After an overwhelming majority of Orange County voters approved a bond referendum to help fund affordable housing projects, the county is moving forward to distribute the first portion of those dollars

After receiving permission from the public to seek up to $5 million in bond funding for affordable housing, the commissioners unanimously approved a rating system at a meeting last week for how that money would be distributed. According to the rating system created by the board, the top priority is to provide more affordable rental units for low-income and very-low-income county residents. Board chairman Mark Dorosin said the board moved quickly to get this in place.

“We’re going to keep pushing forward as much as we can,” Dorosin said. “And we’ll see these bond funds roll out. And if they don’t all roll out, we’ll have another process to keep them moving.

“But I think everything we heard today was about getting this money out there and that’s what we’re trying to do.”

The board will open up a request for proposals from potential affordable housing developers at the end of February. The application will remain open until the end of March, with the hope of money being distributed for approved projects before the commissioners break for the summer in June. Delores Bailey, executive director of the local non-profit Empowerment, said the county is in desperate need of more affordable units because the organization has to at times turn those seeking assistance away over lack of availability.

“I want to say I have something for you, but I don’t,” Bailey said. “Because Empowerment’s situation is, every single unit we have right now is full.”

The board also unanimously approved another affordable housing plan. After doing a review, the county found eight pieces of surplus property owned by Orange County. The board gave permission for county staff to look at selling or renting that property to affordable housing developers. It could also sell property to another buyer, with the proceeds going towards affordable housing. Deputy manager Travis Myren said the eight properties will go through their own request for proposals process.

“Someone could submit a proposal that uses county-owned property and gets some additional subsidy from the bond fund,” Myren said. “So, there’s an opportunity to use both of those mechanisms or either. So, that’s why we kept them separate from one another.”

The initial round of bond funding could be as much as $2.5 million, half of the total affordable housing bond. There is no timetable set for the second round of funding, but commissioners said it’s possible it could happen in the second half of 2017.

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