The word on Woodmark

The new affordable housing complex has no tenants despite being "move-in" ready since September

Woodmark Apartments has 48 units that are available to local farmworkers and their families. (Photo by Ezra Wallach)

After being in the works for several years, the Woodmark Apartments on Bodega Avenue in Sebastopol are move-in ready. Since September, the affordable housing complex has been accepting applications for the 48 units it has reserved for low-income farmworkers and their families—but, as of yet, it stands empty.

The farmworker housing comprises the first phase of a complex that will include 84 units in all once the second stage of construction adjacent to the current buildings is completed. Those second-stage units, which are expected to be completed in a few years, will be reserved for other low-income families, whether they’re farmworkers or not.

According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), to be a farmworker, one must work in connection with raising, harvesting, catching, netting, handling, planting, drying, packing, storing or preserving any agriculture or aquaculture commodity.

The Pacific Companies (TPC), a for-profit vertically integrated design, construction and development company based in Idaho, has been in charge of the project. In 2022, the year Woodmark was approved, TPC started construction on 3,091 total units, making it the biggest producer of affordable housing in the country that year.

Woodmark was funded in part by tax credits along with a low-interest loan and a rental subsidy program from the USDA’s Rural Development office. The first phase—the farmworker units—was projected to cost over $25 million to build, according to a California Tax Credit Allocation Committee staff report from 2020.

TPC co-owns Woodmark with the Central Valley Coalition for Affordable Housing, based in Merced. Because Central Valley is a non-profit, Woodmark also qualifies for a property tax exemption.

It is unclear, however, what—if any—part that nonprofit has played in the development of the project, especially considering that Central Valley wasn’t mentioned by TPC in their application to the city in 2022. When I asked Lauren Alexander, Woodmark’s project manager and the CEO of the Armony Development, a subsidiary of TPC, about Central Valley’s role, she declined to comment.

“I am pretty packed with end-of-the-year situations so I am limited with how much I can respond,” Alexander wrote. Central Valley has yet to respond for comment.

The complex features two-bedroom and three-bedroom apartments that range from $913 to $2,127 a month, depending on the income of the household. For example, if the income for a five-person household is $89,000, just below 60 percent of the Area Median Income (AMI), a three-bedroom apartment would cost $2,127 a month. If the income of a three-person household is $49,000, a two-bedroom apartment would cost $1,225 a month.

According to The Pacific Companies, the apartments can be rented by families with “Extremely Low Income,” “Very Low Income” or ”Low Income.” (Screenshot via Aperto Property Management)

It’s a sweet deal considering that you’d be hard-pressed to find a modern one-bedroom apartment in Sebastopol for anywhere cheaper than that—if you are able to find one at all. It is this urgent and massive need for not just low-income housing in Sebastopol but housing in general that is making the city and its residents antsy to see tenants moved into the apartments.

A couple of weeks ago, I reached out to several vineyard and farm management companies in West County, none of which had been notified that Woodmark could now accommodate certain farmworker families. When I visited Woodmark this week, I was told that there are no tenants living in the apartment complex, though around a dozen applicants are currently going through the application process.

The property management company, Aperto, hosts a website for Woodmark. It uses generic images and features no real pictures from either the inside or the outside of the building. The same is true of a Craigslist post that went out this week to advertise the property.

Here’s the poster that Woodmark has been sending throughout the community.

Moreover, detailed information on the units is hard to come by. The leasing office is only open from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekdays, with an hour-long lunch break in the middle. A few weeks ago, when I first visited Woodmark in the late morning to speak with the staff there, the office was closed. So I called the number they had posted on the door, which went nowhere because it was the wrong number. (The numbers were transposed.)

When I returned a couple of days later and spoke with a woman in the leasing office, she could tell me her name but not the company that she worked for.

Others have taken notice of peculiarities with Woodmark, including some who have tried to apply for the apartments themselves. A few have called upon the city to do something about it.

The topic was discussed briefly at the latest city council meeting, where City Manager Don Schwartz noted that the city doesn’t play much of a role in how the property operates or who it leases to.

TPC used a streamlined, ministerial process—SB 35—which didn’t require the city’s approval so long as everything was up to the city’s code. The Housing Element of Sebastopol’s 2014 General Plan reads that “multifamily farmworker housing is allowed in any zone that permits multifamily housing.”

"I think there’s an expectation or understanding that we had a bigger voice in this than we really did," Schwartz said at the meeting.

Schwartz was also sure to mention that the standards for the project are not determined by local agencies but rather by federal ones, such as the USDA.

With the housing sitting there empty, city officials like Councilwoman Sandra Maurer have gotten messages from residents wondering if the apartments can be rented out to other low-income groups, such as firefighters.

“It is such a loss to see these homes not being rented,” Maurer said. “The public is frustrated. Something needs to be done about this.”

What happens if Woodmark doesn’t find enough farmworkers?

Alexander, the property manager for TPC, said that there are no available details “on how the leasing process would change if units are not filled with farmworkers,” but she will update us when she can.

According to the USDA, the owners of Woodmark had to prove that there was a need for farmworker housing to get approved for the USDA loans in the first place. Hypothetically, in a year or two, if the property doesn’t fill its quota for farmworkers, then TPC could try to rent the units to other low-income individuals.

In order to do so, they would have to go back to the USDA to submit a diminished-needs waiver, showing through market studies that the need for farm labor housing in Sebastopol wasn’t as great as first anticipated. If the USDA approves the waiver, the company could then lease out the apartments currently reserved for farmworkers to other low-income tenants.

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Woodmark Apartments is located at 7716 Bodega Ave. in Sebastopol. Prospective tenants can reach out to Aperto Property Management at woodmark@apertopm.com or 707-232-4139.