The Menlo Park City Council has authorized the purchase of two below-market-rate duplexes worth $1.125 million.
The homes at 1175 and 1177 Willow Road are owned by the Church of the Pioneers Foundation and historically have been rented to employees of East Palo Alto and Belle Haven nonprofits.
According to city staff, each duplex rents a one-bedroom unit for $500 and a two-bedroom unit for $700. Two of the four units are empty now, and the current tenants may stay on, City Attorney William McClure said.
The money to buy the duplexes will be drawn from the city’s below-market-rate housing fund. McClure said a group such as Human Investment Project, Inc. Housing, MidPen Housing or Hello Housing likely will manage the property.
The City Council approved the purchase Tuesday night on 4-1 vote, with Mayor Ray Mueller dissenting.
The reason for his no vote, Mueller explained, “is because the number of units that are going to be made available by the purchase, I think, don’t substantiate the investment.”
The duplexes are east of a MidPen Housing-owned senior housing complex on the 1200 block of Willow Road, which will be redeveloped to offer 90 below-market-rate units instead of the current 42, thanks to a $3.2 million city loan issued on Sept. 9. The complex is on the same block as affordable houses that belong to HIP Housing.
“This is not a down-zoning from market housing so it makes it less complex for me to make [a] decision to buy the duplexes,” Councilman Rich Cline said.
Councilman Peter Ohtaki noted that although the city is acquiring the duplexes as affordable housing and plans to maintain them as such for the foreseeable future, the contract allows it to sell them or even use the land to calm traffic.
“If it’s … put on the market, it’s definitely not going to be [below-market-rate] housing,” he said. “It’ll be sold, there’ll be buyers for it and I’m sure it’ll become market-rate, or individual units, or what have you.”
Email Rhea Mahbubani at rmahbubani@dailynewsgroup.com or follow her at twitter.com/RMahbubani.
