PORT TOWNSEND — The initial planning phases for Port Townsend’s proposed Evans Vista affordable housing project are coming to a close, and city officials hope to be able to request proposals from developers next month.
Ron Thomas, Thomas Architecture Studios (TAS) principal, said during Monday’s tour that the current design of the development was based on feedback from community groups, the Port Townsend Planning Committee, city council and public surveys.
“We’re down to the preferred option,” Thomas told a group of several dozen people who attended the tour. “This is the product of about five months. There were many, many options they’ve been narrowing.”
Thomas and his team have drawn up plans for an entirely new neighborhood located in the southwest part of town near the state Department of Social and Health Services Building.
The city purchased the 14-acre parcel of land in 2021 using funds from the state Legislature and hopes to build several hundred units of housing, some of which will be affordable for people making less than the area median income.
But how many units will be built, and how many will be affordable, remains to be determined.
Thomas Architecture Studios has drafted plans for a neighborhood with 321 housing units, a combination of mixed-use apartments with commercial space on the ground floor, apartment buildings, walk-ups and townhomes with plenty of parking and green space in between.
Where the funding will come from is also unknown, and in the next month, consultants working with the city and TAS will draft several scenarios for how the project might be completed.
Planners anticipate some combination of market rate and nonprofit developers that could work on different parts of the neighborhood to complete the project. The proposed affordable units likely would have to be completed with some kind of government subsidy, potentially from state or federal programs, but the city hopes to attract private developers to build the market-rate housing at the site.
The project already has received funding from both the state and federal governments, which the city plans to put toward construction of critical infrastructure such as sewers and water. Planners hope that will help attract developers by reducing the cost of construction.
The city has roughly $4.1 million for sewer infrastructure, said Public Works Director Steve King, but how much the city ultimately will contribute depends on how much funding the city can secure.
“The more subsidy we can introduce, the more affordable units we can provide,” King said, noting that the city could contribute between $10 million and $15 million toward infrastructure.
“It’s kind of hard to say what the city’s going to need to put forward because we’re going to strive for a lot,” King said.
State Rep. Steve Tharinger, D-Port Townsend, took the tour on Monday. Tharinger — who represents the 24th Legislative District, which covers Jefferson and Clallam counties and part of Grays Harbor County — was instrumental in securing past state funding for the project.
Whether Evans Vista is still competitive for state funding remains to be seen, Tharinger said.
“We’d have to see. We want to make sure that we have the right canvass, if you will, to have the right developer come in and build the actual units,” Tharinger said.
For instance, the project possibly could be eligible for a grant from the Department of Commerce’s Connecting Housing to Infrastructure Program, which provides funding for infrastructure to affordable housing projects, Tharinger said.
While TAS has drafted plans for 321 units and green space around the development, those amenities may change based on what developers are able to afford, Thomas said.
The city hopes to put out a request for proposal (RFP) for the development following a Nov. 6 council meeting, where city officials will state specifically what is wanted in the development.
“In the RFP, we will say what’s a requirement and what’s a goal,” Thomas said. “‘You have to do this, we’d like you to do that.’ Hopefully, we’ll have multiple proposals and there’ll be a little bit of competition.”
However, developers might not be able to provide everything the city hopes to see.
“At the end of the day, we need to make this as attractive as possible to a market-rate developer,” Thomas said.
In the next month, Portland-based consulting firm ECONorthwest will draft several different financial scenarios under which the project could be completed.
“The bottom line is, the project has to be financially feasible. Otherwise, it’s not going to get built in any shape or form,” said James Kim, project manager with ECONorthwest, during a joint city council and planning commission meeting following Monday’s site tour.
“We are always thinking about what are the city’s goals, how can a specific project deliver on those goals within the realm of financial reality,” Kim said.
“Public sources of money may involve nonprofit developers, but the rest of the site could be, and likely will be, a combination of private sector developers and maybe a nonprofit developer.”
ECONorthwest will include scenarios where all the units at the site are sold at market rate to attempt to determine the value of the whole project, but affordable housing is a priority for the city. What percentage of the units are affordable and at what rate will impact what public sources of funding the project may qualify for, Kim said.
In order to qualify for state Department of Commerce grants, at least 25 percent of the units must be affordable for those making 80 percent of area median income (AMI). The federal government offers Low Income Housing Tax Credits, but those are only available to units 60 percent or less of AMI.
Thomas said the project is looking strong in terms of attracting potential investors. If 321 units are constructed with 25 percent made affordable — about 80 units — that leaves 241 units still at market rate. That’s enough, Thomas said, to attract large institutional investors to the project.
“It’s heading in a very good direction,” Thomas said. “Where this is at right now, this is shaping up to be a very competitive development.”
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Reporter Peter Segall can be reached at peter.segall@peninsuladailynews.com.
