A group of UC Davis MBA students wants to do more than just house the poor: They envision transforming a building near the Sacramento County jail into a sun- and wind-powered oasis.
It remains to be seen whether their ambitious ideas will make it into final plans for a single-room occupancy apartment complex at Seventh and H streets.
But the UC Davis students already have received a Low-Income Housing Challenge award from Bank of America, an honor that usually goes to universities with architecture schools.
The Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency proposes to build 150 to 200 single-room apartments on the site of Sacramento's former police crime lab. It's part of the city's effort to bolster its supply of one-room units for the very poor. That supply has dwindled as SRO hotels have been torn down or converted to other uses.
Today, the Sacramento City Council is scheduled to approve using $3.4 million in downtown housing bond funds for SHRA to buy the property and demolish the existing building.
SHRA then plans to solicit developer proposals. Mercy Housing, which worked with the UC Davis team, plans to apply.
"We're going to take their work product as the jumping off point for our proposal," said Chris Glaudel, vice president of asset management for Mercy Housing.
The UC Davis team was led by Amy Barr, who graduated from the MBA program this year. Barr said she and five fellow team members tried to create an "icon" that would improve life for low-income residents while using the latest in green technology.
The team recruited Barr's husband, Ryan, who works for McCandless & Associates Architects in Woodland.
He created an eight-story, glass-clad design that provides lots of natural light and includes a perforated concrete wall to provide separation from what he described as the "negative influences" of the nearby jail.
Wind turbines and solar panels would provide much of the power needed to run the building. Residents could gather at the upstairs garden, a central courtyard and a third- floor patio. A cafe would operate on the ground floor.
Diane Luther, assistant director of SHRA, said the agency is seeking to provide residents with much more than a bed. The UC Davis students have proposed round-the-clock mental health services on site, as well as a community kitchen, computer lab and job placement service.
Mayor Heather Fargo said the city is looking to a project in Portland, Ore., called 8 NW 8th, as a model.
"They've done an amazing job with their hotels in Portland, both with historic ones they've redone and new ones they've built."
In 2006, the City Council adopted a plan that called for development of 200 efficiency apartments downtown. Luther said the number of SRO hotel rooms – housing of last resort for many people who would otherwise be homeless – has fallen from about 2,000 two decades ago to 712 at the time the plan was adopted.
Call The Bee's Mary Lynne Vellinga, (916) 321-1094.
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