Clovis was sued for lacking affordable housing. 18 months after suit, it has built zero
Despite being sued in 2019 for years of lacking affordable housing, the city of Clovis built more than 1,100 units in 2020 and not a single one fits the state standard of low-income affordable.
Some city leaders say the state standards are unfair because they do not tally older housing that has become affordable housing with age and focus only on new development. They also say the city struggles to get any subsidies.
Clovis saw 1,124 units built in 2020, all of which were considered affordable for families with moderate incomes or above moderate, according to a report adopted Monday by the City Council.
Moderate income for a family of four in Fresno County is $84,850, according to the state Department of Housing and Community Development, or HUD.
Fresno County’s median income for the same sized family is $70,700, HUD says.
The Clovis report is part of an annual update to its Regional Housing Needs Assessment, a state mandated progress report to assess a city’s housing goals that include affordable housing.
The state goal for Clovis is 6,328 units between 2013 and 2023. Of that, 3,466 are supposed to fit in the low income and very low income categories, the report says. A low-income family of four has an annual salary of $55,900, according to HUD.
Since 2013, the city of Clovis has built 87 housing units considered affordable for low income families. None of those came in 2020.
At the same time, the need to build 2,862 moderate and above moderate units has been exceeded at 7,120 units since 2013, the report says.
Those numbers highlight a lawsuit brought on by attorneys at Central California Legal Services, who say the situation in the city is against the law.
They allege Clovis failed to comply with state housing law and discriminated against low-income people and people of color by not properly zoning or planning affordable housing.
Getting subsidies
The state’s standards on affordable housing are rated by the income of the families that can afford to live there. Clovis city planners say that translates to density for local planning
There are a couple of denser unit projects planned in Clovis, including the Butterfly Gardens. The three-story housing project is expected to provide 75 one-bedroom furnished apartment units at the corner of Willow and Holland avenues in southwest Clovis, and broke ground in July.
Councilmember Bob Whalen said the city doesn’t have much hope in building low income affordable housing without state or federal subsidies.
“I haven’t heard in the conversations that are taking place when it comes to the platitudes of building affordable housing that anyone has turned those platitudes to actual dollars and cents,” he said.
Critics have said Clovis leaders purposely zone for more expensive projects to squeeze lower income communities out. That’s part of the logic behind the lawsuit.
But, affordable housing can be expensive to build, which can make it less attractive to private developers.
An 88-unit apartment project that will cost $38 million — about $430,000 per unit — broke ground in Fresno last year. Much of the cost is covered by state loans, credits and grants, meaning the city of Fresno only contributed about $500,000 aside from a loan.
An assist with subsidies has not traditionally gone in Clovis’s favor, according to Clovis City Manager Luke Serpa.
“Clovis does not typically compete well in those grants,” he said. “When the grants come out they go to the more disadvantaged communities. So they are not going to projects in Clovis as much as we’d like to see.”
This story was originally published March 17, 2021 at 11:34 AM.
