Moving Target

“We’ve been told numerous times that the place is ours, but at the same time, we’re also told they’re still processing things,” says Natalie Fragola, a would-be tenant of the to-be-completed Siler Yards Arts + Creativity Center. “Now I know it’s not 100% certain until we’ve got the keys in our hands. We are totally screwed.”

The affordable housing project developed by New Mexico Inter-Faith Housing has been under construction since June 2020 on roughly 5 acres of land on Siler Road donated by the city. It has faced move-in delays before, but now faces yet another delay that hopeful tenants tell SFR has been emotionally and financially unacceptable.

The project aims to serve as living/working/communal space for income-qualified artists. With rents ranging from $410 to $1,139 with all utilities included—well under Santa Fe’s market value—demand has been high, and prospective tenants faced stringent qualification and application processes. According to Inter-Faith Executive Director Daniel Werwath, the four buildings that comprise the first phase of the complex were set to open in staggered fashion by August.

But COVID-19′s supply line issues, materials shortages and state lockdowns made the deadline impossible to meet, he says.

Even so, on Oct. 5, Fragola and numerous other ostensibly approved tenants received emails from Monarch Properties, which manages the apartments, advising them to put in a 30-day notice with their current landlords by Oct. 15 for a Nov. 15 move-in date.

Many, including Fragola, did just that.

But, by Nov. 2, regional property supervisor JoAn Hohmann of Monarch Properties told approved tenant Darryl Lorenzo Wellington (who, full disclosure, contributes to SFR) in an email that construction on the complex had been postponed and tenants would likely not be able to move in by Nov. 15. Wellington says he only learned of the delay after he and others were asked to provide more information to Monarch before move-in, which, he says, made him and his fellow renters nervous. A similar email went out to the rest of the tenants later that day causing a sort of panic ripple effect.

Would-be tenant Ronnie Ortiz tells SFR that the move-in delay is yet another in a long line she’s already weathered. Her current housing situation technically ended in September, she says, and she was supposed to be able to move in then. Ortiz says that September came with the fourth such delay and that she’s had to repeatedly jump through hoops to prove she’s on disability for PTSD.

“Monarch failed to say a couple documents were needed after I went to the office in August,” she says by email. “They’d sat on my paperwork since then, and if I hadn’t gone by their office recently, it would have still been incomplete. It’s ridiculous that someone would even have to lay bare their issues—multiple times, even—to be properly accommodated.”

Others face tricky obstacles as well.

Local artist Zienna Stewart also received the email about giving notice, and did so, but as the murky timeline played out, she learned her space in Siler Yard was not secured. Apparently, the gig worker tells SFR, she did not meet income requirements in the end. Werwath says he and Monarch are now aware that extrapolating income for gig workers and the self-employed is more complicated than originally thought, and Inter-Faith is creating a more comprehensive policy for working out that math. Stewart says she’s lucky in that she and her partner can stay with friends for the time being, but their stuff remains in storage and the application process with Monarch was stressful. Even now, she says, she’s trying to work out how to get approval.

“I feel sympathetic to them, of course, because it’s a huge project,” Stewart tells SFR, “but I feel so terrible for families who are in this situation.”

Werwath says he selected the Nov. 15 move-in date because it seemed possible at the time. After previous delays stretching back to the original August opening target date, he notes, the contractor, Albuquerque’s Pavilion Construction, was sure the first apartments would be ready by Nov. 1. They added two weeks to that timeline just to be safe. Then the delays kept coming. Siler Yard, for example, has a goal for net zero carbon emissions, and thus selected specific hybrid electric water heaters for the project. Those, Werwath says, are still stuck in the factory—and the contractor has been attempting to find replacements one at a time at Home Depot stores around the country.

Since they run on electricity, the water heaters require both plumbing and electrical inspections, which means they can’t be checked until after they they’re fully installed and operational. Werwath says the heaters should be inspected at some point between Nov. 10 and 16, but that is not the final building inspection. Additionally, he says, three of the four phase one buildings at Siler Yard share amenities, like classrooms, laundry facilities and a manager’s office. Because of this, and only after applying for water meters following a water inspection, did they learn the city only provides affordable housing offsets for the tenant units themselves and not for common assets—a challenge that came with a $60,000 price tag.

“After about a week of back and forth trying to figure out why rental projects have to provide these water rights transfers when homeownership projects get their laundry and landscaping included because they are all on one meter,” Werwath explains, “we finally gave in and just paid them money...and then it took about another week for them to get the meters in. All told, this took up about two weeks we didn’t anticipate.”

For now, Werwath says, he is hopeful tenants can start moving in Dec. 1, and that Inter-Faith Housing will work with any displaced Santa Feans to make sure they won’t go without a roof over their heads.

“We’re still working on details, but we’ve authorized funding to place fully qualified folks that were delayed on move-in with a hotel room with kitchenette starting on the 15th,” he tells SFR. “Still hoping to avoid this or only have this be for a few days. As far as we can tell at this point, I think there’s only a handful of families that will be affected and hopefully for less than a week. But we’ve set aside funding until Dec. 1 in case something else comes up.”

Hiccups were expected, Werwath adds. Siler Yard is the first project of its kind in Santa Fe, and kind of like “learning to fly the plane while building it—during a pandemic,” he says.

The city’s slow inspection system is also a known issue. In a letter to Mayor Alan Webber, the City Council and other officials from September, Santa Fe’s Land Use Working Group, which is composed of members from the Santa Fe Area Homebuilders Association, the Santa Fe Association of Realtors and other interested parties, wrote that “The backlog of permit applications, plan reviews, inspections and difficulty communicating efficiently with Land Use Staff remain untenable to all parties—exacerbating the housing crisis, and causing financial stressors on our industry that snowball into other areas of our fragile economy.”

Fragola, meanwhile, says her current housing is so cold that she wraps her newborn up in a snowsuit at night.

“We’re artists and we’re savvy with what little money we have, but the whole point was to not have to live that life anymore,” she says. “It’s triggering to a lot of us.”