Supervisors address senior housing needs

REDWOOD CITY

Developers are scrambling to build housing for seniors, a fast-growing part of the county's population.

To meet this need, the county is providing $1.7 million to developers to help them pay for the land for an affordable senior housing complex in San Bruno. The San Mateo County Board of Supervisors will vote on the funding on Tuesday, which happens to coincide with Affordable Housing Week, now through June 11.

"As time goes by, there will be more and more seniors," said Mark Sullivan, San Bruno's housing and redevelopmentmanager. "Demand will grow, and we have the baby boomers coming up."

The director of the county's Office of Housing, Steve Cervantes, said the county, through federal housing money, also has contributed to affordable senior housing in San Mateo and Half Moon Bay in recent years.

The San Bruno senior housing project, called the Village at the Crossings, is 228 units, a mix of one- and two-bedroom apartments, on El Camino Real across the street from the Tanforan Park Shopping Center and next to the Crossing's already completed 300-unit apartment complex.

As part of the project, another 185-unit apartment building will also be constructed beginning this summer, and eventually offices, a hotel and an entertainment complex may be developed, Sullivan said. Construction on the senior project will begin this summer and wrap up in the fall of 2006.

On Tuesday, the board will also consider:

• Approval of a $912,000 increase in its contract with the Santa Clara County Main Jail to add another psychiatric inpatient bed, bringing the total to two beds for $1.7 million for two years. The county manager, in his budget message released Monday, wrote that correctional health costs have "significantly increased in recent years due to rising health care costs, growing inmate census, aging population and more mentally ill inmates."
• Acceptance of a report on the health department's response to the flu vaccine shortage last season.
• A proposal by Supervisor Jerry Jill to proclaim June 13 to 19 as Fatherhood Awareness Week.
• An update on the midcoast local coastal program, a project to guide growth on the coast. The board is expected to adopt the revised statement of principles.
• An additional $35,157 in construction funding for the Youth Services Center, expected to open next summer to replace the county's aging juvenile hall. The project budget is $148 million, financed through bonds and a federal grant.
• Extension of salary and benefits to county employees called for active military duty through Dec. 31, 2005. The board first passed a resolution in 2001 to pay county employees who are reservists the difference between their salaries and military pay, roughly $2,000 per employee per month
• Joining the joint-powers board of the Peninsula Traffic Relief Congestion Alliance. The Alliance, made up of 15 cities, works to cut down the number of single drivers and increase carpooling and public transit use.