Housing Project Caught in Budget Uncertainty Finally Pushed Through

Petaluma will break ground on a new affordable housing development next spring resuscitating a project that almost fell victim to Governor Jerry Brown’s budget overhaul earlier this year.

A 68-unit housing development on Petaluma Boulevard North and Shasta Avenue, called Logan Place, was approved by the city in 2009. But funding had not yet been secured and when Gov. Brown announced his $12.5 billion in cuts, including a freeze on selling bonds, the development’s fate became uncertain, causing panic among local affordable housing advocates.

“We literally had $10 million that had our name on it and we couldn’t get at,” said Bonnie Gaebler, housing administrator for the city of Petaluma. “When the funds were put into this “pause,” I just went ballistic. I was thinking ‘How can this be?’ Of course, I understood the budget crisis that we are in, but this was not new money, it had already been there, in the kitty, and we just couldn’t get our hands on it.”

Gaebler, along with Pascal Sisich, acquisition manager for Burbank Housing, a Sonoma County developer of affordable housing, contacted Mayor Dave Glass and explained the problem. Glass, in turn, picked up the phone and called Assemblyman Jared Huffman, who represents Petaluma in Sacramento to see if he could release the funding.

“David Glass knew who the developer was, what the project was about and he just pushed all the right buttons,” Gaebler said.  In Sacramento, Huffman got in touch with Governor Brown’s staff and urged them to release the funding on the project that had been in the works for years.

“I just became a very squeaky wheel,” Huffman said. “I started pleading my case to HCD (Department of Housing and Community Development, which had allocated the money for the project) and to the administration and it took a while.”

But ultimately, the project got the governor’s ear and he agreed that the funding had to go forward, Huffman said, calling Logan Place a significant project coming at a very significant time in terms of jobs and economic development.”

Mayor Dave Glass seconded the sentiment.

“It’s a major construction project and critically needed housing,” he said. “And we finally got it.”

The development, which will begin construction next spring, will add much needed housing for low-income seniors and Latino families in Petaluma, according to Gaebler. “Those are our two biggest demographics that we need affordable housing for,” she said.