The California Strategic Growth Council will award $5,077,558 to the City of Richmond for the Miraflores Senior Housing Project sponsored by Eden Housing, Inc. The project, located in the Park Plaza neighborhood of the City of Richmond, will create 80 service-enhanced homes affordable to the lowest income seniors. The project is located in proximity to convenient bus lines that run along McDonald Avenue and Cutting Boulevard to the Del Norte Shopping center (which includes grocery stores, pharmacies, restaurants, banks) as well as the Del Norte BART station. It will include a large greenway adjacent to I-80 and the restoration and daylighting of Baxter Creek.

The Budget Act of 2014 appropriated $130 million from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF) for the FY2014-15 budget to the Strategic Growth Council (Council) to develop and administer the Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities (AHSC) Program. Accompanying legislation, SB 862,apportions 20 percent of the GGRF’s proceeds on an annual basis to the AHSC program beginning in FY 2015-16.

The AHSC Program furthers the regulatory purposes of AB 32and SB 375 by investing in projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions by creating more compact, infill development patterns, encouraging active transportation and mass transit usage, and protecting agricultural land from sprawl development. These projects, described in the AB 32 Scoping Plan, will support ongoing climate objectives and contribute substantial co-benefits by:

Reducing vehicles miles traveled and associated greenhouse gas and other emissions by improving mobility options and increasing infill development; or preventing conversion of agricultural lands by making strategic investments that protect agricultural lands to reduce greenhouse gases emissions.

Applicable law requires that 50 percent of AHSC funds be utilized to provide housing opportunities for lower income households. The law also requires50 percent of funds must benefit disadvantaged communities.