Vanessa Delgado: SCAQMD Chair & Mission-Driven Developer
Last week, the South Coast AQMD Board voted to reject proposed amendments to Rules 1111 and 1121, which would have set increasing targets for sales of zero-emission water heaters and furnaces over the next decade. VX News interviewed SCAQMD Board Chair, Vanessa Delgado, who is also President of Azure Development, to elaborate on the outcome and reflect on how her work in real estate and public policy is rooted in personal experience and driven by community impact.
“I believe that doing projects in Boyle Heights and being a Latina from the area means I commit to trying to show others how it can be done differently.”
Vanessa, in this interview, we want to cover some of the critical public policy issues that span the breadth of your experience as both a mission-driven real estate developer and as Board Chair of the South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD).
Let’s begin with your role as President of Azure Development? What inspired Azure, and what market niche does it occupy?
I’ve been in development for decades, and I wanted to try to launch my own firm dedicated to working on housing projects, which was my passion. I took a sabbatical from my job, thought it over, ran for office in the City of Montebello, and decided that that’s what I wanted to do.
I started my firm from my garage—I had my Steve Jobs moment. I took my daughter’s college tuition money—she was a sophomore in high school at the time—and thought, you know what, I’m gonna do this. That’s quite literally how I started my firm, and to date, I’m the only Latina owner of a housing development company in California.
What is Azure developing/building?
Our first project was a bit of a legacy, a tribute to my family. We’re from Boyle Heights, and one of the first RFPs I found was in 2015 or 2016: a corner lot across from Mariachi Plaza, on First and Boyle. My grandmother had always said that I needed to give back to the community with the opportunities I’d been given in life, so I started working on that project, and we were successful.
But something happened during the RFP process that changed my outlook on life. It’s a small site, only a quarter of an acre. In 2017, while we were working on the project, there was a headline in the LA Times that said there was a huge rise in homelessness in the Latino community. They profiled a gentleman living in Boyle Heights, and that person was my uncle. He was living down the street from the project that I was working on. He works at Home Depot but was living in the park in Boyle Heights. I thought that was a call to action, so I created a homeless housing project named after my grandmother, his mom.
We’re a few months away from welcoming residents, which I think is a little unacceptable, because I just told you, I started in 2015–2016. But that’s a topic for another day.
Elaborate on both this project and what you brought to this Boyle Heights development.
My master’s is in public administration, and I’ve also worked as a shopping center developer, but much of my knowledge came from working for different cities: Pico Rivera, Downey, and the City of Anaheim, in their redevelopment agencies. This was a perfect fit to do a public-private partnership. I just had to learn the “alphabet soup” of funding sources related to housing and tax credits.
Then I discovered that I couldn’t apply on my own because I didn’t have the housing experience, so I gave up half of the ownership to a partner. It was an enlightening experience.
Now, HCD has revised the process and created “Emerging Developer” guidelines.
Also, for tax credits, there’s now a BIPOC pool for developers of color. I haven’t used those programs yet, but I certainly want to moving forward.
How did you finance the project?
Our lender for La Guadalupe is US Bank. My partner is Many Mansions, based out of Ventura. They’re a known entity to US Bank, so it was an easy fit. The only difference is that I was passionate about having ground-floor retail and parking, and I had to finance that.
Genesis LA, a CDFI, took a gamble with me. There was no precedent, and it was really because they were aware of my work. So yes, we do have ground-floor retail on the project.
What ground floor retail is planned?
Boyle Heights is very much about making sure that people from the community have opportunities. I was able to find two Latina-owned businesses. One business is called Xelas, and she’s an operator with multiple brands. Also, Pink & Boujee has to move next year. We’re doing, essentially, a build-to-suit, discounted rent as part of the project so that it stays in the community.
Vanessa - It doesn't sound like you're likely to get rich off this Boyle Heights’ project.
No, and I have not made my daughter’s college tuition back.
I think that’s the fascinating part: 10 years of effort, and we’ve not seen a penny—and we probably won’t.
Given no return, what have you learned that keeps you committed to housing and community development?
One thing that was jarring for me, after creating La Guadalupe and feeling so proud to have done something in my own community, was discovering that if anyone made above the highest level of the area median income, 51% AMI and above, they would have to move out. I felt like I had created a project that was going to keep people in poverty because of the Section 8 voucher structure, and that’s not something I can live with.
So, we’ve worked to create a new product type where people can buy a home at 80% AMI and above, and we’re securing $200,000 down payment assistance vouchers for families. Maybe they can’t stay at La Guadalupe, but maybe they can buy a home—and hopefully build wealth for their families.
Pivoting, you spoke from your experience at Move LA’s conference about the effects of Measure ULA on project development. Can you elaborate on that measure’s impact on Azure’s goals?
Actually, it was more in my role as a professor at USC, at the Price School. It was my first class, and the course was Shaping Cities Through Real Estate, with a housing emphasis. I gave the students an assignment that I thought was perfect: to attend an entitlement hearing in person for a project with at least four housing units.
I let them choose: I sent them toward LA City and LA County because I thought there’d be so many [hearings], but not one student could find a hearing that met that criteria during the entire class.
I had to change the assignment and open it up to all of LA County, allow virtual attendance, and broaden it to include any type of hearing.
To me, that was the most dramatic example of the current slowdown. A dramatic decrease in the number of projects seeking entitlements. I see it in my own work—it’s hard to even find a new project right now, much less finance it.
Now, does all of that fall on ULA? No, but I think folks who say there hasn’t been an impact need to know that there are real challenges. The City has a great opportunity to do something meaningful with those funds. A lot of positive could come from it, but from someone trying to teach others to become housing developers, and as someone doing the work, there’s a dramatic slowdown right now.
In recent years, some in Boyle Heights have pushed back on development contending it will gentrify rather than improve the community especially when ground-floor retail is proposed. Have you had to address such concerns?
Yes, it’s very prevalent. I have more letters of interest (LOIs) than I can fill with the retail. I got LOIs from 7-Eleven, UPS—traditional tenants like that. I think Panda, Starbucks—they were looking at it.
I could probably make a return if I had accepted those LOIs, but I believe that doing projects in Boyle Heights and being a Latina from the area means I commit to trying to show others how it can be done differently.
I’ve been working with the council office to see if we can create a package for these tenants to be successful. So far, so good. The Councilwoman has just come into office, so hopefully we’ll be able to get something done for some local tenants.
Let’s pivot to your role as Chair of the South Coast AQMD. Last week, the board voted to reject proposed amendments to Rules 1111 and 1121, which intended to reduce emissions from gas water heaters and furnaces. Elaborate on what those proposed rules sought to accomplish, and why the SCAQMD staff—and you—were outvoted.
It was heartbreaking. These measures would have impacted and improved our air quality. When the staff originally envisioned this rule, it truly phased out all gas appliances over a certain period, and we thought that was just going too far. Many felt the technology wouldn’t be where they needed it to be.
I’m also very cognizant of families like the one I grew up in, where an extra $1,000 just isn’t viable. So, we crafted a measured rule. You could still choose to have a gas appliance, but the rule would move us closer to our air quality goals.
I knew several months ago—probably as early as six months back—that there was a lot of contention around it. More recently, we got an onslaught: 14,000 letters came through, over 250 speakers. People felt this just wasn’t the right time for such a rule.
I’m the kind of political leader who believes good policy is created through discourse, through listening to each other and not taking it personally. I did feel that the will of the board was that we weren’t quite ready. We were outvoted, 7 to 5. I was heartbroken that day, and won’t pretend otherwise because I know how much effort went into it. I’m also okay with the result, in that financially, it would’ve been difficult for families at this present time.
Can you speak to the compromises that were included in the proposed rules, and what compromises might be necessary to move these rules forward?
In today’s traditional appliance market, about 30 to 35% of appliances being sold are already compliant with the rule we were trying to implement. Our first step was to get the market to 50% over the next three to four years. After that point, buyers could still choose a gas appliance, but they’d pay a surcharge—we tried to make it nominal.
At the very end of the voting, there was a push to see if the board would accept a 75% or 50% compliance threshold instead of 90%. We had already done a CEQA analysis on all three scenarios—50%, 75%, and 90%. But that was just too much of a change at the last minute. My chairmanship ends in a few months, so I won’t be able to take it back up in my leadership.
Vanessa, share with our readers what you've learned from the failure of these rules to be adopted.
Well, it’s a big lesson to learn.
My colleagues who helped me craft the rule in committee ended up hearing from their stakeholders—there was a lot of pushback. I have the liberty of being a retired elected official, so I don’t have that same pressure. But I know my colleagues. I know they want to get there. It doesn’t matter if we’re Democrats or Republicans, because we’re a very mixed board. I had to learn not to take it personally.
We have another big rule in consideration for the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. It’ll be my last major rule. I’m entering that process now and trying to stay focused on doing as much as I can. Even though 1111 and 1121 weren’t quite what the environmental community wanted, at least we were trying to make some strides toward better air quality. I’ve learned not to take it personally if we don’t quite get there, because ultimately, we all have the same mission—it’s just a difference of opinion on how to get there.
Related to the agenda of SCAQMD, this month, CARB is launching mobile air monitoring in underserved communities across the state. What benefit will South Coast gain from this CARB pilot project, and how will the district use the data to improve air quality and health?
That’s one of the things I’m most proud of—the data we collect and how advanced it is. We were called in to do a lot of the data gathering after the wildfires. But we still have gaps. We have a limited amount of data that we can use to create policy. Every five years, we create an AQMP (Air Quality Management Plan) and we update it using that data modeling. It helps us refine our recommendations and our rules.
If CARB augments the data out there, it’s only going to help us better define what areas still need improvement. Traditionally, we didn’t look at things this way in underserved communities. It’s only been in the last few years that we’ve taken the time to go in and do that data gathering. I think it’s great. I think it will take a few years to see patterns and trends, but it’s very needed.
Last summer, South Coast was awarded $500 million in federal EPA funding for decarbonizing goods movement. Given the current federal administration’s attempt to undermine California’s regulatory authority and claw back climate funding, what’s the status of that EPA grant and the zero-emissions infrastructure it was slated to support?
A big push for us is the goods movement, where most of our air quality impacts come from. We’re moving forward with the ports, with a collaboration of sorts, to fund infrastructure for alternative technologies at the ports. That includes electric trucks, ships using different fuels, and more.
We’re being pragmatic about the funding tools available. The funds were intended to be matching funds for a lot of projects. Fortunately, the Port of Los Angeles had already been successful in securing some of that funding before the threat of clawback.
We have a lot of support from Congress, and I’m trying not to panic because this is so necessary. It’s infrastructure, and infrastructure tends to be supported across the board, but without that funding, there’s no way we could get the ports to clean our air.
In relation to the building of housing and infrastructure development, what impact are you seeing today on labor and material costs from the current escalation of federal immigration crackdowns, erratic tariff threats, and impending trade wars?
One thing I’ve already seen: we implement a HUD-funded lead abatement program in Orange County with Local 300 laborers, and we cannot give away the money.
People don’t want to turn over their information to the government. We go into their homes, remove the lead, repaint in the color of their choice, and make it safer and healthier for their children. But we can’t even give the money away—people won’t call us back. We’re required to collect basic tax or ID information, and there’s just a lot of fear. It makes me sad, even slightly hopeless.
Maybe it’s a moment to strengthen relationships here in California. We were a little disjointed, and I’m hopeful that out of this, we come back stronger, with clearer values. For now, though, people are afraid to come forward, and people are scared to be out.
Before concluding, I have to ask a rather personal question—from whom/where do you get your uncommon, common sense and strong sense of self?
Thank you for that. Honestly, my dad is the smartest person I’ve ever met, and I went to Stanford—so I’m a nerd!
A Stanford fuzzy or a techie?
I was a fuzzy. I started off as an engineer, but that’s a tough battle at Stanford. Now, I boss around the engineers, so it all worked out! My dad only has a kindergarten education. He can’t read or write, but his analytical mind and life experience—he taught me so much.
He’s my inspiration for construction. He’s the reason I do this work. He’s a painter by trade, and I think a lot of who I am comes from him, and failure, honestly. David, I’ve failed a lot. But I’m going to keep going. I will figure out how to make money one day from affordable housing, because we all need to.
If widely sharing your experiences is a goal, how—in today’s low-information media environment—do you reach the audience you want to benefit from your failures and successes?
I’ve been working hard to try to educate people that developers are not the bad guys. Some developers are trying to balance their interests with the community’s interests. There’s been so much pushback—I think the underserved areas have been taken advantage of in the past, so they carry that lingering doubt, but we need housing production. We need more homes to make housing more affordable.
I try to teach Latino elected officials, especially, that affordable housing is a Latino issue, most acutely for Latinas. If we don’t allow good development, it doesn’t have to be super dense, just balanced, we’ll never actually help the same people we say we want to support. I’m proud that some of our townhomes are going into the Southeast. We’re working in Huntington Park, South Gate, and we were selected to do affordable townhomes in Jordan Downs, in partnership with City Ventures.
I remain hopeful. I think it took this crisis to make people see that real change is necessary.
Elaborate on how you now get your message across?
That’s probably why I spend so much time on panels and at conferences. It’s a challenge being the only Latina developer showing up to these things, but I make the effort. I go to NALEO—the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials—and I’m grateful they continue to invite me because they believe this is an important issue.
I use personal stories to explain why development matters. Like I shared earlier, my homeless housing project is named after my grandmother, and it exists because my uncle was homeless. That’s how personal this is. I created affordable townhomes because my own sister can’t afford a home for her family.
I do it the old-fashioned way: personal communication. I’m honest and vulnerable about it. I tell people I took my daughter’s college tuition money and put it on the line, and I still haven’t made it back. We’re not all selfish developers.
Last question: Whom were/are your mentors in the construction space? You’ve mentioned a few collaborators, but who’s helped you along the way?
My younger brother has been a big support. He loves to create, and he worked for contractors and joined us during the pandemic. I trust him implicitly. He helps with executing the construction side of things.
I wouldn’t say I’ve had traditional mentors, but I have colleagues I can talk to. People who understand how hard this work is make me feel less crazy.
Was your involvement in Gateway Cities helpful?
Yes, for elected officials. Gateway Cities is great for politics and policy, but in the development world, I’m literally the only one.
Of course I've found some mentors over time.
One was Stan Ross—he helped create a program at USC for women and minorities to learn real estate development. He mentored me for a few years before he passed. He was Jewish and came up through hardship, too, so he had a heart for mentoring people from marginalized backgrounds.
Honestly, I’ve found that some of my most unexpected allies and mentors have been older Jewish men who just get it—who are willing to take the time to mentor someone trying to make a difference.