The city of Santa Clarita’s first affordable-housing discussion at City Hall’s Carl Boyer Room prompted an hourlong discussion on what the future of affordable housing might be for the area.
City staff talked about the different ways affordable housing has been accomplished, what cities like Glendale and Thousand Oaks are doing and what an affordable-housing policy might look like for the city.
The talk was meant for staff to receive direction from the City Council, as the staff is required by law and the city’s acceptance of Measure A housing funds to present an affordable-housing policy to the City Council for its future consideration.
City officials said they expect to deliver a plan for council consideration early next year.
Current supply
The City Council has never directed staff on affordable-housing policy, which may have played a role in why the city has not really had much direct involvement in housing projects. The one brought up several times by the city, Three Oaks in Newhall, took 10 years, produced fewer than 30 units and resulted in criticism from Mayor Bill Miranda.
Miranda said he recognized the positive in providing the dignity of affordable housing for families, but also said from a business perspective, any project that takes so long and yields so little would not be considered a success.
Of the city’s affordable inventory of 1,244 affordable units, about 827 units are for seniors. An affordable unit means the rent is calculated for the affordability of individuals making 80% or less of the adjusted median income, currently about $84,000 for the SCV’s region, according to Tracy Sullivan, city community preservation officer, who gave the staff presentation.
In addition to the current supply, there are another 201 units from five projects “in the pipeline,” so to speak, meaning they are at various stages of development. Most of those units come from Creekside Commons, an apartment complex with 128 units being planned for the former location of the Canyon Country Community Center.
Local need
As a map in the conference room showed all but one of the city’s pending affordable projects in Councilwoman Patsy Ayala’s District 1, which covers Newhall and western Canyon Country, she asked City Manager Ken Striplin if the city had areas deemed preferential to affordable housing.
Striplin said the need for such housing was so great that the city would consider any opportunity that presents itself.
He also said the market opportunities in Santa Clarita have been the biggest drivers, with the economics only really penciling out for affordable rentals, which is what the city has seen so far and something he doesn’t expect to change.
During Ayala’s questions it also came out that the city did not have any list or tracking for how many families or residents were seeking affordable housing. A presentation from the city indicated 38% of homes were “cost-burdened,” meaning they spend more than 30% of their income on housing.
During the city’s 2025 survey as part of its annual housing needs assessment for the federal government, 357 residents were surveyed, nearly two-thirds homeowners.
The survey asked residents to rank 11 needs, with the highest numbers coming in the categories of: “Development of Affordable Rental Housing for Seniors,” which 159 viewed as a “high need”; “Development of Affordable Rental Housing,” which had 149 respondents cite as a “high need”; and “Homeownership Assistance, which was cited as a high need by 145.
Council direction
Council members also asked why there were no homes in the plans and why affordable units, even townhomes, were so hard to incentivize.
Striplin said the state has pushed for more homes, but the incentives haven’t matched. The state funding available to local governments would only be enough to subsidize the construction of about 3,000 homes in total, a fraction of the millions called for in the governor’s plan.
Councilwoman Marsha McLean said one of the reasons she asked for the discussion was the city was asked to let developers slide on the affordable homes portion of a recent project, Metrowalk.
She said she wanted to make sure the city wasn’t going to be penalized for not hitting the state-mandated affordable-housing goal of more than 5,000 affordable units in the current housing cycle, which was a question Miranda mentioned also.
Striplin said the state’s Regional Housing Needs Assessment, which creates the housing figure, was more of a capacity for how many homes could be built, because he also was not aware of any city that was going to hit its housing allocation in the RHNA.
Councilman Jason Gibbs, who represents the city on the board for the Los Angeles County Affordable Housing Solutions Agency, a county housing agency responsible for collecting a half-cent sales tax being redistributed for affordable housing and programs to fight homelessness, said his big issue was that plans that don’t pencil out won’t get built without the funding, which just isn’t there for many projects.
After discussing that the city would get about $3.5 million back from LACAHSA from its more than $21 million in tax revenue, the funding needed to incentivize the build of an affordable rental was given by the city as more than $181,000.
That was part of the discussion regarding guidelines for a potential inclusionary-housing ordinance similar to the county’s, which, for example, might require a developer to set aside some of the units approved in a project as affordable.
The city has tried that, but one developer, as McLean mentioned, is now trying to pay an “in-lieu” fee to see if it can instead pay an incentive to the city so it can pay another developer to put the units in some future project.
Mayor Pro Tem Laurene Weste felt there wasn’t enough of a definition around what is an affordable home, arguing that some might be happy with a slightly smaller unit, if say 10 of them were planned for a 100-unit project. She said asking a developer to make the same unit and put it on the market for less in a project doesn’t make sense.
She hoped it was possible to incentivize affordable homes without developers claiming multiple exemptions, which was a gripe about recent amendments to the Creekside Commons plans that recently asked for more time and reduced residents’ common areas.
Gibbs’ view was that the city can make all the mandates it wants, but if there’s no market incentive, or financing available, then a project won’t get built.
“If it’s just administrative, legal changes, the interest isn’t going to be there, it’s going to be, ‘Does it pencil (out)?’” Gibbs said. “So I’m more interested in seeing how we can provide our funding to people who are doing developments that we want to see, that’s going to offer the affordability piece and meet the intent of where our programs are.”
Current affordable units
Senior-restricted — 827 units
Bouquet Canyon Senior Homes – 264
Canterbury Village Senior Apartments- 64
Canyon Country Senior Community – 200
Fountain Glen Valencia* – 8
Orchard Arms – 183 (senior or disabled)
Valencia Villas – 75
Whispering Oaks – 33
Family — 417 units built
Canyon Country Villas – 62
Diamond Park Apartments – 55
Riverpark Apartments – 105
Sand Canyon Ranch – 50
Sand Canyon Villas – 43
The Overlook Apartments* – 34
The Village Apartments – 39
Three Oaks Apartments* – 29