About Affordable Housing

In the state of California, every city has an obligation to provide decent housing and a suitable living environment for every California family. This obligation extends to redevelopment agencies, which must use 20% of their property tax revenue for the preservation and expansion of affordable housing in its jurisdiction.

Affordable housing is housing where the cost (either rent or purchase price plus associated costs like utilities) is restricted to not exceed 30% of the household's income, and the household has an income considered low or moderate under State guidelines. In 2009, the maximum income for a household of four to be considered a moderate-income household in Riverside County was $77,400.

Traditionally, affordable housing has been developed as rental complexes with income and rent restrictions. However, more recently, attention has been given to ensuring that a portion of for-sale housing is also affordable to low- and moderate-income households and to integrating affordable housing into market-rate housing communities. This is done through City ordinances requiring that a percentage of any housing project be restricted to low- or moderate-income households and cost-restricted to be affordable. The units are generally scattered throughout the project so the occupants cannot be identified and potentially stigmatized by their lower income status.

Current Affordable Housing

At this time the City of Calimesa does not have any affordable housing (income- and cost-restricted) within the City. However, it does have conditions of approval on several pending private developments requiring the construction of affordable housing and will also be considering adoption of an inclusionary housing ordinance applicable to all new development in the future.

The Future of Affordable Housing

This future affordable housing will in part satisfy State redevelopment law that requires a redevelopment agency to replace any housing removed for a project with affordable housing and that requires an agency to make sure that 15% of all new housing built in a project area is affordable. To date the Calimesa Redevelopment Agency has not removed any housing for a project and only xx residences have been built in its project areas since the inclusionary housing rule was established in 1993. Therefore, the agency has an obligation to make sure that there are x number of affordable housing units in the future somewhere in the City of Calimesa.

Just as important as creating new affordable housing opportunities is the responsibility to preserve existing housing occupied by low- and moderate-income households. The City and the redevelopment agency pay for the following programs and services to help preserve this housing: