By Linda Taaffe

The Los Altos City Council gave local school teachers a better chance of qualifying for a condominium in the city’s first exclusively affordable housing complex last week by reclassifying the eight rental units from very-low income to low-income.

Most Los Altos teachers earn more than $39,300 annually, the maximum amount a three-person household may earn in order to qualify financially for a very-low-income housing unit under state law.

The council gave developer Jeff Warmoth the go-ahead Sept. 25 to begin his proposed mixed-use complex that includes the eight low-income rental units and a two-story, 6,000-square-foot office complex on the 23,000-square-foot lot adjacent to Bank of America, bordered by Loraine, Maple and Fremont avenues.

Neighbors have protested the project’s size since it came in front of the council earlier this year.

Last week’s approved plan is more than double the size allowed in the city’s Specific Plan for Loyola Corners.

The specific plan had slated the site for an approximately 2,000-square-foot retail development with three town houses. The initial proposal had included 12 affordable units for the site.

The city approved the eight rental units for that site as part of a swap with the Tree Farm project for which the units were initially planned.

Warmoth transferred the eight rental units to the Loyola site after the council decided a hotel and housing at Tree Farm wouldn’t be “the right mix.”

State law requires cities to provide affordable housing within their boundaries. The city must attain six very-low income, below-market-rate units by the end of this year in order to meet its goal.

The eight Loyola units do not count toward that number, since the city already counted them as part of the Marriott Residence Inn development.

Under the Tree Farm agreement, the developers needed to designate 10 percent of the project as very low-income or 20 percent low-income.

By reclassifying the units, the city ended up with fewer low-income units than the original agreement would have required.

Warmoth will not be able to open the office until the affordable units are complete.

He anticipated completing the project over the next year, he told the council.