171-unit low-income housing project, Las Flores, opens in Oregon City

Metro Councilor Christine Lewis, Clackamas County Commissioner Ben West and Oregon City Mayor Denyse McGriff joined Community Development Partners, Hacienda CDC, project partners and guests on Wednesday, Sept. 5, for the grand opening of Las Flores, or “The Flowers” - a large affordable housing community in Oregon City featuring 171 apartment homes serving low-income households.

The $71.5 million project was funded by a mix of public and private funding, including approximately $16 million from the voter-approved Metro affordable housing bond.

“In 2018 Metro voters across the region said yes, and in fact we said a ‘hell yes,’ to supporting housing bonds,” said Lewis.

The complex includes 75 three- and four-bedroom apartments in buildings surrounding a green space that serves as a publicly accessible park. The grounds will also feature a playground, community gardens, mature trees and walking paths.

“We have a laser focus on deep affordability for the people who make the least and also on the family size units which you see here in spades,” Lewis said, “It's not very often you go to some place and they've thought about families they have the three- and the four-bedroom homes for really large families.”

All of the 171 units will serve low-income households earning less than 30% to 60% of the area median income. Seventeen homes include services for households exiting homelessness, with eight of those homes reserved specifically for formerly homeless U.S. military veterans. With support from the federal Agricultural Workforce Housing Tax Credit program, 12 units have been set aside for agricultural workers.

For Vitor Bastos, design strategist for the project, it was hard to imagine who future residents may be.

“What we did was get together to figure out how to design possibilities: How can we create the possibility of a strong, thriving community and making it flourish or bloom on their own?”

This is where the name Las Flores came from.

Bastos was responsible for naming, selecting project colors for branding and the buildings themselves, which are bright and playful, and working with other creatives to create a cohesive environment based on three design principles.

“The feeling of home, the feeling of pride and the idea of play,” Bastos said.

For McGriff, Las Flores is important because it provides a place within the community allowing people to have affordable, beautiful workforce housing.

“I just hope that everybody realizes that the people that are living here are community members and we are welcoming them back into a new location from wherever they came from in our community,” McGriff said. “Now they have a beautiful location to be in.”