Roseville reserves funds for three affordable-housing projects

Roseville City Council members unanimously approved a reservation of funds of $7.5 million for the development of three affordable housing projects during its Wednesday meeting. Roseville Housing manager Trisha Isom and Roseville Economic Development director Melissa Anguiano presented the funds request for the projects to council. In total, according to Isom, the goal is to reserve approximately $2.5 million for each project. The first housing project will be at 2801 North Hayden Parkway in Roseville with 94 available housing units as part of Hampstead's affordable-housing project, Prospera at Fiddyment Ranch. The second project will be at 505 Royer Street, also known as Royer Apartments. This project will accommodate up to 55 housing units and is part of Mercy Housing's affordable-housing project. The third project at 1721 Pleasant Grove Blvd. will provide up to 98 housing units under Bridge Housing Services. Funding for the projects is available from the city's Local Housing Trust Fund, the Affordable Housing Fund and the city's Low/Mod Fund, according to Isom. Following the presentation, Roseville Councilmember Pauline Roccucci questioned Isom about requesting and receiving more state or federal affordable housing funds in the future. Isom replied that she and the Roseville Economic Development Committee will apply for additional funding in May and that she will have more information on this possibility by August. Isom told Gold Country Media on Thursday that the housing projects are now waiting to receive additional state and federal funding in order to move forward with construction. Isom expects the projects will be completed by the end of 2024. In other news Roseville City Council received a report from Roseville's Local Sales Tax Citizens' Oversight Committee on the 2020/2021 fiscal year revenue and expenditures of the Measure B Sales and Use Tax on Wednesday. "The Local Sales Tax Citizens Oversight Committee was created when Measure B was passed by Roseville voters on Nov. 6, 2018," Roseville City Manager Dominick Casey said. "And the committee is in charge of the annual review and report to the City Council on the review and expenditures of the Measure B Use and Sales Tax." The city of Roseville's website defines the Measure B Use and Sales Tax as a half-cent tax increase to protect Roseville's essential services. Roseville Local Sales Tax Citizens' Oversight Committee members Meghan Krafka and Kathryn Kitchell presented the report. "The (city of Roseville's) budget when it was set was very conservative because of all the economic unknowns that were coming to the year (2021)," Kitchell said. "As a consequence of that, it turned out our sales tax revenue, our property tax revenue and our Measure B tax revenues were higher than anticipated." This resulted in the city of Roseville having a $28 million surplus for the 2020/2021 fiscal year. Kitchell described two ideas that the committee implemented in 2021 to help the committee collect their findings. Kitchell described one as a "scorecard" and the other was a survey sent to Roseville residents. "The scorecard allows us to compare the funding and the level of services for this year to what we call the base year, which is last year (2019)," Kitchell explained. Kitchell noted that 2019 was the first full year of Measure B collections in Roseville. Survey results indicate that the Local Sales Tax Citizens' Oversight Committee services have been maintained at a satisfactory level by Roseville residents, according to Kitchell's report. In other words, Measure B funds are being fully utilized in the city. There was no vote needed from City Council as this was only a report presented for informational purposes.