Healdsburg wants to buy more apartment complexes to help maintain affordable housing

The city of Healdsburg has offered to buy two small apartment complexes in an attempt to continue preserving existing affordable housing for the lower-income workforce.

The pair of eight-unit buildings, located a block apart, are less than a mile from Healdsburg’s downtown plaza. The first complex at 531 University St. has an asking price of $1.8 million, while the slightly smaller one at 500 Piper St. is listed for $1.5 million. Two weeks ago, both properties were put on the market by the same Sonoma County owner, according to the seller’s real estate agent.

Negotiations are ongoing, with the City Council scheduled to have a second closed-door session Tuesday morning. A similar meeting was held last week to formalize a letter of intent to buy the two properties, which each date to the 1950s.

The approach is part of the city’s multifaceted affordable housing plan, City Manager David Mickaelian said. Because building new housing projects can take three to five years, he estimated, an element of the strategy is preventing residents living in below-market price rentals from being displaced as aging properties come up for sale and investors consider buying them to restore and raise the rents.

“It goes into the overall strategy, so that it’s not all our eggs in one basket,” Mickaelian said. “This is being opportunistic. Whatever we can do to that end, we’re going to employ. Simply buying them is just securing units, but long term we need to expand on our affordable units as well.”

The community’s affordable housing issue boiled over in January after a Marin County landlord bought a nine-unit complex down the street from the one at 500 Piper St. for a little less than $3 million and then five families received notices to vacate by the end of this month. A similar situation occurred in 2015 at a ?21-unit apartment property that saw its mostly Latino tenants all evicted.

Partly in response to public calls for the city to intervene, City Council partnered with Santa Rosa nonprofit Burbank Housing earlier this month to buy a 23-unit complex on Prentice Drive and avoid more mass tenant evictions.

The city used money toward the $5 million purchase from a fund, which city voters approved in 2016 to help maintain Healdsburg’s affordable housing, that holds taxes collected on hotel stays. The city expects to finalize the property acquisition by mid-June.

“Healdsburg is kind of a model on how to preserve (affordable housing) at this point,” said Burbank Housing’s CEO Larry Florin, who the city also has consulted on more possible acquisitions. “In general, you need to create more housing, but you almost need a strategy of both - preserve what you have … and build new. It’s all part of that puzzle.”

Meanwhile, Scott Gerber, the agent for the seller of the two apartment complexes, said his client and the city are “quite a way apart on price and terms,” though the seller is willing to sell the properties together or separately.

You can reach Staff Writer Kevin Fixler at 707-521-5336 or kevin.fixler@pressdemocrat.com.