City of Alexandria and Alexandria City Public Schools officials are considering an innovative move to help solve the affordable housing crisis in Alexandria — building affordable housing on the Minnie Howard Campus of Alexandria’s high schoool.
Several school districts across the United States have partnered with municipalities and private companies to build affordable housing adjacent to schools, local residents and school board members alike have concerns about safety, space usage and feasibility.
School board members plan to vote on the Minnie Howard concept this week. Thursday’s vote does not mean that affordable housing will definitely be built on school grounds — but if the vote passes, ACPS and City of Alexandria staff could move forward with research and potential designs. School Board members previewed potential design concepts like the one below in late January.
Part of the research regarding affordable housing on school grounds will be on whether Virginia laws would allow this in the first place, and whether the affordable housing could be offered first or only to ACPS and city employees.
Conceptual designs presented to school board members in late January placed affordable housing on top, next to or elsewhere on the property where a new, expanded Minnie Howard school will be constructed in the coming years.
The Alexandria City Public Schools board meeting on Feb. 4 starts at 4 p.m. and will be conducted over Zoom due to coronavirus concerns. Residents can sign up to speak at the meeting here.
The possibility of co-locating affordable housing on school property has drawn vocal concern from residents and parents, who are primarily concerned about safety. Some school board members said in January they are concerned that using available space now for affordable housing will put them in a bind later when schools need to expand or be renovated to accommodate population growth.
However, leased apartments — even affordable ones — could provide an additional revenue stream for the city and school system either through rent payments or a land leaseback by a developer. Offering affordable, local housing can help with teacher retention in areas where the cost of housing is high, according to educators in Colorado.
There are several places in the United States where affordable housing and schools are located near each other, in some cases on property owned by a school district.
A presentation released in October 2020 by the City of Alexandria Office of Housing showed six places in the Unites States where affordable housing has been built near a school. The six are in the Los Angeles area; Newark, New Jersey; East Harlem, New York; San Mateo, California; Asheville, North Carolina; and Miami, Florida. There are additional, similar projects in Colorado that the presentation did not include. In addition, several school districts in that state subsidize off-campus housing for teachers.
Of the projects cited by the Alexandria Office of Housing, several are different from what Alexandria might build in key ways. The project in San Mateo, for example, is reserved only for faculty and staff associated with the community college. The project in Newark was designed to revitalize a crumbling neighborhood and involved three charter schools.
Los Angeles
In 2015, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) opened the Sage Park Apartments by Bridge Housing in Gardena, California, just west of Compton. The apartment development near the Gardena High School education complex has 90 affordable units that are a mix of one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments.
Sage Park apartments are affordable for people earning 30 to 60 percent of the area’s median income. When it opened in 2015, rents were between $425 and $1,222 and more than 60 of the 90 apartments were rented to school system employees.
The LAUSD property that Gardena High School sits on also includes a large continuation school, a secondary school and a school for adults. The apartments are located behind the continuation school’s parking lot and the outfield of the high school’s baseball fields, putting almost a quarter-mile between the high school and the apartments. (The school faces West 182nd Street, the apartments are on West 177th Street. See a map here, and zoom in to see building outlines.)
LAUSD’s next two projects were much closer to schools — in both cases, just across a residential street.
Following Sage’s opening, LAUSD worked with Abode Communities to develop affordable housing at Selma Elementary School in Hollywood with 66 affordable apartments.
According to LAUSD’s news release, the Selma Community Workforce Housing Project “is intended for L.A. Unified employees who fall into a designated economic category. The complex is part of the District’s ambitious effort to attract and retain staff who want to live near work but can’t afford to pay for housing costs.” The apartments are located directly across North Cherokee Street from the elementary school. (See map here.)
LAUSD then helped develop Norwood Learning Village, a 29-unit affordable housing complex near the University of Southern California, directly across the street from Norwood Elementary School. Preference for the apartments was given to LAUSD employees. The project faced significant opposition from residents supporting a historic overlay district, but the school system prevailed and the apartments opened in 2017. (See map here.)
Unlike the two elementary school-adjacent projects, it is not clear that Virginia laws would allow the City of Alexandria or Alexandria City Public Schools to give preferential treatment to school system employees when it comes to affordable housing.
Elsewhere in California, several school districts are asking voters to pay to build affordable housing for teachers and school system staff through bonds. The Jefferson Union High School District in Daly City is using $33 million in general obligation bonds for a new 122-unit housing development. The rest of the development will be paid for with a loan, which apartment rents will help pay back, according to EdSource.org. Four other school districts in California are considering the same thing.
Newark, New Jersey
Teachers’ Village in Newark, New Jersey, also cited as an example by the Alexandria Office of Housing, was a massive development project spanning 5 downtown blocks. The development has eight buildings totaling 400,000 sq. ft., including three charter schools, more than 200 apartments and 65,000 square feet of retail about three miles north of Newark Liberty Airport. Groundbreaking was in 2012 and took more than six years. The project transformed an entire section of downtown Newark.
There are 204 apartments across multiple buildings in Teachers’ Village, less than one-fifth of which are affordable at 60% of the area median income. The rest of the apartments are market rate. About 70 percent of the apartments are occupied by educators. Forbes called it an innovative solution for teacher retention, as teachers were give a 7 to 15 percent discount on market-rate rent. (See map here.)
East Harlem, New York
The East Harlem Center for Living and Learning in New York City opened in 2015 on land that was previously an underused parking lot and trash facilities. The modern complex includes a 54,000 square foot, four-story charter school, nonprofit offices, and 80,000 square feet of apartments.
The 89 apartments, called Yomo Toro, are affordable for those making 60 percent of the area median income. The project included revitalization of a local park at Washington Houses, a public housing development next door. Some of the public housing residents were reportedly able to move into the new affordable homes. It is not clear if preference was specifically given to educators for the affordable apartments.
San Mateo, California
College Vista Housing in San Mateo, California, is designated for San Mateo County Community College faculty and staff. “The (44) affordable faculty and staff apartments are offered at below market rates to attract and retain outstanding faculty members in the cost-prohibitive market of northern California,” according to designer KTGY Architecture + Planning.
The community college system also owns housing at Cañada College. According to the community college system’s website, the housing on both campuses is “available to faculty and staff (who meet the definition of first-time homebuyers). Employees are eligible to live in these units for up to seven years and are strongly encouraged to save the money from their reduced rent to apply toward a down payment to buy housing in the area.”
Asheville, North Carolina
The Williams-Baldwin Teacher Campus in Asheville is near a middle school in the Buncome County School system. Like in San Mateo, the housing is dedicated to school system employees in Buncome County and Asheville City.
The apartments opened in 2017 about a quarter-mile down the road from Eblen Intermediate School and more than one-third of a mile from West Buncome Elementary School.
The development has 24 apartments, each with two bedrooms and two bathrooms. "As the loan is paid off, the apartments will provide a source of revenue for Eblen programs that benefit area schools, teachers and students in need," according to Eblen Charities, which was a partner in the project. The land on which Williams-Baldwin Teacher Campus was built is owned by the county.
Miami, Florida
Still in the development process is a new apartment complex with 300 units on school property at Phyllis Wheatley Elementary School in Miami. City of Miami and local school system officials are also considering building a new mid-rise middle school near Southside Elementary, with a floor devoted to residential units.
In both cases, “residential and educational facilities could share some recreational facilities after hours — such as playing fields or community rooms — the buildings would be designed so that residents and the school populations couldn’t mix during the school day,” the Miami Herald reported. Residents would use a different entrance, lobby and elevators to access the homes.
