Chandler building first new affordable housing in more than 50 years

For the first time in decades, Chandler is getting new affordable housing.

In late June, nearly two years after the Chandler City Council approved it, development began on Villas on McQueen. National affordable housing developer Gorman & Co. will build the project, which will be located at 77 N. McQueen Road and will feature 157 units. It will be open to low-income families, though preference will be given to veterans, seniors and people with disabilities.

In a press release, Chandler Mayor Kevin Hartke called the project a “milestone that has been years in the making.” Sally Schwenn, Gorman & Co.’s Arizona market president, said it’s the “first affordable housing project to be built in Chandler in literally like 20 years.”

It’s been even longer than that.

Chandler last built multifamily affordable housing properties, five in all, in 1972, using a federal program from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Residents from two of those 50-plus-year-old complexes — Casa del Sol and Casa Bonita — will move into new units at Villas on McQueen.

The city hasn’t built anything since then “because HUD hasn’t allowed housing authorities to do any redevelopment,” said Amy Jacobson, Chandler’s senior manager for housing and redevelopment. To build Villas on McQueen, though, the city is taking advantage of a relatively new federal program.

It’s called the Rental Assistance Demonstration Program — RAD for short — and Villas on McQueen is the first Chandler housing project to use it. The program allows housing authorities to redevelop existing public housing properties using a voucher and caps the rent at 30% of a household’s annual income.

The RAD program, which was created in 2011, is another avenue for housing authorities to take when attempting to finance projects. Cost, unsurprisingly, is a main issue, along with securing land and being able to accrue various funding sources — especially for affordable housing projects that cap rent.

That means the city has partnered with the private sector – in this case, Gorman & Co. – to improve existing public housing with federal and state funding. That’s a lot of different entities, but that’s also the point. Jacobson called it “gap financing.”

‘So needed’

Another hurdle is NIMBYism. The “Not In My Backyard” sentiment refers to neighbors who oppose the construction of affordable housing projects. Schwenn said that wasn’t an impediment to getting approval for Villas on McQueen, though she acknowledged that another Chandler affordable housing developer — whom she did not name — had that issue.

In general, Schwenn said, people understand the urgent need for affordable housing better than they used to.

“Chandler is at a point now where they have invited affordable housing in,” Schwenn said. “Affordable housing is so needed, and I think is misconstrued as to what exactly it is.”

The shortage of affordable housing affects more than just the poor. According to Redfin, the median rent in Chandler was $1,709 as of June 2024. That was more than Phoenix, which had a median rent of $1,478. In both cases, rent is actually cheaper than it was a year ago. Phoenix’s median rent has dipped slightly, while Chandler’s has dropped from $1,825.

Housing costs are high for everyone, which is one reason young voters list affordable housing as a top issue in the upcoming election.

Building Villas on McQueen is a step in the right direction, albeit a small one. Because the complex will accept residents from Casa del Sol and Casa Bonita – which are located about a mile from the new development and are slated to be demolished – Villas on McQueen will create only 79 new housing units.

But that’s 79 more units than Chandler has had in half a century. And that’s a start.

“We look at this as an opportunity to utilize our existing properties, to leverage investment,” Jacobson said. She added that she hopes Chandler can continue to find the same breadth of gap financing needed to fund these sorts of projects.

“We are one step closer to modernizing our aging housing facilities,” Hartke said in his press release, “and providing much-needed housing options for families and seniors in Chandler.”