Six new duplexes slated to serve as workforce housing will begin welcoming residents in Bay City in the next month, with all 12 new units scheduled for completion by early 2025.
The development has been overseen by Scott Imholt and Nate Palmer, who said that the duo had aimed to add density to the housing stock, while maintaining the feel of single-family homes to match the neighborhood’s character.
“Our vision was to have it feel more like single-family homes than an apartment building because it seemed more appropriate for this site,” Palmer said.
Work towards the development began in 2022, when the team acquired the property on A Street between 4th and 5thstreets in Bay City.
When they purchased the property, it was zoned for five single-family dwellings, but Imholt and Palmer saw that the site was suited to more dense housing and began to work with staff from the city towards that end. Palmer said that city staff were helpful throughout the process and that securing the needed permissions from the planning commission had been easy.
The project also received two boosts from Tillamook County, in the form of multifamily housing grants. The first grant of $40,000 was awarded in 2023 to help with the project’s development phase and the project received second grant of $100,000 this year to support construction. The grant funds come from a license fee assessed on short-term rental properties and are structured as 10-year forgivable loans.
In exchange for receiving the grant funding, Imholt and Palmer have added a deed restriction to the property, guaranteeing that its rents will remain affordable to residents making the area’s median income for the next ten years. That means that rents will be capped at $1,820 this year and the units will be available to individuals making up to $56,650, or families of four making up to $80,900. Palmer said that he and Imholt planned to hold on to the development long-term and maintain its affordability.
Palmer noted that while the gap between market-rate rents and those affordable to people earning the area’s median income were small, they still represented a hurdle to finding housing and that the county grants were allowing them to charge those rents.
“That was very helpful in getting all this to work out as a financially feasible project as well as providing average median-income rents,” Palmer said.
Groundbreaking at the site took place in fall 2023 and Palmer said that they have mostly used local subcontractors. Three of the six duplexes are scheduled for completion within the next month, with two more expected to come online in two to three months, and the final expected to be complete early in 2025.
Each of the duplexes features two, two-bedroom, one-and-a-half bedroom units that have around 1,000 square feet of floor space, a garage and in-unit washers and dryers. Several of the units will have views of Tillamook Bay from their second story and all the units will share a communal backyard.
During a tour of the property, Imholt pointed out that there were three different exterior designs used by the units, which have shared floorplans. Imholt said that the developers had wanted to create some variety for aesthetic purposes and noted that the buildings would soon be painted in brown, black or white.
Applications are not currently being accepted but interested parties can email Baysideinvshelly@gmail.com to be added to a list to receive more information.
Once the duplexes are complete, Palmer and Imholt have already set their sights on a new target with the acquisition of a property in downtown Manzanita, where they plan to build a cottage cluster style subdivision of 26 homes.
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