Santa Cruz and Greenfield will receive nearly $35 million of the $825 million in affordable housing.

GREENFIELD, Calif. (KION-TV) – Governor Gavin Newsom announced Thursday that more than $825.5 million will be awarded to approximately 58 California communities for affordable housing in California through an expedited approval process.

The money is expected to be used to build about 9,550 homes across the state. This new application process aims to speed up the development of new projects while saving time and money locally.

The Greenfield Commons II project was awarded $9,181,000 to build 110 apartment buildings.

The Harvey West Studious project in Santa Cruz was awarded $25,291,951 to build 121 apartment buildings.

“As we demand more housing is built locally, the state has a responsibility to rethink and modernize our own approval process,” Governor Newsom said. “Government applications that were once redundant and overly bureaucratic are now streamlined to ensure projects don’t get stuck in an endless bureaucracy that favored process over production.”

This new process was brought about when Newsom signed Assembly Bill 434 into law. This allowed multiple housing applications to be narrowed down to a single award process.

“California Multifamily Super NOFA has transformed the once cumbersome and time-consuming process of applying for funding into an affordable and smart department store that will help build more homes faster,” said Lourdes Castro Ramirez, secretary of the Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency. “This results in new homes for working families, veterans, farm workers and homeless people. California will continue to act with urgency to find new, innovative solutions for fast-track housing.”

For a complete list of the first round awards, click here.