City breaks ground on 60-unit affordable housing project focused on farmworkers

On a rare rainy day in Bakersfield, on a hill overlooking Highway 178, local officials gathered beneath pop-up tents Thursday morning to celebrate the groundbreaking of an affordable housing complex for farmworkers.

“We’re so grateful that we live in a community where we’re No. 1 in agriculture, and we have farmworkers who are willing to make that sacrifice and work hard so that we can feed our community and feed the world,” Bakersfield Mayor Karen Goh said.

Officials were celebrating the planned construction of a 60-unit complex — known as Auburn Vista — at 6201 Auburn St. near the intersection of Highway 178 and Fairfax Road in northeast Bakersfield.

The three-story complex will include 15 one-bedroom units, 30 two-bed room units and 15 three-bedroom units. One unit will be occupied by an on-site manager but the remaining 59 units will be reserved for low-income farmworkers making between 30% and 60% of the area median income.

The complex will have a community room for residents’ use including afterschool programs and adult education opportunities, with programing provided by San Diego-based Pacific Southwest Community Development Corp.

Construction is estimated to take 14 months.

The total cost of the project is approximately $26 million, according to an Oct. 17 breakdown of the project, with most of the funding coming from federal Low Income Housing Tax Credits. The Bakersfield City Council recently approved $500,000 for the project in Measure N funding as well as $1.3 million in Local Housing Trust Fund money from the state and $1.2 million in city American Rescue Plan Act money.

The complex is being developed by the Chelsea Investment Corp., a Carlsbad nonprofit that specializes in affordable housing projects. Projects like Auburn Vista — Chelsea’s fifth in Bakersfield — are only possible thanks to generous subsidies from local, state and federal programs, said Chief Development Officer Jim Anderson.

“The market rate developer will build a project, rent it up, and then often turn around and sell it to investors or institutions,” Anderson said. “We hold the project long term. The project is deed restricted for a minimum of 55 years.

We have to hold the project a minimum of 15 years to perfect the tax credits.”

Chelsea is paid “a modest fee,” which is capped by the state depending on the project, Anderson said, adding, “this is not a business that one does for, you know, the big profit.”

According to city documents, Chelsea’s fee for the Auburn Vista project is $2.5 million.

Chelsea has worked with the city on affordable housing developments in the

past, including City Place in downtown Bakersfield and Sagewood in south Bakersfield. With the addition of Auburn Vista, Chelsea will have 327 affordable housing units citywide, which Anderson estimated to house roughly 1,000 people.

“That’s a huge number of people impacted,” Anderson said. “In fact, just by this effort, this 60-unit family project will probably deliver; 200, 225 human beings will be in great housing.”

Housing affordability remains a persistent issue and city officials say they’ve taken steps to increase the city’s rental housing stock with both subsidized affordable housing and market rate housing.

“A lot of the conversations we’ve had, the City Council and different committees, really what many of us have said on the City Council is it’s not just about affordable housing,” said Vice Mayor and Ward 2 City Councilman Andrae Gonzales.

“It’s also about market-rate housing. It’s all of the above, right? It’s not an either/or conversation,” he said.

Gonzales said the city has tried to make its permitting process easier and is looking to develop infrastructure in areas where it wants to see development.

“We’ve done a number of things to improve the sewer system within the urban core,” Gonzales said, adding the city worked with California Water Service to improve water mains.

“All of those things really are precursors to helping improve the condition of the infrastructure, the basic infrastructure that will then help developers take a second look at building these projects,” Gonzales said.

In other affordable housing news, the Bakersfield Community Land Trust approved a $6.5 million agreement with Self Help Enterprises, or SHE, to administer and operate the trust.

The City Council approved the funding at its Nov. 20 meeting. The terms of the agreement require Self Help Enterprises to establish trust operations, create a housing and expenditure plan and develop affordable housing.

Speaking with The Californian at the groundbreaking ceremony, Gonzales said the land trust, now an independent entity, was still working with the IRS to obtain nonprofit status but the contract with SHE will help the trust begin its work.

“Now we can actually get to the meat and potatoes,” Gonzales said. “Now we’re actually getting to the heart of it and we’re able to actually work on the actual projects, identify those sites where we’re going to build new homes.”

Land trusts are nonprofit organizations that try to provide permanently affordable housing by separating ownership of the land from the homes that are built on them. Housing trusts have existed for decades but they’ve seen increased interest in recent years as local governments look at all options for providing affordable housing.

The City Council approved Bakersfield’s land trust last year and its first meeting was held in April.