How has life in the Bay Area changed over the last 20 years? These stories straight from our Bay City News archives capture news of the day from 5, 10, and 20 years ago – as originally published at the time. Explore these history snapshots and ponder how today’s news compares to that of years past.
JULY 22, 2021
Affordable housing projects increasingly combine homes with services, food access and neighborhood gathering space. Santa Clara County’s Agrihood shows a mixed-income development using a working farm to support seniors, veterans and the surrounding community.
Bay City News Reported:
“Santa Clara County Breaks Ground On Affordable Agrihood”
“Welcome to Agrihood,” Santa Clara County Supervisor Cindy Chavez said on Thursday at a construction site on North Winchester Boulevard near Santana Row and Westfield Valley Fair Mall.
Right now, it’s a vacant dirt lot filled with crews and cranes but by Summer 2023, there will be a 5.8-acre affordable housing site for low-income seniors and veterans with a unique twist: a working 1.7-acre farm.
“(Residents) will be surrounded by food gardens, and be within walking distance to grocery stores drugstores, and public transportation,” Chavez said.
The first-of-its kind housing site will have 160 mixed-income apartments, 165 homes for low-income seniors and veterans and 36 townhomes.
The most notable feature – the farm – serves three purposes, Agrihood leaders said. It provides nearly 20,000 pounds of food to the community; creates volunteer and community-building opportunities; and honors the Santa Clara Valley’s agricultural history.
“That’s something we should celebrate here in the heart of Silicon Valley,” said Kirk Vartan, a community housing activist and founder of A Slice of New York. “We want opportunities for seniors to remain active and engaged and independent.”
Chavez said the food gardens would create a “strong bond” with the community through events like farm-to-table pop ups, food trucks and maybe even farmers markets.
“The possibilities are endless because eventually this will be a mixed income mixed use intergenerational housing development,” Chavez said.
The units will be a mix of studio and one-bedroom apartments that will cost about $2100 a month in rent.
Agrihood will also have 54 permanent supportive housing units that the county will fill with unhoused older adults – a population that has grown more during the pandemic.
“Over 50 percent of our unhoused folks are seniors, aged 55 or older,” said Consuelo Hernandez, Director of the Office of Supportive Housing.
That number is up from 2019 estimates, in which 40 percent of the homeless population identified as 51 and up, according to the 2019 survey conducted by the county Office of Supportive Housing.
“Collectively these developments will help us fill that gap that’s needed,” Hernandez said.
The new site in the City of Santa Clara is one of six sites that will begin construction very soon in the county, which will create 560 new units – 367 of which allocated to seniors, Hernandez said.
The other five projects are the Blossom Hill Senior Apartments with 146 units; PATH villas at 4th Street with 94 units; Gallop and Mesa Apartments with 46 units for foster care, formerly foster youth that are previously unhoused; Immanuel-Sobrato Apartments with 108 units and the redevelopment of Markham Plaza II with 152 units.
Those projects are largely funded by the Measure A Housing Bond passed in 2016 by county voters to help construct 4,800 units of affordable housing.
Agrihood, which has a price tag of $250 million will use $23 million in Measure A funding, $15.7 million from the city of Santa Clara and a grant of $50 million in tax-exempt bonds from the California Debt Limit Allocation Committee.
Santa Clara Mayor Lisa Gillmor said the development is “truly a result of community led collaborative process” that has been in the works since 2005 when the city acquired the 5.8-acre vacant lot.
The Santa Clara City Council approved development of the urban farm in January of 2019, which Gillmor called the “anchor tenant” of this housing site.
The farm will be managed and designed by Oakland-based farming company Farmscape.
“All of that (food) will be going to a farm stand (on site) that we’ll be sharing with the community weekly,” said Lara Hermanson, co-owner of Farmscape. “And people will be able to pay what they can there.”
Hermanson continued that the “organic, sustainable and regenerative farm” will grow tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, squash and fresh herbs during the summer and broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce greens, beets and carrots, among many others in the winter.
There, residents and community members can volunteer to prepare and harvest the farm, though there will be professional staff on site to tend to the food gardens.
“We’re going to be having essentially a giant intergenerational hangout on this farm, so we look forward to seeing everybody there,” Hermanson said.
JULY 22, 2016
Cities continue to use emergency powers when shelter shortages and high rents leave large numbers of residents without stable housing. Santa Rosa’s proposed declarations show local officials seeking state help and more flexibility to open temporary facilities.
Bay City News reported:
“Santa Rosa Weighs Homelessness Emergency Declarations”
The Santa Rosa City Council Tuesday is expected to approve three emergency declarations regarding homelessness.
They include a declaration of a shelter crisis, a local state of emergency and a request for a gubernatorial state of emergency proclamation.
A point-in-time count earlier this year identified 2,906 homeless persons on a given night, two-thirds of them located in central Santa Rosa. Two thirds of the homeless in the county and in Santa Rosa were unsheltered, according to the count.
The emergency declarations state the City’s homeless include veterans, women, children, youth, disabled persons, seniors and other vulnerable people, and the rental vacancy rate in Santa Rosa is approximately one percent.
The City Council heard extensive testimony earlier this month regarding the impacts of homelessness on those without shelter and on the community at large.
Conditions of “extreme peril to the safety of persons and property caused by homelessness and lack of affordable housing” in Santa Rosa require other help from “other political subdivisions,” according to the local emergency declaration.
The homeless shelter crisis resolution requests suspension of state government standards of housing, health or safety regarding the use of public facilities as temporary homeless shelters. Under the resolution, the City would adopt substitute standards to ensure public health and safety.
In a letter to Gov. Edmund Brown, Mayor John Sawyer said. “It’s time for the State to recognize that this crisis has risen to the level of an emergency.”
Sawyer said Santa Rosa has more than doubled its funding for homeless service programs but those efforts alone cannot overcome the crisis.
Sawyer urged Gov. Brown to declare a statewide state of homeless emergency “to address this growing humanitarian crisis throughout California.”
JULY 22, 2006
Air-quality programs still depend on whether temporary incentives can change everyday travel behavior. BART’s ridership increase shows the region testing free transit as a way to reduce driving during severe smog conditions.
Bay City News reported:
“Free Transit Lifts Ridership On Spare The Air Day”
Bay Area Rapid Transit estimated Friday that ridership was up 6 percent as a result of free rides offered on the sixth Spare the Air Day of the season.
Based on preliminary counts, BART reports that on Friday an estimated 20,000 additional passengers, totaling 343,000, rode BART compared to an average Friday on the last of six free transit days.
That brings the combined additional ridership for all six days to about 151,000, according to preliminary BART estimates.
Friday was the last Spare the Air day on which Bay Area transit agencies offered free rides to discourage driving.
The Bay Area Air Quality Management District, prompted again by the extremely hot and dry weather cooking up smog, declared today the seventh Spare the Air day.
The air district is once again asking Bay Area residents to limit driving, to postpone using gasoline-powered equipment and to avoid spray products such as hair sprays.
The district recommends that active children and adults, especially people with respiratory problems, limit their outdoor activities today.
The Bay Area saw just one Spare the Air day in 2005, on July 26.
This year’s Spare the Air season began June 1 and continues through Oct. 13.
Editor’s Note: All the reporting, writing, and editing of this content was done by human journalists at the time of initial publication. AI tools were used to surface these stories from our internal Bay City News archives and provide the introductory context.