City Seeks to Buy Apartment Complex, at Cost of $1.38 Million, for Affordable Housing

A plan for the city of Lake Forest to buy a four-unit apartment building and lease it to an affordable-housing nonprofit will go before the Planning Commission at its Thursday meeting.

The Lake Forest Housing Authority is in escrow to purchase the complex at 23201 Saguaro St., with total costs to the city—including rennovation and other costs—calculated at $1,386,000, according to a staff report.

If acquired, the units would be renovated and then leased to a nonprofit that would rent the apartments to low-income families.

The effort is part of the city's "comprehensive stabilization strategy" for the neighborhood along Saguaro Street, which is north of the intersection of Muirlands Boulevard and El Toro Road.

"During the past five years, staff has identified several issues in the neighborhood including varying degrees of overcrowding, illegal garage conversions, overflow parking issues and deferred maintenance," the staff report for the Planning Commission says. "Additionally, the area generates a higher concentration of calls for Police Services than other parts of the city."

To fight those issues, the city has been looking to buy multifamily dwellings on the Saguaro Street as they come on the market, according to staffers. Families that moved into the city-owned complex would have to agree to covenants requiring property maintenance and barring overcrowding.

In order for the city to acquire real estate, the Planning Commission must affirm that doing so would be consistent with the city's general plan.

California law requires local governments to make an effort to ensure that a certain portion of its housing stock is accessible to low-income residents. In the past, the city has worked with local nonprofit Families Forward to operate small transitional housing projects.

The commission meeting begins at 7 p.m. Thursday at . The commission will also examine measures pertaining to a land swap with the county of Orange for land where a sports park could eventually be built.