California AG lawsuit coaxes Elk Grove to take second look at rejected housing project

Elk Grove will reconsider its rejection of a contentious affordable housing project in the city’s historic Old Town that prompted California’s attorney general to sue the city, alleging it broke state housing laws.

Council members will discuss the proposed Oak Rose project at their Sept. 27 meeting. City staffers are recommending the city approve the project to avoid costly litigation.

Elk Grove officials said in a lengthy statement Thursday that the costs of fighting lawsuits filed by state Attorney General Rob Bonta and an earlier suit filed by Oak Rose’s developers challenging the July 2022 council decision would be too great.

Bonta, announcing his office’s lawsuit in May, said Elk Grove had repeatedly violated state housing law requiring cities streamline construction of affordable housing, saying of his suit: “They left us no choice.”

The 67-unit Oak Rose apartment project proposed for Elk Grove Boulevard near Kent Street in east Elk Grove would have been the first in the city to provide permanent housing and services for low-income families who had been homeless, the project’s developers said.

But Elk Grove leaders last July rejected the site, saying the site was too dense and that ground-floor residences planned for the site did not adhere to zoning requirements for the historic district. Oak Rose, proposed for three stories, would sit near a bus line, shopping and a planned new city library.

The Elk Grove City Council voted in May to fight the AG’s legal action but had hoped to head off the dual lawsuits with a settlement proposal that included alternate sites — a plan earlier proposed to and rejected by Oak Rose — with sweeteners, city officials said in the Thursday statement.

Elk Grove would have taken over the Old Town site as part of the deal, possibly to expand its new city library to be built next door at Elk Grove Boulevard and Waterman Road, but an agreement was not reached.

Mayor Bobbie Singh-Allen again defended the city’s record on affordable housing. Several large affordable housing projects are in the works, either being dug or on the drawing board, including The Lyla, a 294-unit development on Bruceville Road north of Laguna Boulevard; the 387-unit Poppy Grove apartments on Bruceville Road near Whitelock Parkway; and the Cornerstone Village complex on the grounds of the Light of the Valley Church on Bruceville Road just south of Laguna Boulevard.

“Elk Grove maintains its commitment to providing housing for all,” Singh-Allen said Thursday. “The city council has approved other projects that include permanent supportive housing units and continues to fund and operate a range of options designed to prevent, respond to, and end homelessness.”

City leaders will be reconsidering the Oak Rose site after recently approving the soon-to-be city library site, the vacant Rite Aid drug store at Elk Grove and Waterman, as a winter weather shelter for roughly 30 of the city’s unhoused from November through March. Construction on the new city library is expected to begin in mid-2024.

The space is being paid for with Measure E funds from a voter-approved 1% sales tax hike last fall that prioritized city spending on public safety and the homeless among other issues.

But the site, much like the proposed Oak Rose development, is drawing concern from worried Old Town and east side residents who say the shelter sits too close to homes and will pose a safety risk to its neighbors. Several residents queued up at Wednesday’s city council meeting to take their concerns to council members.