Workers are building the Commons at Acequia Trails, an apartment complex funded in part by San Antonio’s housing bond. The city is distributing the final chunk of money from the $150 million bond.
Andrew J. Whitaker/San Antonio Express-News
The city of San Antonio is committing the last chunk of money from its first-ever housing bond to renovating a historic building, constructing apartments and helping organizations buy single-family homes for community land trusts.
The City Council on Thursday unanimously approved doling out $20.7 million. That includes the last $12.2 million from the $150 million bond and $8.5 million from two federal programs — to buy, build or rehabilitate 576 apartments and single-family homes for residents making less than the median income in the area.
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An arm of the San Antonio Housing Trust will get $10.1 million, including $7.5 million from the bond, to rehabilitate the Robert E. Lee Apartments at 111 W. Travis St. and build 68 apartments at the Vida master-planned community near Texas A&M University-San Antonio.
An entity affiliated with Dallas-based Generation Housing Partners will get $2.5 million to build 86 apartments at the intersection of Loop 410 and Medina Base Road on the Southwest Side.
RELATED: Voters approved $150M for affordable housing. Where is the money going?
Local nonprofits Culturingua and the Esperanza Peace & Justice Center will get $1.5 million and $681,400, respectively, from the bond to buy and fix up houses for land trusts.
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In such a trust, people of modest means — who have to meet certain income requirements — buy a house and lease the land underneath it from the organization, lowering the purchase price and property taxes.
Culturingua’s Silk Road land trust would cover a 15-square-mile area on the Northwest Side stretching from Loop 1604 to the north, railroad tracks to the east and Culebra Road to the south and west. Esperanza’s land trust is focusing on the near West Side.
The funds will help the Silk Road trust acquire homes and keep them affordable, giving renters a way to purchase a home without having to move elsewhere, said Nadia Mavrakis, co-executive director of Culturingua.
“With rising prices, there’s risk of displacement,” she said. “We want to make sure that people who are renters have a pathway to homeownership in their current community.”
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From federal programs, Cleveland, Ohio-based NRP Group will get $1.7 million to build 288 apartments. Habitat for Humanity of San Antonio will get $3.9 million to build infrastructure for 47 homes. And Our Casas Resident Council will get $225,000 to build four homes.
Michael Taylor, president and CEO of Habitat, told council members that acquiring and preparing land for development is expensive. He said the funds will be spent on streets, sidewalks and water and sewer mains for houses in the new Rancho Verano neighborhood.
Monthly payments for three- and four-bedroom homes the nonprofit will sell will be about $900, an “exceptionally affordable” level, Taylor said.
“We are very excited about this neighborhood that is on the booming South Side and within walking distance to an elementary school, a middle school and a high school,” Taylor said. “These grant funds will leverage millions more in donations from individuals, faith and civic groups and the business community to make home-building possible.”
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Among the housing receiving bond dollars, 94 single-family houses and apartments would be for people making up to 30% of the median income, or about $20,300 annually for one person or $23,200 for a couple, according to city figures.
Another 72 units are for people earning up to 50% of the median income, 221 for people making up to 60% of the median income, 131 for people making up to 70% of the median income and 58 for people making up to 80% of the median income.
City staff said they received 13 proposals from developers and nonprofit organizations requesting $44.8 million in response to a request for pitches for the final bond dollars and federal funding.
RELATED: San Antonio orgs move forward with plans for affordable housing tool
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San Antonio voters approved the housing bond in 2022 as part of a record $1.2 billion bond package.
It’s among several financing sources in the city’s plan for preserving and building 28,094 affordable housing units through 2031, a document City Council adopted in late 2021. City staff are currently adjusting the plan’s targets, and council members are discussing putting a second housing bond on a future ballot.
A committee made up of city staff, residents and a VIA Metropolitan Transit representative ranked proposals for bond money based on criteria such as income thresholds, experience, location and proximity to public transportation. The city has distributed the money through a half-dozen rounds of solicitations and re-allocated funding for projects that organizations wound up scrapping.
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Apart from the projects approved Thursday, bond proceeds are helping pay for repairs to 400 single-family houses and 2,256 apartments, turn a mobile home park into a resident-led cooperative, build 1,952 apartments, 90 single-family houses and 242 units for homeless people, according to city staff.
Staff writer Megan Rodriguez contributed to this report.