Affordability
Living Costs
College Heights reduces the cost housing, energy and transportation.
Housing costs are substantially lower than conventional construction because of four-square construction, three-story row housing, integrated roofs and many other cost savings.
HOA dues cover the costs of maintenance and operations.
Transportation costs are low because most trips can be made by walking, bicycling, the Village Bus and other mobility features made possible by compact development and location on the corridor between the CSUEB campus and the BART station. Public cars are Lyft/Uber, car share. Major savings can be achieved by not owning a private car, which is possible living in College Heights.
Costs of Housing and Passive Energy
| Unit Type | # Units by Type | sq ft | Total sq ft | Unit sale price |
| studio | 24 | 512 | 12,288 | $ 330,831 |
| 1 bed | 181 | 704 | 127,424 | $ 443,520 |
| 2 Bed 1 bath | 97 | 936 | 90,792 | $ 571,410 |
| 2 Bed 2 bath | 97 | 1,080 | 104,760 | $ 646,235 |
| 3 Bed Flat | 110 | 1,360 | 149,600 | $ 781,738 |
| 3 Bed TH | 80 | 1,536 | 122,880 | $ 860,160 |
| 4 Bed TH | 108 | 1,728 | 186,624 | $ 939,766 |
| 5 Bed TH | 35 | 2,112 | 73,920 | $ 1,080,369 |
Housing and Parking Costs
Cost of Land
Efficient lot and building design combine to increase the number of units on the same land area, reducing the land cost per residential unit.
Cost of Right-of-Way (ROW)
Typical suburban ROWs run from 40 to 56 feet wide. College Heights ROW is currently designed so all walkways are 20 feet wide, reducing land needs from 50 feet by 60 percent.
Cost of parking
Parking, and the streets to reach it, takes up land area, and is costly to build.
Of particular interest to us is the high cost of “parking under,” which is parking built within the unit, like a garage, which gets parking off the street and into the house.
College Heights addresses the parking issue with podium parking, which is a common parking area built underneath the development. Since the parking area takes advantage of the existing terrain, no land area is taken away from housing and other amenities. Second, stairways down to the parking area create a number of convenient access points. Third, the volume of the parking structure reduces the amount of cut-fill needed. Fourth, residents pay the cost of parking through leases, reducing the cost of living space – voluntarily paying only for the parking they need.
Cost of Lots and building
Linear infrastructure, number of lots and units
College Heights lots have row housing with abutting walls or common walls and no side yards. These features, combined with narrow lots, increases the number of units per mile of ROW, reducing the cost per unit for ROW and street utilities.
Double loading
College Heights has units on both sides of the walkways, reducing linear costs per unit, compared with building on only one side.
Cost of Building construction
Three-story construction is not only efficient for energy but also for construction. Wood frame construction up to five or six stories is less expensive than other technologies as well as being strong, fast, and versatile. Wood frame for three stories has an optimal cost for amount of living area covered by a roof. College Heights uses three stories because it is more aesthetically pleasing than higher buildings and avoids the need for elevators. Three story townhouses have become acceptable in the Hayward area housing market.
Common utility chases for co-locating plumbing, electrical, and HVAC.
Common walls of row houses, unlike the exterior walls, can be thin, using 2×4 stud framing with no loss of insulation between units for soundproofing.
Four-square foundations reduce costs compared to building extra corners in non-rectangular units.
Switchback stairways in some floor plans deliver people to a central hallway midway between the units, avoiding the extra space needed by a straight “shotgun” stairway that delivers people to one end and requires a long hallway to bring people to the other end.
Simple floor plans minimize the footprint of interior walls within the overall floor area, getting more living space than floor plans with extra walls. The wall area is kept to about five percent of the gross floor area.
These features discussed above save about 20 percent on housing construction costs.
Cost of Energy
The passive and active energy systems have high capital costs, but low operating costs with significant life cycle savings and benefits for the environment. As discussed on the Sustainability page, the cost of energy in College Heights will be lower than typical PG&E energy costs.
HUD Affordability for Moderate Incomes
Affordability is determined by an analysis following HUD guidelines. For the College Heights project, the HUD upper limit for moderate income households is 120% of the median income in Alameda County.
The guidelines restrict housing costs to 35% of income. Housing costs are defined as mortgage, property taxes, insurance, and HOA dues. The mortgage estimate assumes 10 percent down, 30 years, and 7.61 percent interest (2023 rates at the time of this writing). The property tax estimate is based on https://www.acassessor.org/homeowners/about-property-assessment/estimating-your-taxes/). The Alameda county tax rate is 1.2% of assessed value.
The table below is based on unit type, household size, purchase price, price after 10% down, the current fixed interest rate over 30 years, the resulting mortgage amortization, HOA dues, property taxes, homeowners insurance, total living expenses, and the income limit for moderate income.
| College Heights Affordability and HUD limits All Three = HOA dues, Taxes and Insurance | |||||||
| Type | Mortgage | All Three | = Cost | H’d size | HUD Limit | Qualifies at 7.61% | 5.00% | |
| Studio | $ 2,104 | $ 613 | $ 2,717 | 1 | $ 3,437 | yes | yes |
| 1-bed | $ 2,821 | $ 774 | $ 3,595 | 2 | $ 3,927 | yes | yes |
| 2-bed 1-bath | $ 3,635 | $ 958 | $ 4,592 | 3 | $ 4,417 | no | yes |
| 2-bed 2-bath | $ 4,111 | $ 1,065 | $ 5,176 | 3 | $ 4,907 | no | yes |
| 3-bed flat | $ 4,973 | $ 1,260 | $ 6,233 | 4 | $ 5,300 | no | yes |
| 3-bed TH | $ 5,471 | $ 1,374 | $ 6,845 | 4 | $ 5,692 | no | yes |
| 4-bed TH | $ 5,978 | $ 1,489 | $ 7,467 | 5 | $ 6,086 | no | yes |
| 5-bed TH | $ 6,872 | $ 1,695 | $ 8,567 | 6 | $ 6,477 | no | no |
The City of Hayward Affordable Housing Ordinance requires that 15 percent of units be affordable for moderate income households. At 2023 interest rates, we found that only studios and 1-beds qualified for moderate income buyers, but that is 28% of total units, more than meeting Hayward’s requirements. We achieve it without subsidy, but with aggressive use of cost-reducing policies.
The number of units qualifying is highly sensitive to mortgage interest rates. Many more units become affordable with a 2.61% reduction in the interest rate. We looked into what a lower interest rate could do for affordability. We calculated the housing prices based on 5% mortgage interest rate and discovered that all the units from studios to four bedroom qualified for moderate incomes. Obviously, the interest rates make a huge difference for affordability and vary more than the price of the house, the insurance, or the property tax.
Cost of car ownership
The discussion above assumes the resident owns a car and leases a space. The design of the project makes it easy to live without a car. The costs of mobility in College Heights are in the HOA dues and using public cars, which add up to considerably less than car ownership. An estimate of savings shown in the table below is over $8,000 per year.
The parking spot lease rate alone is not a big deterrent to car ownership, but the cost of owning a car is. For many urbanities, it is expensive, unnecessary, and even inconvenient. A large number of people in the central Bay Area rely on walking, biking, ride services, and transit. College Heights has a cost of mobility below that of suburbia while providing comparable mobility.
| Cost savings from car-free living | |
| Monthly savings from not leasing one parking space | $90 |
| Monthly savings from not owning a car | $900 |
| Monthly average cost of TDM | Minus $102 |
| Monthly possible costs of 8 to 10 rides in a public car | Minus $200 |
| Monthly benefit | $688 |
| Yearly benefit | $8,256 |
In a larger context, reducing car ownership has benefits for society: reduced car-related infrastructure costs, pavement operating and maintenance costs, traffic, and external costs.