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A residential project called Cornerstone, offering over 100 affordable-rate apartments, is on track for development following a favorable vote by the majority of Livermore City Council this week.
The 253-unit project passed muster with a 4-1 vote, Councilmember Ben Barrientos being the sole dissenter at the council’s regular meeting on Jan. 27.
During the meeting, most of the council propounded the city’s need for low-income housing, but Barrientos expressed concern over the compactness of affordable units within one building. He and a public commenter worried that the area would become run-down. The four other council members rejected all stigma surrounding low-income housing.
“This is exactly what we need. I don’t associate this with a stigma at all,” Mayor John Marchand said of the project. “These are people that serve our community — these are our teachers, these are the people that work in the service industry, they’re the community service people that work with our police and fire and I applaud the work that they do.”
Behind the housing project is Cornerstone Fellowship in Livermore, which originally planned to construct a parking lot on the project site. That vision changed after observing housing needs at the low and extremely low income levels.
“We felt like — years ago — the best thing we could do with this land is to add housing and specifically maximize the number of affordable housing units that were available,” said Chris Stockhaus, executive pastor at Cornerstone Fellowship.
The approved project is set to be located on an approximately 13-acre lot at the northwest corner of the intersection of Collier Canyon Road and Constitution Drive. It will include 21 three-story buildings with 143 for-sale townhomes as well as a five-story building with 110 for-rent apartments, according to Emily LaDue, assistant planner for the city of Livermore.
Six of the for-sale townhomes will be priced for moderate income households, 108 of the apartments will be priced for low-, lower-, very low- and extremely low-income households, while the other two apartments are slated as market rate, manager units.
Also included in the project are an approximately 2.5-acre public park with a play area, fitness area, multi-purpose yard; a 0.4 acre pocket park with a community garden, bike parking and grass area along with a pedestrian and bike path along Collier Canyon Creek to connect Collier Canyon Road with Constitution Drive. Street frontage landscaping, connections from units to public streets as well as an off-site pedestrian and bicycle path to connect the site to North Canyons Parkway are part of the project plans.
The project is eligible for concessions and waivers from city development standards to allow the proposed density — exceeding the scenic corridor height limit for the five-story apartment building and some of the three-story townhomes, not evenly distributing the affordable units throughout the project, not having affordable units be comparable with market-rate units and minor deviations from design standards, according to a letter to council, prepared by LaDue and contract planner Vernon Umetsu.
“Since the concessions and waivers do not compromise health and safety or violate State or Federal law, the concessions and waivers must be granted,” LaDue and Umetsu wrote.
To kick off the council’s discussion, Barrientos expressed concern about the height of the project and the concentration of low-income units in one building.
“I’ve seen areas where they become clustered and they kind of get run-down quickly. And I just don’t want people to go ‘we know what this part of town is’,” Barrientos said. “I don’t want to use a certain word. I just would like to see them spread out more than just clustered in one area.”
Barrientos added, “I’m trying to be diplomatic here.”
In response to Barrientos, assistant city manager Paul Spence explained the city requires affordable units be spread throughout a development. But in this case, the developer was able to use state density bonus waivers and concessions to avoid some requirements.
“In order to build so many affordable units, especially at the real low-income levels that we desperately need — as all cities do in the Bay Area — these waivers were really necessary,” Councilmember Kristie Wang said. “But also, we don’t really have a choice, as Councilmember Barrientos pointed out.”
Even if the council denied project waivers, it would be built anyway due to state law, Wang recapped from a previous conversation with staff. Rejection by the council would only result in a project delay.
She added, “I just can’t delay such needed housing in our community for something that will be built anyway.”
As for the meaning of low-income, $120,800 per year is the threshold for a family of four to be considered low-income, LaDue said.
“Money I used to dream of making, and that classifies you as low-income,” Marchand said. “It’s astonishing. People just don’t really realize what low-income is.”
LaDue added, extremely low-income for a family of four is $46,700.
At one point Wang thanked Marchand for reminding people what low income looks like in dollar figures.
For residents living in the low-income units, wrap-around services will be offered by The Pacific Companies in collaboration with Cornerstone. These services will be centralized in the apartment building, a perk of clustering the affordable rental units together, Stockhaus said.
He added, “The ability to do the extremely low (units) would be less feasible financially if we didn’t consolidate them.”
There were two speakers during public comment, one was a Sheet Metal Workers’ union representative and the other was resident Julie Wild.
Wild echoed similar sentiments as Barrientos, expressing concern with the project’s height and clustering of affordable units.
“Having everyone in one building — while it’s nice to combine resources — it also stigmatizes people,” Wild said.
“Ben didn’t want to say it, but it becomes a ghetto,” she added, referencing the “certain word” that Barrientos said he didn’t want to use earlier.
The word “ghetto” in reference to affordable housing has previously sparked controversy in Livermore. Back in 2021, former Livermore planning commissioner John Stein used the word in reference to the Eden Housing development — a low-income residential project planned for downtown currently wrapped up in ongoing litigation.
Stein’s comments received public backlash and even almost led to his removal from the planning commission. However, the council at the time decided to allow him to remain on the commission on the condition that he attend a series of sensitivity trainings.
In response to opposition to the Cornerstone project, Vice Mayor Evan Branning extended his support. “What this project was all about is Cornerstone and their members coming together and saying ‘yes in my backyard,’ literally,” he said.
He added, “I don’t want us to look at that building and say ‘it’s out of place’ and point fingers and stigmatize the building or the people inside of it. I want us to understand that this is the start of a neighborhood that really will incorporate all income levels, all different job types, all of the different people that make Livermore wonderful and really support our community.”
Councilmembers Steven Dunbar and Wang agreed to the benefits of the housing project.
“It will be a very diverse building in its income range but also in many other ways as well, so I don’t have any reason to believe there will be stigma attached to who lives in that building,” Dunbar said.
