(The Center Square) – Spokane Valley is gearing up to spend $2 million on affordable housing this fall, but first, it needs to tear down a home and decide what type to start building.
Over the past two years, the Valley has allocated at least $6 million in federal relief toward land acquisitions and affordable housing, of which, $4 million was spent on several projects.
However, with $2 million still available, the city council decided to purchase two parcels of land last February after providers noted the lack of available property as a barrier to development; this provides an opportunity to lease them city-owned property so they can start building sooner.
City staff intend to distribute a Request for Proposals for affordable housing projects this fall, but the council needed to decide which of the nine affordable housing types to proceed with first.
“I would like to limit the types of housing,” Councilmember Laura Padden said. “I originally voted for the expenditure with the idea that we were trying to lift up that area. There’s been a lot of problems there, so I don’t want the kind of housing that creates those kind of problems.”
Padden suggested limiting the options to senior and workforce housing, as well as others that provide an avenue to homeownership. She said if the city incentivizes this, it could free up rental inventory for others to use.
The plot of land that the Valley wants to develop is approximately 1.35 acres and is located at the intersection of East 2nd Avenue and South Carnahan Road; however, when the council approved the acquisition in February, City Services Administrator Gloria Mantz said there were two tenants living in a single-family home on the property that would need to move out.
“The parcels are mostly vacant with the exception of a single-family residence located at the northwest corner,” according to Tuesday’s agenda. “Staff have been coordinating the relocation/demolition of the structure.”
Communications Manager Jill Smith told The Center Square that the two prior tenants moved out with financial assistance from the city, but that the property isn't considered vacant until the structure is demolished.
There’s also another city-owned parcel about a block away, but that plot is only 0.15 acres and is separated from the Carnahan Road property by several homes. This means the providers are limited in what they can develop there due to those constraints.
City staff provided a list defining each of the nine types of affordable housing on Tuesday’s agenda . The options include senior housing, workforce housing, cohousing, multi-family housing, youth housing, mixed-income development, co-op housing, recovery community/supportive housing, and mental health and/or substance use treatment facilities.
After February's land acquisition, the Valley has around $1.3 million leftover in allocated funding; but there’s also $1 million in tax revenue that it could use to “provide seed funding for the development.”
Councilmember Al Merkel mentioned the Valley’s Housing Action Plan, which the city paid a Seattle-based research firm $100,000 in grants to complete despite it not being referenced.
Merkel drafted his own RFP criteria that ties in the HAP, priortizing a certain amount of housing for various income-levels, rather than focusing on the types that staff listed in the agenda.
“Whoever gets this award should be providing some sort of wrap around services to help people who are renting at that below market level,” Merkel said. “If you’re renting at 30 to 50 [ AMI ] and you’re not being able to graduate to market level, you’re pretty much stuck in that place.”
Padden disagreed with Merkel on the point of wrap around services and said it would perpetuate the issues already existing in the area.
“I don’t think we want to have wrap around services for everything, that means we have people with issues,” she said. “That’s part of the problem with the neighborhood.”
While some council opinions differed, the consensus was that city staff will proceed with an RFP that focuses on senior and workforce housing as well as affordable cottages.
Meanwhile, the county is considering whether to write off around $2 million in affordable housing debts due to its providers not being able to cover their expenses.
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