In a surprising about-face, the Santa Fe County Housing Authority Board decided Tuesday not to fund any of three affordable-housing projects it had been considering and instead will start over with an eye toward developing county-owned property.

The decision came after a meeting in which Housing Authority staff members were forced to make on-the-spot calculations to answer pointed questions posed by County Commissioner Liz Stefanics regarding the true costs the county would incur in each of the three scenarios being considered in privately owned developments.

The seven-member board, which includes all five county commissioners, since January has been trying to select a project that would be funded with $2 million generated from previous sales of public housing.

The exact costs associated with each of the proposed projects — which came in response to the county's request for ideas on housing projects — have been somewhat difficult to calculate. Even during Tuesday's meeting, two of the would-be developers argued that numbers county staff provided in summaries of each project didn't accurately reflect their proposals.

Part of the reason for the confusion was that the developers hadn't been told about federal Department of Housing and Urban Development rules governing prices for subsidized housing. So developers who anticipated selling some units at higher prices to subsidize lower-priced units had to adjust to their figures, based on how much the houses could be sold for under HUD rules. Other variables related to county subsidies also created varying cost estimates.

"Let's get the entire range (of cost estimates)," Stefanics said. "We are looking at public dollars. Let's be clear about what public dollars we are voting to spend."

After making a few last-minute calculations, County Housing Authority Director Dodi Salazar told the commission that in a worst-case scenario:

• The proposed La Querencia project — 23 homes in the La Pradera subdivision off N.M. 14 — could cost the county as much as $5.7 million.
• The proposed Daniel Buck Construction project — seven homes in the Oshara Village Subdivision south of the city — could cost the county as much as $1.5 million.
• The potential cost associated with the Santa Fe Green Builders Guild project — in which the county would buy 60 lots and sell them to various entities for the construction of affordable homes in Tierra Contenta — could not be immediately calculated.

After Salazar's delivery of these numbers, County Commissioner Michael Anaya expressed an unwillingness to approve any of the three projects.

Anaya said the board seemed to have gotten "off course" in its recent efforts to spend the money quickly and was ignoring the advice of a consultant hired less than two years ago for more than $200,000 to examine the affordable housing issue.

That consultant, Anaya said, had suggested the county build housing on the county-owned site of the former Public Works facility on Galisteo Street near the proposed Rail Runner Express train station at Zia Road.

Anaya said every time the three developers were sent back to tweak their projects over the past few months, he had thought, "What are we doing? What are we doing?"

"I apologize for sending you back," Anaya said. "I should have spoken up sooner. But I believe we are going down the wrong path."

Commissioner Kathy Holian made a motion that the board refuse all three projects. Commissioner Liz Stefanics seconded the motion and all but one of the other board members present voted in favor of the motion. Commissioner Virginia Vigil was not present.

Commissioner Harry Montoya, who cast the lone vote against refusing the proposals, expressed frustration that the county had yet to create any affordable housing with the money — which has been in the bank for about eight years.

"In terms of doing something," Montoya said, "we are just letting it slip away again."

The board told the housing authority staff to develop information about the feasibility of building affordable housing on the approximately six-acre Galisteo Street property.

A fueling station for county vehicles once was on the land and some have speculated that there could be petroleum contamination on the site as a result. But county project manager Joseph Gutierrez said the old tanks already have been removed and they don't appear to have leaked. Gutierrez said a more thorough environmental assessment of the property will be done after the site is cleared of existing structures.

The board also directed staff to consider the newly acquired Santa Fe Canyon Ranch property in La Cienega as a possible site for housing.

Contact Phaedra Haywood at 986-3068 or phaywood@sfnewmexican.com.