Silicon Valley land trust begins repairs on aging apartments

Come this spring, plumbing problems, sinking floors and decaying walls will no longer be issues for the low-income families living at an East San Jose apartment complex — thanks to a nonprofit’s effort to preserve the city’s shrinking unsubsidized affordable housing stock.

Construction has begun at The Virginian Apartments, located at 1718, 1724 and 1730 Virginia Ave. to rehabilitate the decades-old complex. The South Bay Community Land Trust, which owns the property, plans to overhaul the crumbling sewer system, replace dusty carpets with hardwood flooring, install new toilets, showers and appliances, provide new cabinets, update electrical wiring and more.

This is only possible because the land trust owns the apartment buildings and land, which ensures the complex stays affordable for 17 households.

“(I feel) very fortunate that there will be a lot of changes,” resident Maria Garcia, 45, told San José Spotlight through a Spanish-speaking translator. “We’ll be able to still pay an affordable rent because we know how high the rent is here.”

Land trusts play a pivotal role in preserving affordable housing by taking homes off the open market and placing them in a land trust for 100 years. Then it can’t be sold without approval from all of the residents.

In addition, land trusts give tenants the option to buy the property at an affordable rate, while the trust owns the land to ensure affordability will be maintained for decades to come.

The land trust acquired the buildings in 2024 after it learned the apartment complex was on the market. The trust calculated the site’s purchase price and improvement costs to be $11 million. It secured a $5 million loan from the city, as well as additional funding from groups including the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority and Destination: Home.

“South Bay Community Land Trust is deeply grateful for the support of Councilmember Peter Ortiz and the San Jose Housing Department,” Sandy Perry, the land trust’s board vice president, told San José Spotlight. “Without their assistance, this project would not have been possible and these tenants would not have been protected from displacement.”

Residents said they felt fearful when they saw investors scoping out the buildings a few years ago. They worried that they would kick them out in order to renovate the complex and bring the rent up to market rate.

“(Investors) for sure would have jacked up the rent,” Ramiro Urdiano, 68, told San José Spotlight through a Spanish-speaking translator. “If it would not have been for the collaboration (with the land trust), we would not know where we would be.”

Urdiano and his family have lived at the apartment complex for 30 years. He lives in a two-bedroom apartment with his wife, one of his sons and a grandchild, paying $1,684 a month for rent. He is no longer working after suffering a stroke four years ago. He relies on his son to pay the bills.

“It’s very hard for us,” Urdiano said.

Many families at The Virginian Apartments have also lived there for years, allowing them to pay minimal prices due to San Jose’s rent control policy that caps annual rent increases at 5%. But this only covers homes built and occupied before 1979, which is approximately 38,000 apartments.

But once a tenant moves out, the landlord can raise rent to market rates regardless of whether it’s rent stabilized. From 2012 to 2017, Santa Clara County lost about half of its unsubsidized affordable homes as people moved out of rent-stabilized apartments, according to a report by Enterprise Community Partners.

There’s about 50 community land trusts active across California, and they’re growing in numbers, Liz Gonzalez, board president of the South Bay Community Land Trust, said.

“Land trusts are important because it’s one of the only options for lower-resource families to become owners of their homes, to be able to stay in the neighborhoods that they have been a part of for decades,” Gonzalez told San José Spotlight. “Folks are really protected from displacement in a way that the regular market just doesn’t care about.”

The land trust has no plans to increase rent for the 67 tenants who live at The Virginian Apartments after the rehabilitation is complete. In some cases, the land trust is even looking to lower costs for the families spending a majority of their income on rent.

The Virginian Apartments is the land trust’s second endeavor. In 2023, the group acquired a fourplex building in downtown San Jose, home to 10 low-income residents of color, most who have previously experienced homelessness.

“I’m so happy and proud (about The Virginian Apartments), especially that it’s a project in East San Jose where we are so under-resourced,” Gonzalez said. “We’re from the East Side ourselves. We can create changes in our community, and we can decide what is best for us, and figure out ways that we continue to stay in our community and contribute to it.”

Contact Joyce Chu at [email protected] or @joyce_speaks on X.