BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) — The Bakersfield City Council recently voted to adopt a resolution regarding an affordable housing financing and incentive plan for the city. The plan was designed to address the city's challenges with creating additional affordable housing.
Bakersfield Vice Mayor and Ward 2 Councilman Andrae Gonzales says the goal is to reduce the fees associated with housing projects so the city can be more attractive to property developers.
"We know that the need is great. We know those who are cost-burdened - that means that 30 to 50 percent of their income goes towards housing. We know over 20 percent of households fall under that category of being cost-burdened. We know that extreme cost-burden, over 50 percent of your income, there's about 16 percent of all households that fall in that," said Gonzales.
According to Gonzales, measuring the effectiveness of this plan would require officials to keep track of the number of units created. However, he says building affordable housing from the ground up isn't the only route the city plans to take.
"The other thing that I am really excited about is; how do we convert existing buildings that are not necessarily made for affordable housing? How do we convert those buildings into affordable units so that people can live in?" said Gonzales.
The city is also working to recruit more developers and create incentives for them.
"I, myself, am calling folks from all around the country trying to bring them in," said Gonzales. "What it takes is those relationships and those phone calls, frankly, so that we can actually get more folks into the game."
Assistant Director of Economic and Community Development for the City of Bakersfield Jennifer Byers says a part of this strategy includes the implementation of what they call an "impact fee estimator tool."
"A lot of times developers struggle to know what the upfront costs are, and they have to calculate that in their pro formas, and so this is really a tool to just assist in how much the fees are," said Byers. "The goal here is just to make it as easy as possible to develop in the City of Bakersfield, know what your fees are, and know what your process is."
The Bakersfield City Council says it will be monitoring and updating the elements of this plan if needed to accelerate housing construction.
