$1-Million Loan OKd to Build City’s 1st Hotel for Low-Income, Single Residents

The City Council this week approved loaning a developer $1 million to begin construction of the city’s first hotel for low-income, single people.

With the low-interest loan now approved, Urban Communities/San Gabriel Partners plans to build a 136-unit hotel on Commonwealth Avenue.

City officials said 116 of the hotel’s units, which will include kitchenettes, will be rented to people who earn less than $17,000 a year.

The monthly rent for those rooms will range from $300 to $369, depending on the renter’s income, while other rooms will be priced at competitive nightly rates.

The project developers say they will present specific building plans to the city within the next several months for final approval. They plan to break ground on the $4.5-million project in about a year and complete it by November, 1995.

Already, dozens of people have put their names on a waiting list for the rooms, officials said. The first 116 people to sign up will be given priority when the units become available.

The council, acting in its capacity as the city’s Redevelopment Agency, approved the $1-million loan for the project on a 4-1 vote at its Tuesday meeting.

Councilman Chris Norby, the lone dissenter, questioned whether the city might be able to find another developer who could provide low-income housing without needing a city loan. But fellow council members said no one else had come forward with such a plan.

Urban Communities/San Gabriel Partners is required to pay back the loan plus 3% interest over the next 30 years.

City officials say they have been actively promoting low-income housing since settling a 1992 lawsuit that charged the Redevelopment Agency had not spent enough money on housing projects for the poor.