PORT ANGELES — Construction is set to begin by mid-July on 63 multi-family, low-income housing units south of downtown Port Angeles as part of the Mount Angeles View redevelopment project.
The work is the $18.5 million Phase 1 portion of a projected three-phase, $50 million project that will include the city’s first traffic circle by January 2019.
And the hope is that Mount Angeles View will grow from 100 housing units to 232 in “at least” 10 years, Peninsula Housing Authority Executive Director Kay Kassinger said Tuesday.
Construction on Phase 1 is expected to be completed by January 2019, she told 40 participants at the Port Angeles Business Association’s weekly breakfast meeting.
“It’s probably one of the largest developments in the city for years, if ever,” Kassinger said in a later interview.
The housing authority is set to sign an agreement with the Chicago-based nonprofit National Equity Fund Inc., the major financer for the project, on June 28, she said.
“I’m certain they are going to sign it,” she said.
The housing authority manages the Section 8 housing assistance program in Clallam and Jefferson counties and owns or operates 497 housing units in Clallam County, including 384 in Port Angeles, and has an ownership interest in the 40-unit Garden Court apartments in Port Hadlock.
Kassinger described the efforts of the housing authority, established in 1941, in rental housing-starved Clallam County at the breakfast meeting.
“The community needs to address housing,” she said.
“We have a very old stock [of housing] in the community when people start to ask about rental housing.”
The 63 units that will be built at the housing authority’s Mount Angeles View family public housing off Lauridsen Boulevard will be constructed after 33 older homes are demolished or moved and whose occupants have found new housing, Kassinger said.
The new units, contained in seven new buildings at the 18-acre site, make up the first phase of a three-phase, $50 million project intended to build out the Mount Angeles site to its capacity to 232 units once funding becomes available after Phase 1 is completed.
In the best possible scenario, the number of housing units at Mount Angeles View will more than double from the current 100 to 232 government-subsidized units of rental and homeownership housing in 10 years, Kassinger said.
The focus in Phase 1 is on renters, she said.
“Fifty-one percent of renters in Clallam County qualify to live in the [government]-supported housing that we provide,” she said.
Under the guidelines, the maximum a single person could make to qualify for housing authority housing is $34,900; a couple, $39,900; a three-person family, $44,900; and a four-person family, $49,850.
“We serve some clients who have zero income,” Kassinger added.
The Phase 1 expansion will include construction of a traffic circle on Francis Street, Mount Angeles View’s feeder arterial route, Kassinger said in a later interview.
The housing authority has been working with city officials for 18 months on the project and held public meetings on development of what Kassinger called a new neighborhood in the city.
A traffic study also was conducted.
“The traffic circle on Lopez and Francis is part of the first phase on Francis to help slow the traffic down,” Kassinger said.
“That’s the biggest concern is through traffic.
“They said high school kids fly down Park [Avenue], so we are doing a traffic circle that should slow them down.”
Phase 2 expansion would consist of demolishing 43 units and building 43 multi-family units.
A second traffic circle would be added during Phase 2 where Vashon Avenue connects with Francis Street.
Phase 3 would include tearing down 14 units and building 67 units.
When completed — it’s not a question of if, Kassinger insisted — the project will have 203 rental units and 29 homeownership units, Kassinger said.
The project is long overdue, given the age of the Mount Angeles View housing, which was built under the auspices of the housing authority.
The authority was established in 1941, with housing built under its umbrella in the 1940s as wartime homes for shipyard workers and military families.
Housing also was constructed in the 1950s and 1970s, Kassinger said.
“We’ve been primarily Band-Aiding it over the years, I guess is the best way to describe it,” Kassinger told PABA participants.
The site now includes a unit of the Boys &Girls Clubs of the Olympic Peninsula. That will be moved and rebuilt in a separate project by the Boys &Girls Clubs along Lauridsen Boulevard on housing authority property.
Funding for Phase 1 consists of $13.1 million as tax-credit equity from the National Equity Fund, $3 million from the state Department of Commerce Housing Trust Fund and $1.2 million in city of Port Angeles Community Development Block Grant funds.
It also includes $767,000 from the Clallam County Opportunity Fund for infrastructure, $450,000 in federal Housing and Urban Development funds, and $20,000 in Clallam County recording-fee revenue that is dedicated to affordable-housing capital projects.
“It depends on funding cycles of the state Department of Commerce and Washington State Housing Finance Commission,” Kassinger said.
________
Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 55650, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
