San Marcos, CA— The City of San Marcos received more than $1.4 million in Housing-Related Parks (HRP) grant funds from the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD). The City will use these funds for the design and construction of a new park, which will be built on City-owned vacant land in the Richmar neighborhood.
San Marcos was the ninth highest award of the 109 California cities and counties to receive HCD’s 2013 round of funding earmarked to help build much-needed parks and/or repair existing parks and recreation facilities.
“With the loss of redevelopment dollars, the City relies now more than ever on grants to create and maintain community spaces available to all income levels,” said Housing and Neighborhood Services Director Karl Schwarm. “Improving the surrounding neighborhoods with more park land adds to the high quality of life residents enjoy here in San Marcos.”
The Housing-Related Parks program is an innovative program designed to reward local governments that support affordable housing. Funds are allocated on a per-bedroom basis for each residential unit that targets the very low- to low-income households. During the 2010 to 2013 grant period, the City approved close to 320 affordable housing units including the Autumn Terrace, Parkview, Sage Point and Westlake Village apartments.
Since 2004, the City has received nearly $2.8 million from four similar state grants based on affordable housing production. These previous funds supported the expansion of Walnut Grove Park, the construction of Sunset and Hollandia parks and the recently opened Connors Park.
