Westmont College is trying to make it easier for faculty members and employees to buy homes.
The Santa Barbara Planning Commission last week agreed to let the private Christian college change its specific plan to offer housing assistance to more of its employees and faculty.
Under the current program, some potential employees did not qualify for the college’s housing units because they made too much money, but still were unable to comfortably buy a home in Santa Barbara.
“This creates a more flexible and useable and successful employee housing program for Westmont,” said Anthony Tomasello, senior project manager at RRM Design. “It achieves its goal to serve a broader segment of the faculty and increases diversity of housing options.”
Westmont currently owns 41 single-family homes at 802-1141 Westmont Road, called Las Barrancas, which are restricted to “moderate income” housholds.
To qualify, households cannot earn more than 120 percent of the area medium income, which is set by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. The median family income for Santa Barbara County is $79,600, according to the county.
The college also owns 13 condominiums, called Tejado Grove, on the corner of West Los Olivos Street and Oak Park Lane, which are currently under construction.
At Tejado Grove, at least two of the homes would be set aside for middle-income families, but the rest of Westmont housing, 31 units, would be for moderate, middle, upper middle income, or price restricted, a catch-all that would allow Westmont to offer employee housing to households that earn more than the upper middle income category.
The maximum income for a household of two in the upper middle income category is $127,360.
Doug Jones, Westmon’ts vice president of Finance, noted that housing costs in the region often come as a surprise to job applicants, most of whom apply from outside of California.
“Not having affordable housing would make it nearly impossible for some prospective faculty and employees to make the move to California and specifically Santa Barbara and come to Westmont,” Jones said.
The Planning Commissioners said they were impressed with Westmont’s desire to build housing for its employees and suggested that other large employers should do the same.
“I think Westmont is role modeling, is leading the type of employer, educational-institution, investor, and when I say investor, I don’t mean just financial, I mean a social investor, a community investor, this is so important from my perspective, and of course it is very enlightened from your perspective, as well,” Commissioner Deborah Schwartz said. “You are aiming to provide housing at great expense to the institution.
“I think Westmont is leading the way,” she said.
Commissioner Michael Jordan also praised Westmont. He said he saw no downside to allowing greater income flexibility and letting people still qualify for a below market rate home.
“We shouldn’t be penalizing you for continuing to pay moderate- and middle-income wages, good wages, to your employees,” Jordan said.
— Noozhawk staff writer Joshua Molina can be reached at jmolina@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
