California Construction News staff writer
A building with 37 newly constructed, 100% affordable apartments opened in December in the heart of Santa Monica. Site amenities include a coffee shop on the ground floor, a community room, a central courtyard with a playground, landscaping, on-site laundry, and a roof deck.
Construction is 100% electric, including PV solar panels on the roof, energy star appliances, and EV charging stations. The project, owned by Community Corporation of Santa Monica, received $9.5 million from the Housing Trust Fund.
Patrick Tighe Architecture designed the building and Walton Construction was the project contractor.
“We’re thrilled to unveil this beautiful property in the heart of Santa Monica, offering those of modest means housing on the beautiful Westside of Los Angeles,” said Tara Barauskas, executive director of Community Corp. “We are confident that our Pacific Landing development will enable residents to build a bright future in a high-opportunity neighborhood and are thankful to everyone who helped materialize this vision.”
Pacific Landing is the third new affordable housing development for seniors 62+ recently built in Santa Monica:
Greenway Meadows, located at 1840 14th Street, opened in Spring 2021, constructed by Community Corporation of Santa Monica with a $10 million investment from the city.
Magnolia Villas, an affordable housing community designed for low income seniors, opened in December 2021. Developed by EAH Housing, the project received $11.4 million city funding.
The city’s Housing Trust Fund is primarily provided by the voter-approved sales tax, Measures GS and GSH. There are an additional 239 affordable new construction apartments in the pipeline and all residences built will meet new electrification requirement moving forward. Additional zero net energy retrofits to existing Santa Monica affordable housing properties were also completed recently.
In addition to City-funded affordable apartments, developers of new for-profit multifamily buildings are required to contribute to affordable housing in Santa Monica.
There are about 1,200 affordable apartments provided by for-profit property owners throughout Santa Monica as required by the 1990 voter initiative Proposition R, making the creation of affordable housing mandatory as part of the development of market-rate apartment buildings.
