In Northern California, the city of Sebastopol is investing $258,000 into a project that establishes affordable housing for low-income residents at the city’s eastern gateway.

A partial solution for that affordable housing? Manufactured homes.

According to Sonoma West, at a city council meeting last week, officials decided to create a mix of affordable manufactured homes and apartments for residents at the Village Mobile Home Park.

Nine acres of the property is designed for the newly created Tomodachi Park and the rest will become a mix of the manufactured homes and apartments.

The $258,000 expenditure includes about $155,000 in construction and renovation work that the city will put out to bid and a $95,000 grant to the West County Community Services (WCCS) agency to manage the housing units and provide services to “precariously housed Sebastopol-area families.”

65 people currently reside in the 18 home community, and an agreement with a nearby Guerneville-based nonprofit agency calls for it to provide eight more manufactured homes for new tenants.

City officials stressed that WCCS will not be operating a homeless services center at the location, but will provide support services to residents such as access to medical and substance abuse services.

The agency provides similar services at Sebastopol’s “limited income units” at three other communities in the area.

A major concern for officials is what happens when the nearby Laguna de Santa Rosa River rises and inundates a large area of the property where manufactured homes are located.

“The agency will have to develop an emergency evacuation plan that will likely involve hauling threatened mobile home [sic] units to higher ground in event of flooding,” said Tim Miller, WCCS executive director.

Funding for the project is coming from a source called “inclusionary housing fees,” which developers pay in lieu of providing affordable housing units in their buildings.

“The city has collected about $360,000 in such fees, but that amount is too small for the city to undertake affordable housing construction on its own,” said Sebastopol Mayor Una Glass. ##

 

(Image credits are as shown above.)

 

Submitted by RC Williams to the Daily Business News for MHProNews.