Developer Wood Partners Wood Partners Latest from The Business Journals Oakland project finds new life as apartmentsOakland project finds new life as apartmentsDaniel Corp. plans 22-story Atlanta project Follow this company is hoping to hammer out a compromise today to get 55 Laguna back on track.

The 440-unit project on a former University of California Berkeley Extension campus — it includes 330 apartments and 110 affordable senior units — has been in limbo due to a disagreement over the manner in which Wood Partners will satisfy the affordable housing requirement for the development.

Wood Partners had proposed paying a $17 million fee instead of building 50 below market-rate units on site. The idea had the support of the Mayor’s Office Of Housing, which had hoped to use the $17 million to bankroll the 110-units Mercy Housing and OpenHouse are planning to build on the site.

But the neighborhood groups objected, arguing that not including the affordable apartments onsite would lesson the project’s diversity, something residents fought hard for during the long entitlement battle that lead to the project’s 2008 approval. The original developer, A.F. Evans, filed for bankruptcy in March of 2009.

Now Wood Partners is suggesting a compromise. They are proposing to build between 25 and 32 below-market-rate apartments on-site while paying a smaller fee, probably between $6.3 million and $8.6 million. That way some of the Wood Partners project would be below market rate, while the city would still have some cash to build the senior portion. The change requires the support of the Planning Commission.

“The community has input forced us to sharpen the pencil and I think the project is going to take a major step forward at the end of the day,” said Tovey Giezentanner, an in-house consultant for Wood Partners.

The Planning Commission is schedule to take the project up on August 4th. Wood Partners hopes to have final entitlements completed by the first quarter of next year.

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