Up to 120 affordable housing units in a larger mixed-use housing complex may soon see construction in Santa Fe.
Members of the Santa Fe County Commission have given their approval to hiring an architectural firm for the project, which will go up on a county-owned 6.6-acre site near the intersection of Camino de Jacobo and Airport Road.
The site was purchased in 2018 by the Santa Fe County Housing Authority. If the complex becomes reality, it will comprise SFCHA’s first newly-built project since the mid-1980s.
As envisioned, the $15 million project will include one and two-bedroom units, as well as studio apartments, and may be eligible for a housing low-income tax credit program through the New Mexico Mortgage Finance Authority.
The project is, in part, inspired by a study called Jacobo Commons—Community at Many Scales, put together by a group of Yale University students who envisioned a community-type project at the site with a series of different-sized buildings surrounding public courtyard space and including bike and walking lanes.
Project designer is the planning and architectural firm Autotroph, which is based in Santa Fe. Plans additionally call for the complex to be built to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification.
It is not yet known when work on the new Camino de Jacobo complex will actually begin.
By Garry Boulard
