Alameda Point Housing: 2,300 Homes Stuck Behind 25 Vouchers

West End is the lowest-scoring neighborhood in Alameda and the most expensive one. Houseberry rates it 3.4 out of 5 overall, a full 1.2 points under Bay Farm Island, and its median sale price came in at about $1.45M in August 2026 against Bay Farm Island's $1.38M in July.

That is the neighborhood that contains Alameda Point, the former Naval Air Station at the island's western tip, and where a dispute over 25 federal rent vouchers is now holding up an 80-unit supportive housing project called Stardust Gardens and, behind it, what the San Francisco Chronicle counts as up to 2,300 Alameda Point homes. If you are shopping the island, that combination is the whole story.

What is actually stuck at Alameda Point

The short answer: an operating subsidy for 80 apartments, not a zoning fight. Stardust Gardens is built for people with little or no income, so rent alone cannot carry the building. MidPen Housing and the city asked the Housing Authority for 30 project-based vouchers, 25 of them replacing vouchers already attached to the aging Alameda Point Collaborative housing that Stardust Gardens replaces.

The Housing Authority said no, citing federal rules that require a competitive process rather than a direct transfer. The city pointed to a San Francisco precedent where a state grant competition satisfied that requirement. Board chair Carly Grob accused city staff of trying "to scapegoat the Housing Authority," per the Alameda Post. Mayor Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft's reply: "No one at this dais is asking for anything illegal to be done."

So the council built a workaround: a $25.5M backstop over 20 years, starting at $1M a year in 2029 and paid from Alameda Point lease revenues, not the General Fund. Councilmember Greg Boller said the city does not expect to spend it. It exists so MidPen could file for low-income housing tax credits by its September 8 deadline. (For a project this size, the tax credits are the money. Everything else is plumbing.)

Why 80 units hold up 2,300

Because the base is sequenced, and Stardust Gardens is the first domino. Alameda Point Collaborative residents move in, the old Navy housing they leave gets demolished, and only then can the rest of RESHAP and the neighboring West Midway site be built. Skip step one and nothing behind it moves.

The pieces we can verify from public documents:

• RESHAP (Rebuilding Existing Supportive Housing at Alameda Point) is 332 homes on 7.9 acres, 201 replacing existing supportive units and 131 new, per the City of Alameda and MidPen.
• West Midway, next door, is 478 homes on 26 acres from Catellus and Brookfield, approved in September 2023.
• Site A, the 68-acre Alameda Point Partners parcel by the Seaplane Lagoon ferry, had a further 610 homes approved in September 2022 for its later phases.

Those three alone are about 1,400 homes. The Chronicle's 2,300 counts the wider Alameda Point pipeline behind them, and we are quoting it as their figure, not ours. Either way, it is the largest block of new housing queued anywhere on the island, and a $44.5M state grant awarded in December 2025 is already committed to Stardust Gardens. Money on the table, waiting on paperwork.

West End Alameda vs Bay Farm Island: the four-neighborhood table

Here is the comparison that should be on every Alameda buyer's screen. We break the island into four neighborhoods, and the price order is almost the reverse of the score order.

Read the last row against the first. A West End buyer in August 2026 paid about $70,000 more than a Bay Farm Island buyer in July, for a neighborhood scoring 1.2 points lower overall and 1.9 lower on safety. East End, the Victorian-and-Craftsman half of the island around Park Street, splits the difference at 4.1 and $1.40M, and is the only other neighborhood at 4 or better on the Alameda schools ranking.

Why does the scoring laggard cost the most? Housing stock. Much of what sells in West End is newer construction, including Alameda Landing and the first Site A blocks by the ferry terminal, while Bay Farm Island's 1970s and 80s planned-community homes trade in a tighter band. That is the market pricing the house first and the neighborhood second, the habit we built the site to correct.

Is Alameda safe? What the scores actually say

Yes, by East Bay standards Alameda is one of the safer places to buy. The city's neighborhoods average 3.9 for safety in our data, against 3.0 in Oakland and 3.1 in Emeryville. The spread inside the island is the part worth studying.

On the safest neighborhoods in Alameda ranking, Bay Farm Island scores 4.9, East End and Coast Guard Island both score 3.9, and West End scores 3.0. That 1.9-point gap between Bay Farm and West End is the largest single-factor gap on the island, and it is the main reason West End ranks fourth overall despite a 3.9 amenities score that sits within a tenth of Bay Farm Island's 4.0.

What a 3.0 means in practice: middling, not alarming. West End runs from the Webster Street tube and the College of Alameda out to the empty runways at the Point, and the industrial edges pull the score down even where the residential blocks feel quiet. Read it as "check the specific block," not "avoid the west end of the island."

What this does and does not mean for buyers

It does mean West End has the worst price-per-score math on the island right now. Pay $1.45M there and you are buying newer construction, the ferry, and a bet on the Point, not the island's best schools or safety score.

It does not mean West End is a bad buy. The West End price history swung from $1.06M in January 2026 to $1.51M in July before settling at $1.45M in August, down 0.8 percent year over year. That is a small-sample neighborhood mixing condos and detached homes, so individual deals vary far more than the median suggests.

It also does not mean Bay Farm Island is cheap. Bay Farm Island dipped to $1.21M in April 2026 and was back to $1.38M by July, so its discount has narrowed. The honest trade-off: top scores on the island, and a longer drive to anything, since the whole neighborhood funnels through the Bay Farm Island Bridge and Doolittle Drive.

Alameda if this gets built, and if it does not

Built: roughly 2,300 homes land in a city of about 78,000 people over the next decade, nearly all of them in West End. RESHAP is entirely supportive and low-income housing, West Midway carries a 25 percent affordability requirement, and Site A adds 194 affordable units under its 2022 amendments. West End's amenities score is already 3.9, second on the island, and thousands of new residents around the Seaplane Lagoon ferry are how a 3.4 overall starts to look more like East End's 4.1. Not overnight. But density next to a ferry terminal is exactly how West End catches up.

Not built: the island stays a four-neighborhood market with almost no new supply, the citywide median keeps riding the $1.3M to $1.4M band it has held since 2025, and the Point stays what it has been for 29 years, a half-empty Navy base with a good brewery. Next to that, 25 vouchers are a rounding error.

Our read: the backstop was the right call, and it should never have been needed. Two public agencies in one small city could not agree on how to move 25 vouchers across a fence line, and that nearly cost a tax credit deadline on a project in planning since 2007. Watch the September 16 Housing Authority meeting. A permanent voucher fix keeps the backstop on paper and starts the dominoes. No fix, and the city spends real money on the first 80 homes so the next 2,200 can happen.

Quick answers

What is Stardust Gardens?

An 80-home supportive housing building by MidPen Housing at 451 Stardust Place, the first phase of the 332-home RESHAP rebuild at Alameda Point. It replaces former Navy housing that Alameda Point Collaborative residents have lived in for over 20 years.

Where is Alameda Point?

At the western tip of Alameda Island, west of Main Street, inside our West End neighborhood. The USS Hornet, the Seaplane Lagoon ferry to San Francisco, and the Spirits Alley distilleries are all on the old base.

Sources

San Francisco Chronicle, Alameda Point dispute could stall 2,300 homes at former Navy base: https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/housing-alameda-point-navy-base-22393544.php

The Registry, Voucher dispute threatens to stall 2,300 homes and MidPen's 80-unit Stardust Gardens: https://news.theregistrysf.com/voucher-dispute-threatens-to-stall-2300-homes-and-midpens-80-unit-stardust-gardens-at-alameda-point/

Alameda Post, City Council backs Stardust Gardens funding after Housing Authority dispute (Sept 4, 2026): https://alamedapost.com/news/city-council-backs-stardust-gardens-funding-after-housing-authority-dispute/

Alameda Post, State grants $44.5 million for supportive housing at Alameda Point (Dec 16, 2025): https://alamedapost.com/news/state-grants-44-5-million-supportive-housing-alameda-point/

City of Alameda, Alameda Point department page (RESHAP, West Midway, Site A): https://www.alamedaca.gov/Departments/Alameda-Point

MidPen Housing, RESHAP project page: https://www.midpen-housing.org/reshap/

Alameda Post, Council approves Site A amendments (Sept 9, 2022): https://alamedapost.com/news/council-approves-site-a-amendments/

Houseberry, Alameda neighborhoods ranked overall: https://www.houseberry.com/Nhranking/best-overall/Alameda-CA/

Houseberry, Safest neighborhoods in Alameda: https://www.houseberry.com/Nhranking/best-safety/Alameda-CA/

Houseberry, Best neighborhoods for schools in Alameda: https://www.houseberry.com/Nhranking/best-schools/Alameda-CA/

Houseberry, West End, Alameda neighborhood page: https://www.houseberry.com/Neighborhood/West-End-Alameda/

Houseberry, Bay Farm Island, Alameda neighborhood page: https://www.houseberry.com/Neighborhood/Bay-Farm-Island-Alameda/

Houseberry, Alameda city page: https://www.houseberry.com/City/Alameda-CA/