The Santa Barbara Unified School District is another step closer to building teacher housing.
On Tuesday, May 6, the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors approved a $1.1 million loan for “development impact fees” to developer Red Tail Multifamily Land Development, which the school district is partnering with to build 106 units at what is known as the Tatum property near San Marcos Growers.
The district plans to close escrow on the property — which it sold to Red Tail for $17 million — within the next two weeks. The school district and developer’s agreement is to build 106 affordable units, including one-, two-, and three-bedroom units primarily for staff and their families.
The Tatum property encompasses four acres in the Eastern Goleta Valley. The district has eyed it for staff housing for years. It will be developed in addition to a separate staff housing project at the former Parma school site on the Eastside, which will offer 30 units.
Affordable units at Tatum will be run by the Santa Barbara County Housing Authority, and eight will be set aside for unhoused U.S. veterans. However, the rest would be designated for non-management employees of the district.
“We designed this project to cater to district employees’ needs,” said Ron Wu, Red Tail’s director of development. “A lot of their employees are after larger units, so we’ve designed it to be large family units.”
The county’s loan will only be used for development fees related to the affordable housing component of the project. Next door, Red Tail plans to build 385 market-rate units and 26 moderate units for a total of 517 units, but they are not asking for financial assistance for those units.
The loan was approved by the board with an agreement that the loan will be repaid in 11 to 15 years, and the project must start construction within three years of receipt of tax credits.
“In exchange for the loan, it seems we are getting a guarantee that the project will be permitted, and construction will start within three years, so that makes it very attractive to me, for teachers and for affordable housing,” said Supervisor Joan Hartmann.
Hartmann said they’ve never provided assistance like this for a housing project before, but the board felt compelled by it being an affordable housing project. “To have our own money invested in this project.… We care enough about affordable housing in our county,” she said.
Supervisor Laura Capps, a former Santa Barbara Unified school boardmember, noted that the project is “uniquely situated” because the affordable units are being dedicated to school district staff, which is a “tricky” thing to accomplish. “I have a long history with this project, having been on the school board when we sold the Tatum property to Red Tail a long time ago,” she said. “I wouldn’t be supportive of it if it were market rate, of course, but it’s the fact that it will help this come alive and house people who really direly need housing.”
Staff housing has long been a priority for school boardmembers, who created an ad hoc housing committee to begin exploring options for staff housing around two years ago, responding to needs among teachers and staff who have spoken out about the exorbitant costs of living in Santa Barbara. In Santa Barbara Unified, about 57 percent of employees are considered very-low-income or low-income, according to a survey of district staff.
The Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to approve the loan, which will help jump-start the permitting and construction process.
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