Item 09 - Request for Proposals for Affordable Housing Development

Home Browse Search

CITY OF SANTA ANA I. BACKGROUND The City of Santa Ana, California, is rich in culture and pride, the county seat of Orange County, and encompasses an area of approximately 27 square miles. For more information, please visit https://www.santa-ana.org/ II. OVERVIEW OF PROJECT The City is seeking proposals from qualified firms and organizations (Proposers) to develop affordable housing in the City. Proposed developments may be for acquisition and rehabilitation of eligible properties for rental and/or ownership housing units; acquisition and conversion of non-residential property to rental and/or ownership housing units; and/or the new construction of housing units for rental and/or ownership housing. The term “Vendor”, “Proposer”, and “Contractor” shall refer to any legal entity or entities submitting a proposal in response to this Request for Proposals (RFP). A. Priorities and Objectives In particular, the City is interested in furthering the following priorities through this RFP: 1) Acquisition and rehabilitation projects that consist of substantial rehabilitation and will impose long-term affordability covenants on the units. Acquisition and rehabilitation projects include adaptive reuse and/or motel/office conversion projects that will result in income-restricted housing units. 2) Projects that will provide homeownership opportunities. 3) By-right or shovel-ready projects. [A by-right project is one that can be approved administratively without discretionary approvals because it already complies with all applicable zoning and development standards. A shovel-ready project refers to a project that is fully prepared to begin construction immediately or within no more than three (3) months.] Projects that comply with any of these three (3) priorities and objectives will receive 10 bonus points in the RFP scoring criteria as further outlined below. Leveraging of Additional Funding Sources: In an effort to develop as many units as possible, the City desires to limit the amount of City financial assistance provided to each project. As such, the City strongly encourages Proposers to seek additional outside funding sources to reduce the financial assistance request of the City. Examples of these outside funding sources include (but are not limited to): Low Income Housing Tax Credits, Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities (AHSC) funding, State of California funds, County of Orange funds and/or any other funding sources deemed appropriate by the Proposer. B. Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA) Goals The Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA) is mandated by the State of California as part of the periodic process for updating the City’s Housing Element. The City is provided with a RHNA allocation to be met in eight (8) year cycles. The current RHNA cycle covers 2021 through 2029. The following table provides the City’s progress through 2024 in meeting the RHNA allocations for Very Low, Low and Moderate Income with respect to the 2021-2029 RHNA Goals: EXHIBIT 1