Title
Session One - Supporting Low Income and Supportive Housing Production
Recommended Action
Committee Recommendation:
Not referred to a committee.
City Manager Recommendation:
Discuss ways Olympia can support the production of affordable housing for households up to 80 percent of area median income.
Report
Issue:
Whether to discuss ways the City of Olympia can incentivize construction and preservation of affordable housing for households up to 80 percent of area median income (AMI).
Staff Contact:
Cary Retlin, Home Fund Manager, Community Planning & Development, 360.570.3956
Presenter(s):
Cary Retlin, Home Fund Manager, Community Planning & Development
Background and Analysis:
The City of Olympia has adopted a variety of tools, incentives and programs designed to support housing production at a broad range of income levels. This discussion session will focus on multifamily supportive housing and other methods for building, supporting and maintaining housing for households with incomes up to 80 percent of area median income.
The traditional public housing construction process relies on a stack of local, county, state and federal resources to fund new construction. That process is complicated, expensive and slow. Cities like Bellingham and Vancouver have found that operating funds, not construction funds, are the real local limit to how many units can be built.
This meeting is intended to gather and hear from local and regional affordable housing experts to address questions that include:
* How can Olympia get more units for households below 80 percent AMI?
* How can Olympia best deploy limited resources to support those units?
* Are the traditional methods the best? Are there other ways to do this work?
* How should resources be prioritized to achieve that result?
Neighborhood/Community Interests (if known):
Housing costs are likely to continue to rise faster than wages in Olympia and Thurston County. Affordable housing is a need for the ...
Click here for full text