Todd Cottle is a principal at C&C Development, a longtime real estate development firm with a focus on affordable housing.
Headquartered in Southern California, the firm’s work has included new construction, adapt-reuse, and rehabilitation projects.
Cottle reflects on an affordable housing development that continues to remind him about the importance of relationships in the industry.
Name of development: Serrano Woods
Location: Orange, California
Briefly describe the development:
Jim Doyle, Applied Photography
Developed by C&C Development and Orange Housing Development, Serrano Woods provides 63 homes in Orange, California.
Built in 2011 by C&C Development and Orange Housing Development within a constrained urban area, Serrano Woods is a family-oriented, affordable workforce housing community that features four two-and-three-story podium buildings with a total of 63 apartment units.
The community was built on a vacant parcel of land bought from an existing church which allowed the church to remain in place. During the entitlement phase, input was solicited and utilized for guidance in the design and development of Serrano Woods. C&C designed the property as garden-style walkups, encompassing 42 two-bedroom and 21 three-bedroom units served by a combination of surface and underground parking. The buildings are a melding of contemporary and Mediterranean influences to complement and enrich the surrounding neighborhoods. The property includes laundry facilities and a 2,200-square-foot community room where after-school programs, ESL programs, and a wide variety of social service programs are offered. The property also features two tot lots and approximately 33,000 square feet of open/community space and amenities. Serrano Woods is also LEED Gold certified.
Your role in the project: Developer overseeing the project.
Share why this development is meaningful to you:
While C&C was under construction on Serrano Woods, the state of California asked for $7 million of funding to be returned, as part of the dissolution at that time of redevelopment agencies. While that is not what makes this project meaningful, it was the immediate response from the city and our funding partners that was truly significant to me. It was a very trying time, but the city of Orange stepped up and loaned us the additional $7 million to backfill the loss from the state. More than that, the entire team came together and helped repackage the project so it would still work with the new financing from the city. We were fortunate in the first place that the city had that money to ensure the project could continue. The construction lender was Bank of America, who’s our current lender now for construction, and National Equity Fund, who’s our current low-income housing tax credit investor. Working through all of that uncertainty with that team to restructure the project allowed the construction to continue uninterrupted and C&C delivered the project as originally intended.
Lesson learned from this development:
My greatest takeaway from this development is the importance, especially in our industry, of resilience and teamwork. It highlighted for me how resilient our financing partners could be and reinforced even further the value of relationships with every team member within a transaction. We overcame that immediate financial loss because everybody worked together. Now, it gives me a high degree of confidence that we can solve whatever issue that we’re going to come across on any project.
How has this development changed your life?
Even now, more than 10 years later, we’ve continued to work with that same financing team, and we’re close to two deals with them right now. We have seven affordable housing communities that we developed and still own in the city of Orange, which further underscores the value of our public-sector relationships, and appreciation that the city values C&C as a long-term partner.
“The Development That Changed My Life” Series
“The Development That Changed My Life” is a new series by Affordable Housing Finance. If you would like to take part and share a project that has been meaningful to you, contact Donna Kimura at dkimura@zondahome.com.
Read other stories in the series:
Bob Simpson, founder and CEO of the Multifamily Impact Council and former Fannie Mae executive, tells the story of a development on the Blackfeet Native American Reservation in Browning, Montana.
Kimball Crangle, Colorado market president for Gorman & Co., discusses Vista Verde, an inspiring community for workers in Breckenridge, Colorado.
Larry Curtis, president and managing partner of WinnDevelopment, discusses the importance of The Apartments & Lofts at Boott Mills in his life.
When I look at what’s happening at the federal level, there is a great deal of fluidity with funding sources and ambiguity on whether some funding sources are going to be there in the future. But from that initial experience with the Serrano Woods team and since then, I’m confident that collectively we’ll navigate it all as an industry. We always do. Moreover, there is great value in having long-term partners because they’re committed to do what takes to get the project done.
