VTA’s Transit-Oriented Communities team is excited to announce that the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) has awarded $500,000 in Technical Assistance for VTA’s Great Mall and River Oaks Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) sites, with an additional $125,000 of potential funding for the Hostetter TOD site.

MTC is the planning organization that coordinates between the nine-county Bay Area and disperses state and federal funding for planning projects throughout the region. Last year, MTC announced the Priority Site pilot program, which seeks to support the development of affordable and mixed-income housing on underutilized land, including publicly owned sites and former malls or office parks. This program aims to provide pre-development funding and technical assistance for affordable and mixed-income housing developments located on properties designated as Priority Sites. Twenty-one of VTA’s TOD sites, including Great Mall, River Oaks, and Hostetter, were designated as Priority Sites by MTC in 2023.

These Technical Assistance awards will go towards site planning, initial design, due diligence, community engagement, and solicitation support as we prepare these sites to be released to the developer community for proposals. This funding will support vitally important tasks to ensure that sites are attractive and well-positioned for future development, allowing our developer partners to create thoughtful, inclusive projects with substantial amounts of greatly needed affordable housing next to transit stations, increasing ridership, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and working to address the regional housing crisis.

The three sites have a combined capacity of over 950 housing units, including over 200 affordable units for households earning 60% of area median income (AMI) and below. In 2023, 60% AMI is a household income of $107,040 or less for a family of four.

The VTA Transit-Oriented Communities Policy, revised in 2024, requires that at least 25% of units in any housing development on our land must be affordable at 60% AMI and below, and at least 40% of the units across the portfolio must be affordable at 60% AMI. Further, at least half of all affordable units must be affordable to households earning 50% AMI and below. The Transit-Oriented Communities program projects that at full build-out, VTA’s portfolio will generate millions of dollars in annual revenue from development to support transit operations.