Sierra Flats affordable family, senior housing extended by Carson City supervisors; developers hope to begin in June
Submitted by Kelsey Penrose on Thu, 05/19/2022 - 10:50am
The Sierra Flats affordable housing project, which was meant to begin construction in March, was extended a commencement deadline into October by the Carson City Board of Supervisors on Thursday.
However, PalaSeek LLP says they are hoping to begin the project construction on June 30.
The project, led by PalaSeek, is slated to create 160 units specifically for those with lower incomes. The project includes 120 units for families and 40 units for seniors to be built near Butti and Airport Road.
The rents will be directly tied to income for the area, fighting against price gouging and increased rent costs currently seen throughout the region, as well as nationwide.
The project has dealt with numerous hurdles over the past few years with set backs due to COVID-19 and lumber shortages.
“We pulled back as we had to do,” said Mike Schneider of Palaseek back in Nov. 2021. “We watched as the big fire hit Oregon and the largest lumber mill on the West Coast went down and we saw the price of lumber escalate.”
Another issue was due to tax cuts, which led the federal government to have less funds to grant projects such as Sierra Flats.
“We watched the Trump tax cuts and you think ‘well, tax cuts are good,’ except when you’re in this business, because now there isn’t enough money that the federal government can spread out for affordable housing across the nation,” continued Schneider.
Now, the issues appear to be due to funding issues and changes in federal jurisdictions.
"These are hard projects to put together," said Schneider. "You can't just walk into a bank. We've been working on it, we're right there on the precipice of getting the deal done. We have our tax credits and home funds."
However, the major issue came about after HUD issued a "qualified census tract" down the middle of the property, according to Schneider.
Before, the project could be built at once, but now due to HUD changes, the project needed to be redesigned to be built in phases, and built behind the tract line.
The housing division has worked with the project, according to Schneider, and now they are bidding out contractors and subcontractors as well as for materials.
"Our heart is in (this project), and our wallets are in it, too," said Schneider.
The project must be completed by March of 2024, according to the extension.
