SAN MARCOS, CA - Dozens of ramshackle duplexes that stood along Autumn Drive in the Richmar neighborhood for decades are now gone, and earth movers are preparing the 3.37-acre site for the construction of an affordable-housing complex. The City Council approved nonprofit developer Community Collective's plan to replace the dilapidated duplexes with an apartment complex for low-income people last July.
Already named Autumn Terrace Apartments, the new complex will have small stores on its ground floor and 103 low-rent apartments above. Roughly 50 families who lived in the duplexes had to be relocated before the new project could get under way. On Wednesday, Community Collective partner Ginger Hitzke said the last family moved to a new home.
Contractors working for the Temecula-based developer tore down all the duplexes last month, started grading the property Jan. 27 and, barring rain delays, expect to pour the apartment complex's foundations later this month, she said. "I have the most wonderful vice president of development ever," Hitzke said, explaining the fast-moving schedule. "She's out there every day, getting these guys to hustle."
One of the city's oldest neighborhoods, the Richmar area dates to the 1950s and is filled with deteriorating apartment complexes, homes and businesses. The area has been plagued with gang problems, drug dealers and other criminal elements for the last couple of decades.
The city has been trying to clean up the neighborhood in recent years. When Autumn Terrace was approved, city officials praised the project as something that would boost those efforts.
State and federal housing laws require a developer to offer relocation assistance to people who are forced to move when their homes are sold to make room for a new construction project. What the laws fail to mention is what that means in terms of everyday life, Hitzke said.
"We created this (relocation) plan that's based on rules and regulations and numbers," she said. "Then when you go to implement that plan, now you've got real people's lives. And you're going in and disrupting that."
The residents included parents with young children, groups of adults sharing individual units, and households with multiple generations of a single family, Hitzke said. Some wanted to stay in the neighborhood, others wanted only to stay in the San Marcos Unified School District's boundaries, and others preferred to move to nearby cities, she added.
Most of the residents speak little or no English, Hitzke said. Finding new homes for them often meant driving people around to look at prospective homes, explaining their situation to new landlords or property managers, and helping with the paperwork involved, Hitzke said.
In the end, three families, including a senior couple, used the relocation money that Community Collective provided to make down payments on houses of their own, she said. All the other residents also found other homes, including some who rented apartments in the same area, she said.
The city's housing and neighborhood services department monitored the relocations. Department Director Karl Schwarm said the city received one complaint from a family that thought it should get more relocation money. The amount the family received turned out to be appropriate, he said. "They did a great job," Schwarm said about Community Collective's relocation efforts.
Another nonprofit developer recently bought one of the Richmar neighborhood's aging apartment complexes with plans to tear down and rebuild that property. Although the other developer technically is a competitor, Hitzke said, she hopes to pass on things she learned from her experience with relocating the duplexes' tenants.
Source: NorthCountyTimes.com