Public-Private Partnerships are the 'Key' to Housing Affordability
Stillwater Crossing is an example of affordable housing that points the way forward for Oregon-and the country.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This piece is a part of our #GovernorGoals series. Learn more about it here. Send your goals on one of the selected topics to theway@or360.org for potential publication.
Oregon Housing and Community Services Director Margaret Salazar’s departure to join the Biden Administration as a HUD Regional Director is a loss for Oregon but a win for the United States. During Director Salazar’s tenure, her agency dedicated itself to helping create housing for our most vulnerable Oregonians. One example is OHCS’s establishment of numerous new funding programs that allowed affordable housing developers to leverage federal 4% income tax credits to create thousands of units of new housing, a resource that had previously gone mostly unused.
The largest-ever affordable housing project in Bend, Stillwater Crossing, recently became the second project in Bend to take advantage of this federal resource and was financed through tax-exempt bonds and 4% Low Income Housing Tax Credits. One of the more remarkable features of Stillwater Crossing is that it was developed with no additional soft funding from the State of Oregon.
Stillwater Crossing will provide 240-units of much-needed rental housing to people making 60% or below Bend’s average median income. That means a single person making $33,780 a year or a household of three making $43,400 a year will be eligible for a unit. As the Bend Bulletin editorialized, “...it’s a big deal. And it shows how the city and the state’s efforts to make it easier to build affordable housing have paid off.”
Some of the reasons Stillwater Crossing is such a boon are because this community includes amenities that reflect why people choose to call Bend home. The project’s amenities include flexible recreational space, a fitness center, community kitchen facilities, a large splash pad, a kids play area, picnic and BBQ areas, community gardens, walking trails, and bike paths and covered bike storage, all ensure that Bend’s active lifestyle is accessible to all of Stillwater’s residents.
Finally, Stillwater exceeded 30% participation from MWESB (Minority, Women, and Emerging Small Business firms) sub-contractors and professional services providers, making it one of the few housing projects in Oregon to achieve such a milestone and the first project of this size to achieve it outside of the Portland-Metro area.
Federal subsidies alone, however, cannot solve Oregon’s affordable housing crisis. Without the City of Bend’s commitment to finding incentives to attract developers, Stillwater Crossing would not have been possible. To make the project pencil for Wishcamper Development Partners, the City took proactive steps, like waiving system development charges, establishing a property tax abatement program, and granting an affordable housing density bonus which allowed the building of more units than would otherwise have been allowed.
On top of these policy decisions, the City also contributed financially toward this project through loans from the City of Bend Housing Trust Fund and the City of Bend Urban Renewal Agency. These are all tools that are available because of Bend’s commitment to address its affordable housing crisis.
Bend’s public-private collaboration should be an example that can, and must, be modelled across Oregon.
Wishcamper Development Partners are currently poised to set a record with the construction of the largest affordable housing project ever undertaken in the City of Beaverton and one of the largest ever in the State of Oregon. This landmark accomplishment, adjacent to Mountainside High School, will create 309 units of affordable housing, serving more than 800 individuals, including 80 seniors and our most vulnerable earning less than 30% of area median income. All residents will have recreational access to 14-acres of open space, trail networks and public parks.
Although originally scheduled to get underway this spring, pandemic-related challenges, including labor shortages, permit delays, and construction cost increases, have collided—placing this project in jeopardy. One in four Washington County renters is considered rent-burdened, meaning they pay more than half of their income toward rent. Beaverton needs this project to break ground. The City of Beaverton is partnering to bring this multigenerational affordable housing project online with Metro Housing Bonds and American Rescue Plan funds, yet another example of positive public-private collaboration.
However, even as every new affordable rental project helps tackles Oregon’s housing crisis, it can only be one part of our housing solution. As Mayor Lacey Beaty said in her recent post, “Though affordable rentals address an immediate need, they do not allow people to build generational wealth. We need pathways to homeownership.” We couldn’t agree more. The opportunity to create new avenues to homeownership within communities have been shut out for far too long is now.
We must do everything within our public-private partnership power to our minds to new approaches and open doors to safe, stable, secure housing for all Oregonians.
Ozzie Gonzalez is a sustainability expert who has helped shape the building industry and redefine the role cities play in shaping a sustainable world. Ozzie is a member of the TriMet Board of Directors, the Advisory Board for Oregon Association of Minority Entrepreneurs (OAME), the Executive Board of the Hispanic Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce (HMCC).
Councilor Barb Campbell grew up in Pueblo, Colorado and moved to Bend in 1991. She’s lived in a variety of places from Wash., D.C. to Burns, Oregon and is serving her second term on the Bend City Council after first being elected in 2014.
Anthony Veliz, Founder of Oregon Latinx Leadership Network, Owner of IZO Public Relations & Marketing.
While public/private partnerships that leverage federal tax credits are a powerful way to build affordable housing, we are also seeing the impact when the tax credits expire. We have thousands of Oregonians whose housing will revert to market rate in the next few years. Wood spring apartments in Tigard are a good example with over 160 low income, senior units becoming unaffordable for the residents at the end of 2023. While ramping up programs, we need to also address the long view (30 years in some cases).