The San Diego Unified School Board is weighing recommendations to build 1,000 income-restricted apartments on five of its properties across the city, with a goal of housing 10% of its employees within the next decade, in what would mark a significant expansion of the district’s decade-old real estate strategy.

“The time has come for us to set some bold but achievable long-term goals together,” Lee Dulgeroff, the district’s facilities executive director, said at a board workshop last week.

School districts around California are increasingly pursuing the idea of building affordable housing for employees as a way to improve recruitment and retention amid a worsening housing crisis.

That idea has become the hallmark of San Diego Unified’s ongoing real estate strategy, in which it has recruited developers to build housing on district-owned land via joint-occupancy lease agreements.

Under the arrangement, the district gets to keep valuable land under its ownership while it collects a share of the developer’s revenue. And the money it collects is unrestricted — the district can use it for any part of its budget, unlike many kinds of federal and state funding.

About 50 low-income families of district employees are already living in the district’s mixed-income Livia development in Scripps Ranch, which otherwise contains primarily above-market-rate apartments. And in April, the district accepted a developer’s proposal to build 270 rent-restricted units for low- and moderate-income families of district staff, as well as 57 units for seniors, at the former site of Central Elementary in City Heights.

District leaders are hoping to add more units to their housing stock soon. In a recent staff survey of interest in affordable housing, most reported that they had a low to moderate household income, were interested in district-provided housing and struggled to afford housing costs.

This week the school board heard housing recommendations drawn up by the LeSar Development Consultants firm that suggest the district could build 1,000 income-restricted apartments at five district-owned sites, all of which currently house administrative buildings or vacant land. Those sites are:

—Eugene Brucker Center in University Heights: 13.5-acre property that could have 375 moderate-income units and 125 low-income units

—Ballard Center in Old Town: 4.4-acre property that could have 234 moderate-income units

—Revere Center in Linda Vista: 6.2-acre property that could have 90 low-income units

—Instructional Media Center in Serra Mesa: 1.9-acre property that could have 81 moderate-income units

—2101 Commercial Street property in Logan Heights: a 0.4-acre property that could have 101 low-income units

The moderate-income units would be for district employees whose families have household incomes between 80% and 120% of San Diego County’s area median income, which is $100,400 for an individual and $143,400 for a family of four, according to Craig Adelman, senior principal at LeSar Development Consultants.

The low-income units would be for employees with household incomes of up to 80% of the area median income, or up to $84,900 for an individual or $121,250 for a family of four.

But realistically, to compete for affordable housing aid, families would actually need to make no more than 60% of the area median income, or up to $63,680 for an individual and $90,940 for a family of four, Adelman said.

Adelman also suggested two example models for financing the district’s housing.

One would primarily use low-income tax credits, plus long-term bank mortgage and state and local funding, to build low-income housing. That plan could come out to a development cost of about $719,000 per unit.

The other model would mostly be financed through a permanent loan and could cost about $430,000 per unit to build.

The district has also set aside about $206 million in bond funding from its Measure U, which voters passed two years ago, just for housing.

Planning for district housing is complex, Adelman said, because funding sources such as public affordable housing programs and the district’s bond funding cannot always be mixed to fund the same projects. He also said it’s difficult to mix low- and moderate-income housing because of strings attached to low-income housing aid programs.

Adelman added that there have been “extreme” increases in construction costs in recent years that exceed the pace of inflation.

The affordable housing programs available are mainly focused on low-income families and don’t really offer housing help for moderate-income families, which is a major need in San Diego Unified. And affordable housing programs, such as tax-exempt affordable housing bonds, have become very competitive in California, Adelman added.

LeSar’s plans only discussed housing for employees — but student school board Trustee Quinton Baldis said the district should also consider housing for students and their families. Many students’ families are experiencing housing insecurity or leaving the district because it’s too expensive.

“I truly feel like providing homes and affordable housing for our students is aligned more with our goals and guardrails as a district,” Baldis said.

In response, Dulgeroff suggested the district could consider housing for students and families in the future. He also suggested that housing could even be built on existing school properties.

Board Trustee Cody Petterson said he is concerned about the idea of segregating the district’s housing developments by income, with some developments entirely for low-income families — primarily non-teacher employees — in certain neighborhoods and projects for higher-earning families in others.

“That to me is, for lack of a better word, toxic,” Petterson said.

Jennifer LeSar, CEO of the LeSar firm, instead urged the board to move forward with the plans and see what developers propose.

“We have a really smart development community in San Diego and in California,” LeSar said. “I would say you should start with what you want and not solve all the problems. And the developers will tell you.”

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