Ground Broken on Affordable Senior Apartments in Carlsbad

joined developers Meta Housing Corp. and Western Community Housing this week to celebrate the groundbreaking for Tavarua Senior Apartments, which will provide 50 affordable apartments for senior citizens in the downtown Village.

The complex will consist of a three-story building at Harding Street and Pine Avenue, near Interstate 5. The Carlsbad City Council approved the project in September 2011. Every apartment will be available for seniors living on a low income.

The city contributed $3.75 million to the project and worked in partnership with Meta Housing and Western Community Housing to help bring the project to fruition.

Tavarua’s 50 apartments will range in size from 600 to 987 square feet. Forty will have one bedroom, and nine will have two, with one unit serving as a two-bedroom apartment for the complex's manager. All of Tavarua’s residents will have access to a ground-floor community area and outdoor courtyard. The is one block away.

“Residents will enjoy approximately 7,000 square feet of community area that includes a large courtyard, a large community room, an activity room, a counseling room, a computer and multimedia room, outdoor barbecues, communal kitchen, laundry room and mail room,” said Chris Maffris, vice president with Meta Housing Corp., one of Tavarua’s codevelopers. “Resident supportive services will be conducted in the community facilities free of charge.”

Meta Housing of Los Angeles is partnering with Western Community Housing, a nonprofit based in Costa Mesa, as partners on the project. The two firms have jointly developed about 15 affordable-housing projects.

The building will be 35 feet high and will feature a modern Mediterranean architectural theme, with an off-white stucco exterior and a terra-cotta colored roof consisting of concrete tiles. The three stories will be articulated, making it attractive to passersby and providing outdoor space for residents. All but 10 of the units will have balconies. The complex will have a gated, underground parking garage.

“The city’s team really pushed us to design a thoughtfully planned affordable community that not only provides low-income seniors with a higher quality of life but also betters the surrounding neighborhood,” Maffris said. “They played an invaluable role in the project’s approval, permitting and, most importantly, financing.”

The project cost is $18.4 million including the land value. The city is contributing $3.75 million in the form of a loan to make the project financially feasible.

Carlsbad Housing & Neighborhood Services Director Debbie Fountain said the project will enhance downtown and fill a vital and growing housing need.

“Tavarua Senior Apartments will definitely benefit the area by providing affordable housing near a variety of public and private amenities, and will provide additional residents to benefit the downtown economy,” Fountain said. “The project will also remove deteriorating and blighted buildings which have outlived their useful life, and replace them with a beautiful new and exciting building.

“This project will assist in meeting two important and significant needs in that it will provide senior-restricted housing and it meets the needs of low and very low income seniors.”

Because all 50 apartments will be affordable to low-income residents, the project exceeds the city’s inclusionary housing ordinance, which requires housing developers to provide 15 percent of their total units as affordable to low-income households.

–Press Release by City of Carlsbad