A few years ago, the Vancouver Housing Authority used a loan from the state of Washington to amass all the properties on a block on the eastern edge of downtown.
Given the pending Columbia River Crossing project and its commuter rail component, VHA officials figured the site — bounded by D, E, 16th and 17th streets, two blocks north of Mill Plain Boulevard and one south of McLoughlin Boulevard — was sitting pretty for redevelopment as apartments for working renters who’d ride light rail from a new station nearby.
The station and light rail never happened. Plans to carry a commuter train line across the Columbia River went where the whole replacement I-5 bridge went: no place. But VHA still has to come up with a real plan by April 2016 for the block it bought or pay back the $800,000 loan.
Meanwhile, a new residential-commuter option has emerged nearby: a bus rapid transit line that will connect downtown with Westfield Vancouver mall. Called The Vine, the route for extra-long articulated buses and special raised-platform stations will mostly follow Fourth Plain Boulevard, but there will also be stations at Clark College, the Marshall Center and at the corner of McLoughlin Boulevard and Washington Street.
That new transit project and its nearby stations are reasons to press ahead with a development plan for the site and keep the $800,000, VHA commissioners and staff members agreed at a meeting last week. So are low interest rates and the keen interest of Proud Ground, an Oregon nonprofit housing developer that has built affordable, owner-occupied communities using what it calls the “land trust” model.
A land trust approach means the agency invests a subsidy in the property upfront to keep the purchase price low — within reach for someone who could not afford something priced at market levels. The buyer would sign a legal agreement to keep the price low when reselling the home, according to Proud Ground’s deputy director, Kathy Armstrong. The idea is that the resident undertakes full-fledged homeownership and builds up equity through a traditional mortgage — but the home remains always affordable. One follow-up study has found that 74 percent of Proud Ground homeowners who sold went on to buy market-rate housing.
The approach fits the vision that VHA officials have already started talking about: a mixed development that’s half owner-occupied homes and half apartments.
The site is zoned CX — City Center — which welcomes high-density housing as well as commercial and office establishments. While it would be possible to take up the whole site with a high-rise apartment building, officials said last week that they’re aware of at least five new apartment complexes that have either begun construction or are envisioned in the vicinity. Many of these include financing via state-approved Low Income Housing Tax Credits, guaranteeing that many of the new units will be affordable to low-income people.
Meanwhile, single-family home prices in and around downtown are soaring. “Every time a home goes on the market, it is grabbed up quickly, remodeled and sold for a much higher amount,” says a VHA staff memo about this site. “Middle-income homeowners are literally being driven out of downtown. We can help stem that exodus by creating a small pocket of affordable homes for families who want to live and perhaps work downtown.”
The target price for these townhomes would be somewhere in the $150,000 to $160,000 range and available to only people whose limited incomes qualify.
Spark plug
The VHA is contemplating a development that’s less like an apartment tower and more like Anthem Park, the mixed-use community it built on Main Street about a decade ago. Anthem Park, which combined live-work offices, condominiums and apartments around an attractive courtyard, “was a spark plug” for redevelopment of homes and businesses in the Uptown Village area and helped ward off the effects of the Great Recession, a VHA staff memo about this property says.
“If it wasn’t for VHA foresight, that may not have happened,” said Saeed Hajarizadeh, VHA’s deputy director for finance. “It really changed Uptown Village.” He noted that there are several vacant and for-sale properties neighboring this block; the right VHA investment could help drive wider redevelopment of this slightly marginal pocket, he said.
One possibility is 12 or 14 owner-occupied townhomes on the north side, facing 17th Street, and 30 apartments on the south side, facing 16th, with an alley in between including parking spaces as well as a playground and gardening space for residents.
While they insisted on considering other options too, several VHA commissioners said they liked the idea of providing permanent entry-level homeownership opportunities downtown in addition to affordable rentals, saying they provide more overall stability for the area. Commissioner Joan Caley, a registered nurse and college public health instructor, said she likes the envisioned playground and community garden as a way for children and families to play, exercise, grow their own food and be healthy.
Arnada garden
Vacant for the past few years — except for one small building, a former law office, that’s still standing in one corner — the block has been on temporary loan to the Arnada Neighborhood Association for a community garden.
On Wednesday morning, Arnada chairman Jim Girard and gardener Anita Reyes contemplated the future while coaxing along some plantings. Girard described the labor of love the garden has been — that is, love plus a $1,500 grant from the Vancouver Watersheds Alliance — and its popularity with everyone from neighbors to members of the Ke Kukui Arts and Cultural Center, a Hawaiian-heritage community center that’s nearby on McLoughlin Boulevard.
Reyes said she’s grown food here for nearby food pantries and given some away to obviously hungry transients. She’s hoping to get as many kids involved as possible in what might be the garden’s final year in this spot. After that, she said, there’s not much question what will happen to the Arnada garden: “Find a new place and keep going.”
As for housing in this spot, Reyes said: “We don’t have an objection. We welcome good neighbors.”
“We’re quite supportive of low-income housing,” said Girard. “It is sorely needed.”
