Downtown South development

[keita]

To their credit, Kane is pretty serious about answering concerns about environmental and affordable housing problems. If you want to see for yourself, I downloaded the PDF @daviddonovan linked to, and formatted the file/took out a few pages so it’s much more lightweight:

DTS project overview.pdf (3.0 MB)

This booklet answers lots of questions like:

What are they actually building?

Remember that this is the layout:

As we all know, DTS will be a mixed-use, walkable development. But half of the land turns out to be a flood zone; those places will be upgraded into park-like spaces open to the public, or restored as a beautified Walnut Creek.

Here’s the proposed layout for Phase 1 of area C; buildings in light gray are existing buildings:

…and area C once it’s fully built:

…and a proposed layout of buildings for area A (to be built after area C):

To summarize the relevant tables spread across several pages, the three plots of land will be developed as follows:

Land Use Type	Property Area	Est. Density (sq.ft.)
Office	A	400,000
	B	500,000
	C (phase 1)	433,000
	C (full build)	2,100,000
Retail	A	25,000
	B	50,000
	C (phase 1)	64,000
	C (full build)	165,000
Housing	A	500 units
	B	900 units
	C (phase 1)	609 units
	C (full build)	2000 units
Hotel	C (phase 1)	502 keys
	C (full build)	750 keys

Why is City Council in a rush to approve this rezoning case?

@DTS proposal summary

[Kane Realty] filed for rezoning in March 2020. Due to contractual timing obligations of purchase contracts for the properties, rezoning approval is necessary by the end of 2020 […] to move forward.

The City also has to come to a vote about the rezoning by Jan. 11, 2021 -but this can be extended if City Council votes to do so.

How is affordable housing provided by DTS?

@DTS proposal summary

The Downtown South affordability vision is intentioned to deliver affordable/attainable housing for a variety of households. The submitted zoning condition #17 is as follows:

No certificate of occupancy shall be issued […] more than 999 dwelling units […] except [when] 10% of the units [are] affordable for households earning 80% area median income or less for a period of no less than 5 years from the date of issuance

While the rezoning commitment references 80% AMI, the majority of these units will target households earning an average of 60% AMI utilizing the LITHC programs. For further clarity, the following provides our goal to target households within certain income bands within the multifamily developments utilizing the LIHTC program.

Income Band	% of Units
30% AMI Units	15%
50% AMI Units	25%
60% AMI Units	30%
80% AMI Units	30%

As it relates to senior housing, we anticipate approximately 1/3rd of the affordable/attainable units will be dedicated towards seniors. The following represents our goal to target senior affordability:

Income Band	% of Units
30% - 60% AMI Units	80%
60% - 80% AMI Units	20%

Our affordability vision also imagines providing workforce housing units. These units will target households earning between 60-120% AMI. The goal is to support middle income workers such as police officers, health care professionals, retail/restaurant workers, educators and the likes, who may not qualify for LIHTC or Housing Choice Vouchers.

How are my taxes impacted?

See past discussions in this thread on what TIGs are. But it’s summarized here:

@DTS proposal summary

the projects property taxes would be frozen at predevelopment levels, with with future growth in tax value […] to be granted back to the project to fund agreed upon community benefits over a 30-year period.

At the 30-year mark, the property taxes would all revert to the general fund. No city taxes from outside the district would be spent in the district, only a portion of the increased taxes from the project itself.