A Sacramento Region Transit light rail train whizzes by as Tyrone Roderick Williams, Director of Development for the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency, points north half a block from the Twin Rivers Community Center.
"From where we are we can see the new site of the Dos Rios Train Station,” Williams says. “We have already acquired the property. We have already gone through the early environmental aspects of the property. This is not only going to be a train stop, but the plan and the vision is that housing will be built right next to it."
The $17.5 million project is just one part of a $23 million grant of cap-and-trade funds through the California Strategic Growth Council. It has programs that spend billions of cap-and-trade dollars toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Another $5.5.million will go toward the demolition and rebuild of the Twin Rivers housing project, solar installations, a community garden and 500 trees.
SacRT General Manager and CEO Henri Li says some of the money will go to moving the existing tracks on 12th Street. He praised the work put in by SHRA, SacRT, the private developer firm of McCormack Baron Salazar and the Sacramento Tree Foundation.
“This is a wonderful partnership among the different agencies and organizations. We should continue to do things like this to further elevate this region,” Li said.
Howard Jones is a Twin Rivers resident who supports the new station.
"The closest one is Alkali Flat and that's a very, very long walk, especially in the cold or hot weather and then it's questionable walking down there because there's three homeless camps on the way there," Jones said before attending the news conference announcing the grant.
The city has already moved Johnson and almost all of the residents of the Twin Rivers low-income housing project to other locations in anticipation of demolishing the buildings and building 104 housing units.
City Councilman Jeff Harris says the city will work to develop mixed-income housing behind the station when it's completed.
"This is the front door to our city from the north area and when people come through here and they see Twin Rivers it's going to be very special," Harris said.
The station is scheduled to be completed in five years.
Correction: A previous headline for this story misidentified which agency is the recipient of the grant. It is the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency.
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