City eyes ‘wraparound’ services

Low-income housing developments who want the City of San Marcos’ support in applying for tax credits will have to meet new standards.

At its Tuesday night meeting, the San Marcos City Council approved an amendment to the city’s workforce/affordable housing policy to update the criteria that must be met for a letter of support from the city. The amendment added a requirement to meet at least six out of nine criteria, including the first criterion that no exemption from local taxes will be provided. The amendment also added a criterion that the development in question would provide “wraparound support services that provide flexible voluntary social, economic or education benefits to the residents.”

The other criteria set up for low-income housing developments include addressing a housing need, location within a high- or medium-intensity zone on the preferred scenario map, location within half a mile from services such as grocery stores and schools, and location within a quarter mile of a proposed or existing bus stop. 

“We had a discussion about transitional housing in San Marcos and how we could assist that program as a government,” Mayor Pro Tem Lisa Prewitt said. “And one of the discussions we had with Mr. [City Manager Bert] Lumbreras was possibly looking at tax credits and trying to get the next stage out of transitional housing to apartments.”

Prewitt said she wanted to find out if there was enough support from council to pursue changes that would ease the move from transitional housing into traditional apartments and possibly have some low-income housing units that rent month-to-month.

“Basically the transitional housing could house a woman and children, or a family, for 12-24 months, but if the resources are no longer needed it would be great if the community had something for them to move into,” she said.

Prewitt said she did not want to postpone a vote to make a new amendment but would like to see the change come to council in the future. She found support on council for the transitional measure. The proposed policy changes passed unanimously.

Also Tuesday night, council approved an amendment to a resolution providing no objection to the application for low-income housing tax credits for the proposed Riverstone Multifamily Housing Project to be located at 1430 Wonder World Drive. The Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs requires a resolution be obtained for developments located within a mile of another tax credit development that has received credits from the state within the last three years. The nearest low-income housing tax credit development will be the El Camino project to be located at the corner of State Highway 123 and Clovis Barker. The purpose of the resolution is to ensure that the city is aware that there will be at least two low-income housing developments relatively near each other.