A small agenda item for a large amount of money passed through the Board of Supervisors this week with barely a ripple, except for Supervisor Laura Capps’s remark that it funds the biggest affordable housing project in the history of Santa Barbara County. The San Marcos Ranch project will build 236 affordable apartments in Capps’s 2nd District, on the site of what was once San Marcos Growers’ nursery on Hollister Avenue.
The 21 acres will actually hold two housing projects: one the 236 affordables at 125 South San Marcos Road and the other 720 market-rate units across the street at 4960 Hollister Avenue. The market-rate development will take the usual funding route of banks and loans, said Andy Fuller, who is spearheading the project for Presidio Capital Partners. The affordable units, however, with a much smaller income potential and a cost of roughly $125 million to build them, require a serious amount of fundraising.
The supervisors held the required public hearing on Tuesday for $90 million in municipal bonds to finance the affordable project, though the county has no approval authority over the financing or responsibility for its repayment. “Because the project is in county jurisdiction, we have to hold a public hearing,” explained County Treasurer Harry Hagen…