Affordable-Housing Projects Win Loans

Two vacant lots in Orange and Stanton are closer to becoming apartment complexes meant for low-income and disabled residents, thanks to loans from the county and from one of the cities.

The Orange County Board of Supervisors agreed last week to lend $293,092 to a nonprofit developer to help build a small apartment complex in Orange that will offer low rents to working families who generally can’t afford to live in the city.

The board also lent $350,000 to another nonprofit to help build apartments in Stanton for severely disabled people.

The projects are the first to be funded under a program developed last year in response to a critical lack of affordable housing in the county.

That lack is especially felt in Orange, where many people commute to work from less-expensive houses and apartments in Riverside County and elsewhere, city officials said.

“The people that usually commute from Corona, this is the group we’re aiming for,” said Linda Boone, the city’s director of economic development. “They’re the people that work and have good jobs but don’t have enough income to live in the city where they work.”

The city also lent $488,580 to the nonprofit Orange Housing Development Corp. to build the five-apartment complex at Hewes Street and Marmon Avenue.

The Villa Medina Apartments were designed with various roof elevations and lush landscaping to fit into the existing neighborhood, Boone said.

The complex will be the 14th low-income housing project built in Orange in the last 10 years by the company, which is based in the city.

The apartments will be reserved for four- to five-person families whose incomes are around $30,000, or about half the median income of similar-size families in the area.

The company plans to break ground on the development this fall.

In Stanton, the nonprofit United Cerebral Palsy of Los Angeles and Ventura Counties hopes to build what agency officials say is Orange County’s first affordable-apartment complex for people with serious disabilities.

Housing “is the No.-1 issue for people with disabilities, especially in high-cost housing areas like Orange County,” said Ronald Cohen, the group’s executive director.

Though the county’s loan will help, Cohen said, his group still must raise more than $1 million from private donors to complete the project on Knott Avenue south of Cerritos Avenue.

Cohen wants to begin construction on the bungalow-style apartments within a year.

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Alex Katz can be reached at (714) 966-5977.