Yuba City looks at buying housing

Yuba City may use a pot of redevelopment money to get into the real estate game by buying foreclosed homes.

The city's redevelopment agency is required to put away 20 percent of its tax increment money to help the community's supply of low and moderate-income housing.

Nearly $5 million has built up in the redevelopment fund —money which two City Council members, Kash Gill and Leslie McBride, have proposed the city use to buy "distressed" homes, foreclosed homes in the city's 912-acre redevelopment area.

The City Council briefly talked about the idea at Tuesday's meeting and directed the city administration to look into it. Councilmembers all said they favored the idea.

Gill said the city could use money to take distressed homes off the market, helping the housing market and increasing the city's stock of low-income housing. And because its a buyer's market for homes right now, the price would be right.

"Right now is a perfect time, it's definitely a buyer's market," Gill said at the council meeting.

McBride did not return phone calls requesting comment.

Realtors have said that homes in the sale market are accumulating faster than they are selling in the Yuba-Sutter area as more homes have gone into foreclosure.

Sutter County, which includes Yuba City and is where much of the recent development has occurred, has seen hundreds of foreclosures this year. MDA Data Quick reported 291 foreclosures in July, August and September in the county.

The housing would have deed restrictions and would be leased to people with low and moderate incomes through the Consolidated Area Housing Authority of Sutter County.

City Manager Steven Jepsen told the City Council that the city could use $2 million to $2.5 million in the housing set-aside fund and hang on to the rest for projects in transportation corridors.

The city's redevelopment area lies mostly between the Feather River, Highway 99, Bird Avenue and Garden Highway.