Zen Development - Helping to Rebuild from the 2018 Camp Fire
The Camp fire sucked! It was the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California's history and the most expensive natural disaster in the world in 2018, with estimated losses of $16.5 billion. The towns of Paradise and Magalia were razed, and the population of Paradise went from around 26,000 to around 6,000, displacing over 20,000 people to find housing in an already tight housing market, with a case of PTSD in tow.
Zen Development (“ZD”) is pleased and honored to be playing a leadership role in replacing the vast quantity of affordable housing that was destroyed. Together with our partners, ZD has over 400 new senior and family LIHTC apartments in its development pipeline, with the first phase under construction and delivery of all 400 expected over the next 4 years.
We are particularly jazzed about Derra Design’s farm chic stylings of some of our Paradise developments, the style of which was in large part driven by community input. The municipalities, community groups, and individual citizens have been - and continue to be - wonderful partners in our efforts. If only all municipalities were this much of a pleasure to work with!!! Special thanks to Kate Anderson and Susan Hartman from the Town of Paradise and Amy Bergstrand and Wes Ervin from City of Oroville.
While we don’t want to be fire chasers (!), rebuilding from wildfires is a reality we are apparently going to have to learn to live with. ZD looks forward to continuing to work within this niche to meet the pressing need of putting our most vulnerable citizens back into safe, secure, attractive - and most importantly – affordable, housing. Please reach out if you are interested in partnering on fire reconstruction efforts! More details to come on ZD’s adventures in affordable housing…
Zen Sawyer
Principal
Zen Development
Thanks to Our Partners
California Vocations (a service provider for developmentally disabled adults)
Sunseri Construction
Northstar Engineering
Derra Design
SVA Architects
Anders and Falltrick Architects
Adams Ashby Group
The Richman Group
Housing Authority of County of Butte
Mercy Housing California
Community Housing Improvement Program (“CHIP”)
Kingdom Development
The Town of Paradise
The City of Oroville
…and many others
