Affordable Housing Land Use: A Progress Update

Provided by the Hope Lutheran Church Land Use Committee

Habitat for Humanity SLO continues to report on progress made since receiving Hope's overwhelming support to sell approximately 2 acres of Hope's campus to them for an affordable housing project. Habitat's efforts continue to move the project from the early planning stage into active due diligence and design.

A few key updates: link here to blog where entire article and schedule will be posted.

• Project Schedule: Habitat's preliminary development schedule was reviewed by both their Board and Build Committee and accepted. The schedule lays out the anticipated sequence of work and major project milestones and is generally consistent with a typical development and construction process and includes the current project cost estimate of over $5 million. The amount of time required to secure this necessary funding remains uncertain and could ultimately affect the overall project timeline. The schedule will continue to be refined as the project develops.

• Consultant Team: Habitat's Board supported moving forward with consultant procurement. They have RFPs ready for the survey, geotechnical, civil engineering, and architectural work and will add structural engineering later as the project is further developed.

• Project Budget: Habitat will continue refining the budget as they receive actual consultant proposals and better information about the site and project costs.

Hope's previously shared priorities were also reviewed at the recent Habitat Board and Build Committee meetings. They include: formalizing the purchase agreement, confirming the SB 4 requirements before the sale is finalized, developing a realistic project schedule and site plan, and continuing to think through how the church property and Habitat development work together. Habitat continues to share that those priorities are aligned with the work they have underway.