Rundown apartments now subject to extra inspections
In a near unanimous voice vote Thursday, the San Antonio City Council passed a new “Proactive Apartment Inspection Program,” which stems out of the attention that properties with numerous citations like Seven Oaks Apartments attracted in the summer of 2022.
City housing department budget set to triple
The housing department’s proposed jump from $48.8 million in the current budget year to $150.2 million for FY 2023 is fueled almost entirely by the city’s first-ever housing bond, which voters approved in May. The $99.9 million in bond money is split between producing and preserving affordable housing.
City sets 10-year goal of producing, preserving 28,049 affordable housing units
The Strategic Housing Implementation Plan - or SHIP - was approved unanimously with one abstention and a second councilwoman away from the dais. At its core, the SHIP is about helping 95,000 Bexar County households who are most at risk of housing instability.
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Affordability concerns stall Friedrich Lofts complex housing development
The council members on the San Antonio Housing Authority Public Facilities Corporation Board delayed a vote on financing during a Tuesday meeting that would have allowed the “Friedrich Lofts” project to move forward. The project would create 358 units of studio, single-bedroom, and two-bedroom apartments in a non-historic portion of the Friedrich Complex on East Commerce and Olive Street.
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Amazon to invest more than $2 billion toward affordable housing
Amazon’s new housing equity fund will invest in moderate to low income housing around Seattle, Nashville and Arlington, Virginia, where the company ultimately expects to have at least 5,000 employees each, the company said. The first investment of more than $567 million will go toward 1,300 affordable apartment units near “HQ2,” Amazon’s new Virginia headquarters, and up to 1,000 apartments near its Seattle, Washington headquarters. Amazon has been criticized in the past for gentrifying the areas where it has opened large operations and driving up the cost of housing. In addition to its $2 billion investment, the fund also includes $125 million in grants to minority-led organizations and public agencies aimed at improving the shortage of affordable housing, which disproportionately affects people of color, Amazon said. The fund will also give grants to government partners, like transit agencies and school districts, to help working families in those fields.
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Study: Older San Antonio homes key for affordable housing
SAN ANTONIO – A study commissioned by the San Antonio Office of Historic Preservation and presented to the City Council on Wednesday found that older housing units are providing much of the city’s affordable housing, but they are also being lost “at a rapid pace.”The study, prepared by Donovan Rypkema at PlaceEconomics, found that 22 percent of the city’s housing units were built before 1960. At the heart of the study’s conclusion is a simple idea: when it comes to housing, older generally equals more affordable. But in large, in the aggregate, the older share of housing is more affordable housing.”Rypkema said these homes, though, have been disappearing -- three every week for the past 10 years. And in a city racing to get ahead of an affordable housing problem, that’s an issue. “Almost by definition, anytime you tear down an old unit of housing, you’ve torn down a unit of affordable housing,” Rypkema said.