By Chris Frost
Tri County Sentry
Oxnard-- The Housing Reimagined Conference story continues with Thousand Oaks City Manager Andrew Powers saying the state wants to "put all these pressures on affordable housing" but removed the greatest tool they were leveraging.
"Certainly, there's a role to play in addressing that at the state level, but I also think it's a local responsibility both on a city by city level and with our various partners, non-profit and otherwise, in our county," he said. "I happen to think that cities need to begin planning for affordable housing much like they plan for capital budgets. Their pavement management, water, and wastewater; are obvious priorities for cities, and they need to be planned for, but increasingly so, planning long-term for funding that would go towards land acquisition that you're able to leverage for partnership is important."
He said the city council bought a piece of property, just over four acres, and they'll identify a partner to build a for-sale, affordable project with 40-60 units.
"But, they had to put up $10 million to purchase that piece of property," Powers said. "It's a very expensive reminder of the challenge that's out there. That was just…
