GILROY
– Hundreds of residents of Los Arroyos gathered Saturday to
celebrate and mark the completion of what Mayor Tom Springer
called
”
the melting pot of Gilroy.
”
The dream of home ownership is a reality for residents of Los Arroyos
By SANDRA MARLOWE
Special to The Dispatch
GILROY – Hundreds of residents of Los Arroyos gathered Saturday to celebrate and mark the completion of what Mayor Tom Springer called “the melting pot of Gilroy.”
The Los Arroyos housing development is a master-planned neighborhood located in north Gilroy. Forty percent of the development’s 373 homes are current market-rate dwellings, while 60 percent have some form of subsidization from financial help to sweat-equity – where homeowners become carpenters, painters and landscapers to help complete the construction of their homes.
The Juarez family, residents of Los Arroyos for almost two years, bought while the project was still in planning, and waited eight months for their home to be ready.
“Choosing a floor and tiles, that’s when it hit us we were homeowners,” they said. “Our three children love it; they always want to be home and go play with their friends. We feel safe and that’s the most important thing for us. Owning a home has changed our life.”
The day’s festivities, held at the development’s future park site on the corner of Hirasaki and Moro Drive, included bounce houses and activities for kids and a program of high accolades in the form of proclamations and presentations bestowed by local, state and federal officials upon the community, its creators, developers and contributors. The afternoon was topped off by a free lunch of pasta and garlic bread for all attendees.
“This is the culmination of a lot of years’ and a lot of people’s efforts, and I hope that’s really obvious in the celebration today,” said Dennis Lalor, executive director for South County Housing. “It’s exciting and gratifying to see this day arrive.”
South County Housing is a nonprofit developer of affordable housing for very-low to moderate income people. It joined with the city of Gilroy, Santa Clara County, federal agencies such as Housing and Urban Development and private lending institutions on the Los Arroyos project with a vision of creating a community that encompassed a broad range of income earners, families, seniors and disabled adults. Los Arroyos also includes a childcare center and a neighborhood park to be completed in 2005.
“This is a historical neighborhood because of the family values,” said Richard Rainey, a regional director for HUD. “It’s old-fashioned in a good sense – people getting together from all spectrums on the economic scale. That’s what a community is about. It’s everyone, it’s not just people in the lower or upper economic strata. It’s all of those people working together. I think that’s what so important about this project.”
Senior Project Manager Karen Saunders, who has worked since 1997 to put this project together, said a driving part of South County Housing’s philosophy was blending the aesthetics of homes purchased by various income groups in the same neighborhood. Their goal was that there be no apparent differentiation, other than perhaps size, as people drove down the street.
“It’s a pretty unique community,” Saunders said. “We tend to build communities that have diversity of income, diversity of architectural styles to create a neighborhood; our primary interest is in creating neighborhood and community where everyone can have their own house, feel secure in the neighborhood and want to stay for a long time. We rarely have houses sell after people buy them.”
Cindy Reed, a single, working mom with a son and a resident of Los Arroyos since May 2002, said “I’m never leaving. … I tell people ‘they’re taking me out of here feet first.’ ”
Cindy had lived in Gilroy for 20 years as a renter when she heard of the lottery held for self-help homes at the beginning of the Los Arroyos development.
“I was number 214, and I didn’t get in. But life went on (as an apartment dweller), time passed, and I thought ‘well God, I guess this is where you want me to live.’ Three days after that, news came that my number had come up – I was ecstatic.”
Cindy and her son were part of a group that built 10 sweat-equity homes.
“We did a bit of everything – built window sills, put up sideboard, cut two-by-fours, stacked wood, shoveled dirt, even laid rebar,” she said. “Everybody worked on everyone’s houses, so we all got to know each other.”
Councilmen Peter Arellano and Charlie Morales, in attendance for the celebration, presented a City of Gilroy proclamation signed by Springer congratulating South County Housing for its innovation, determination and achievement. The city designated Sept. 20, 2003, as Los Arroyos Neighborhood Celebration Day.
According to Springer, the Los Arroyos project is finished except for the city’s part. The city will begin constructing the park in spring 2004.
“This will be about an 18-month cycle, because they put down real grass from seed, not sod. … We’ll have an excellent park here for community use, complementing the childcare center and being truly the center of this community,” Springer said.
“I think folks in the beginning were very shy of what was going to happen over here,” said Springer, summing up the success of Los Arroyos. “But now they’ve seen the realization of the dream. We have achieved a blended community here. It’s a model for what the rest of California ought to look at doing. … It’s just been a major win.”
