City staff recommended and the Housing and Land Use Committee voted to preliminarily award $8,460,220 to four affordable‑housing projects selected from the city’s 2025 Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA). The committee approved the recommendation, with Council Member Salazar recorded as a “No” vote.

Steven Acker, senior community development analyst, presented the NOFA process and staff funding recommendations. Acker said the 2025 NOFA drew multiple state and federal funding sources and that applicants had requested roughly $17.98 million in gap financing while the city had about $8.46 million available for awards. “The goal is to really find the products that we can deploy the funds to provide affordable housing units in a… quick manner,” Acker said during his presentation.

Staff recommended funding for four projects: Chispa’s Vista De La Terraza rehabilitation (recommended $960,000), Milestone Housing’s new construction at 200 Casentini Street (recommended $3,837,000), Chispa’s Saint George senior apartments (recommended $2,372,699), and a $1,290,521 allocation for stabilization and fire remediation work at the city‑owned Republic Café site. Acker told the committee the recommended awards would act as preliminary conditional commitments and that the city manager or designee would negotiate and execute conditional commitments and related grant documents.

Committee discussion probed how staff determined recommended award amounts, whether recipients had outstanding prior city funding that remained unspent, and the timeline for construction starts. Staff said Vista De La Terraza is the only project expected to begin construction within the next fiscal year; other projects will require additional gap funding and likely take two to three years to reach construction. Staff also said some applicants had already received prior predevelopment funds and that staff had met repeatedly with developers to scale recommendations to the limited local funding available.

After discussion the committee voted to forward the preliminary awards to city council. Roll call on the motion recorded Council Member Sandoval: Aye; Council Member Salazar: No; Chair Barajas: Aye. The motion passed 2‑1. Staff said the NOFA award recommendations will be presented to the full City Council for final action and will satisfy the public‑hearing requirement for local housing trust fund awards.