Workers finish construction on the Verge apartment complex which will include 89 income-based, rent-restricted, affordable units. (Photo by Jeremy Ogul)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nWhether an individual or family qualifies for an affordable unit depends on how their income compares to the median among San Diego households. This year, the federal government determined the median income for a family of four in the area is $73,000. In other words, half of San Diego families that size earn less than $73,000, while the other half earn more, according to the government formula.<\/p>\n
At Verge, 44 units are reserved for residents who earn no more than 65 percent of the median income. This means that a single person who lives alone and earns $36,000 a year would meet the threshold to rent a one-bedroom apartment for $913. That\u2019s a discount of nearly 50 percent off market rate. A family of four that earns less than $52,650 would meet the threshold to rent a three-bedroom apartment for $1,121.<\/p>\n
Forty-five of the units are for people with higher incomes \u2014 ranging from a maximum of 110 to 140 percent of the median. At the high end of this scale, a family of three could earn up to $92,000 a year and still qualify for an affordable unit. A family at that income level could rent a two-bedroom for $2,128. A family of five could rent an affordable three-bedroom apartment in this category for $2,360.<\/p>\n
The affordable units at Verge are evenly distributed among the market-rate units and are built to the same specifications.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no difference between a market-rate and an affordable unit,\u201d Wald said.<\/p>\n
That means they have the same high-end finishes in each unit, such as quartz countertops and glass mosaic tile backsplashes in the kitchen, and a full-size washer and dryer in the unit. Every unit is accessible to people with disabilities.<\/p>\n
Residents in the affordable units will also be able to enjoy all the same luxury amenities as the market-rate tenants. Those include a two-story fitness center open 24 hours a day, an expansive outdoor pool deck with panoramic views of Admiral Baker Golf Course, a large clubhouse room for hosting parties (complete with a beer keg cooler and tap), a small playground for children, dog runs, a dog washing area, covered indoor parking and access to storage closets in the building.<\/p>\n
Tom Scott, executive director of the San Diego Housing Federation, said it\u2019s unlikely anyone will be able to tell the difference between the tenants in the affordable units and the tenants in the market-rate units.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re gonna have to be able to pay that rent, and then they\u2019ll qualify just as any other renter does,\u201d Scott said. \u201cThey\u2019re working people, and if it\u2019s a family, they\u2019re working families. Nobody will even notice. Maybe they won\u2019t have as nice of cars or as many cars.\u201d<\/p>\n
The affordable units were built into this project as part of the city\u2019s inclusionary housing program, which requires residential developers to make either 10 percent of units affordable to low-income residents or to pay a fee into a fund that the local government uses to build its own affordable housing projects.<\/p>\n
Scott said it is unusual for developers to choose to build the units themselves.<\/p>\n
\u201cMostly they pay the fee,\u201d he said. \u201cHere, not only are they building the units, but they agreed to build twice the number that was required.\u201d<\/p>\n
That may have been part of the applicant\u2019s strategy to get the project approved by the Planning Commission and City Council when it was under review in 2008, especially considering that the land was previously occupied by a mobile home park. From a practical perspective, city leaders generally prefer that the developer build the units themselves rather than pay the fee, Scott said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fee is a political decision, and so it\u2019s set below what it costs to produce the units,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
As a result, when a developer pays the fee, the city ends up subsidizing the true cost when it goes to build an affordable unit. On the other hand, when the developer builds affordable units into the project, the entire cost of the affordable unit is borne by the developer \u2014 or, more likely, by the other residents who pay higher rents that effectively subsidize the affordable units, Scott said.<\/p>\n
Wald, the manager at Verge, said he does not expect those affordable units to last long.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur waitlist has been filling,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
That should not be a surprise to anyone paying attention to the rental housing market in San Diego. In Downtown\u2019s East Village, for example, leasing agents at the newly erected Pinnacle on the Park tower said they received 500 applications for just 36 affordable units.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, the City Council reached a new milestone: 12 years of declaring a continued state of emergency due to a severe shortage of affordable housing. Clearly, the affordable units at Verge will make a difference in the lives of dozens of families, but the city has a long way to go before it reaches its goal.<\/p>\n
\u2014Jeremy Ogul is a freelance writer and former editor of this newspaper. Write to him at jsogul@gmail.com<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Por Jeremy Ogul | Editor colaborador<\/p>","protected":false},"author":741,"featured_media":228315,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11558","_seopress_titles_title":"Verge brings 89 new affordable apartments to Navajo area","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11558,11551,11550],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-228314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-mission-times-courier","category-news","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/741"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228314\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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