Berkeley Station to serve transition-age youth and low-income families, designed with NEST Toolkit by Brooks + Scarpa
The City of Santa Monica has recently announced a construction loan worth $9.7 million for a proposed affordable housing development aimed at serving low-income families and transition-age youth.
The funding commitment includes an existing acquisition and pre-development loan of $467,735 and will support the construction of an approved project by Community Corp. of Santa Monica at 1342 Berkeley Street. The four-story building will feature 13 one-bedroom apartments, with five units set aside for transition-aged youth earning up to 50 percent of the area median income level, and the remaining eight apartments reserved for families earning up to 30 percent of AMI.
The project, named Berkeley Station, is being designed by Brooks + Scarpa and will serve as a test case for the firm’s NEST Toolkit, which is a flexible “kit of parts” that can be used for affordable housing developments across the Los Angeles area. The new 11,000-square-foot building will consist of prefabricated modular units and will be clad in saturated blue cement panels. It will also feature upper-level outdoor space for residents, as well as space for a community garden at street level. Notably, no on-site parking is proposed.
This new construction loan follows less than a year after the City of Santa Monica committed $5.7 million in affordable housing trust fund money to the Berkeley Station development. The project is a promising development for those who are struggling to find affordable housing in the area, and it will provide much-needed support for low-income families and transition-age youth.
