A controversial housing project for homeless seniors planned to be built on a flood plain in North Natomas has been halted with no clear path on how it can move forward.
Last week The Sacramento Bee obtained a March document which showed that the 40-unit tiny home project planned for 3511 Arena Boulevard was projected to cost $7.1 million — almost double the city’s most recent public estimate. This exceeds the city manager’s authority to move temporary shelter projects forward without council approval, risking a vote that could stop the project altogether.
An internal memo from City Manager Maraskeshia Smith confirmed that the most recent comprehensive estimate for the site was prepared in March, and that floodplain requirements identified since that time would result in additional costs on top of the March estimate.
“The site build-out remains officially on pause,” Smith wrote in the Friday memo. “Until we receive updated figures, the City cannot move forward.”
At a Tuesday council meeting, Councilmember Lisa Kaplan lamented that it took “public records requests and The Sac Bee” to show that her office’s questions about the project went unanswered, and said that it called into question city staffers who tried to “subvert the process so that it is not transparent and not above board.”
Kaplan asked Smith if the Arena Boulevard project would come to council for a vote.
“At this time, there is no project on Arena Boulevard that is paused,” Smith responded.
Kaplan, who has long been vocally against the project and the proposed micro-community model, is treating this response as confirmation that the project is dead, writing on Facebook that the project is halted “permanently.”
“While I remain fully committed to supporting compassionate, legally compliant, and effective solutions to address Sacramento’s homelessness crisis, I refused to back a non-transparent process that ignored neighborhood safeguards, lacked proper structural standards, and risked millions in public funds,” she wrote.
Vehicles drive past a long, slender parcel at the corner of El Centro Road and Arena Boulevard in North Natomas last year. The city-owned property was a planned site for tiny homes for homeless seniors. NATHANIEL LEVINE Sacramento Bee file
But others seemed confused about Smith’s statement, including Community Response Director Brian Pedro, whose department manages the city’s homelessness services. When asked after the meeting if the Arena Boulevard project was done, he said that he was going to ask the city manager the same question.
According to an Aug. 14 email from Pedro to Kaplan’s office, the city has already spent about $1.3 million on the Arena Boulevard project so far. The majority of these expenses have been in the $1.1 million purchase of 40 tiny homes, six restroom facilities and two laundry units from Boss Homes.
Arena Boulevard was the most controversial of the three identified sites for tiny home “micro communities.” Natomas resident and business owner Anabel Gonzalez is a part of a group suing the city in an effort to stop the shelter from being built. She was reluctant to express too much excitement over the news because she is afraid that it isn’t a “sure thing.”
“It doesn’t feel like a sure thing because we keep finding things out that even the council is unaware of,” she said.
Her group is going to wait to drop the lawsuit until they are certain the project is dead.
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Jennah Pendleton covers the city of Sacramento for The Sacramento Bee. She previously reported on local schools. Before joining The Bee, she wrote about education and culture in the San Francisco Bay Area. She grew up in Orange County and is a graduate of the University of Oregon.