The council this week—acting as the city’s Housing Authority—voted unanimously to authorized staff to request a transfer of water allocations from discontinued housing projects to two current city housing projects. Neither of the current projects has a water allocation.
Avalon Public Works Director Bob Greenlaw said this action was only for the water allocation. As for further approvals for the projects, the city would be doing that the same way the city does with other projects, according to Greenlaw.
Background
“In 2017, the City was working on low/moderate housing developments with housing developer Cottle & Cottle. That project was shelved for several reasons and is no longer being pursued,” wrote Public Works Director Robert Greenlaw in his staff report to the council.
“The 2017 project did make application for a water allocation for 10.38 acre feet with the City identified as the applicant,” Greenlaw wrote.
An acre foot of water is enough water to submerge an acre of land 1-foot deep in water—or 325,851 gallons.
“Now that water allocations from Southern California Edison (SCE) are in the near term, the City wants to ensure its current, viable projects that are programmed in the current Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) are allocated sufficient water to move forward,” Greenlaw wrote.
According to Greenlaw, the city is currently rehabilitating the sewer for 206 E. Whittley Avenue.
“This will be followed by the major rehabilitation of the existing units and demolition of the one bedroom cottage on the eastern side of the property,” Greenlaw wrote.
“An additional building is proposed to build an additional five units plus a replacement unit for the cottage for a total of 6-units in the new structure,” he wrote
“The existing 4-unit structure plus the additional 6-unit building could yield 10 potential units on the site for low/moderate housing operated by the City,” Greenlaw wrote.
“The second project is the potential Workforce Housing Project proposed to be constructed on the City Hall Campus,” Greenlaw wrote.
“This housing is proposed in concept to serve the workforce housing needs for City operations as well as short-term housing for City contractors. Concept plans to date propose a project in the range of 17 units,” Greenlaw wrote. In other city business, the council (as part of the Consent Calendar) officially determined that a COVID-19 emergency still exists, so the city will continue to hold council meetings remotely.
