At Santa Rosa’s Burbank Housing, a new CEO takes the helm

Affordable housing projects have always been tough to pay for, but at least today a number of local officials are calling for more projects to be built, says the incoming CEO for the nonprofit homebuilder Burbank Housing Management Corp.

For city and county officials, public safety and traffic typically rank as their biggest issues, said Lawrance Florin, who on Monday takes over the reins for the Santa Rosa organization. But “now at this moment affordable housing has reached that level” of a top priority. Florin replaces Charles A. (Chuck) Cornell, who retired this year after 19 years with Burbank, including more than three as both its executive director and chief financial officer.

Florin, 60, has worked three decades in both the public and private sector. He most recently served as Napa County’s director of housing and intergovernmental affairs in Napa, overseeing such issues as community development and affordable housing.

“He understands what Burbank Housing means to ?families and partners across our community and we’re confident in the vision he’s bringing to the organization at such a critical time for affordable housing in Sonoma County,” Burbank board member Elizabeth Lehrer said in a statement.

Florin earlier worked a decade as an assistant to the mayor in San Francisco. His assignments included the redevelopment of the former Hunter’s Point Naval Shipyard and Treasure Island. Florin went on to form a real estate development and management company that was later acquired by Lennar, a national publicly traded homebuilding company.

He served nine years as a division president with the company.

He said he accepted the CEO job at Burbank because he has a passion for building affordable housing. He said it’s incredibly fulfilling “when you actually give a family a place to live.” And Florin called it “a critically important time for the community to come together” and find ways to provide more housing.

In nearly three decades, Burbank has developed nearly 2,400 rental units and has built about 845 homes through various sweat equity and homeownership programs.

The nonprofit employs more than 150 workers and has 109 units under development in the county.

It just completed the first phase of its 60-unit Catalina Townhomes project in southwest Santa Rosa. The buyers, who invested 25 hours or more a week in sweat equity for two years, received the keys last week for the first 32 homes. The project’s second phase is expected to be completed in 2018.

You can reach Staff Writer Robert Digitale at 707-521-5285 or robert.digitale@pressdemocrat.com.?