit developers of affordable housing in California’s Silicon Valley and Central Coast regions. The agency has developed more than 2,431 housing units, including rental complexes and single-family homes in four counties, since its inception in 1979.
Foley said a similar 205-unit housing project is being developed in downtown Gilroy at Lewis Street, but the completion date is pending.
