Rent prices have soared in Tri-Cities so WA is giving $8.5M for 2 new housing projects
Two affordable housing projects in the Tri-Cities are receiving millions of dollars in state funding to help begin work.
The Washington Department of Commerce recently announced a list of housing grants, with nearly $3.5 million carved out for the Tri-Cities.
The Kennewick Housing Authority will receive $1.4 million to help fund its Bubble on Gum apartments. That’s in addition to another $5 million awarded to the project in January, bringing the total funding allocated for it to more than $20 million.
The other recipient was the Jubilee Foundation, which will get $2 million toward its Tierra Vida Phase III project in Pasco. They recently broke ground to begin grading the lot for the apartments expansion.
The funding comes from Commerce’s Connecting Housing to Infrastructure Program, or CHIP, which helps pay for infrastructure for affordable housing projects.
Bubble On Gum
Kennewick Housing announced the Bubble on Gum-Home Sweet Home project nearly two years ago and has since been working to secure funding for the 3.7-acre property at the corner of Gum Street and 13th Avenue. It’s a piece of property owned by the city next to their laydown yard which houses shops and where equipment is stored.
In January the housing authority also received a $5 million grant from Commerce’s Housing Trust Fund, KHA Executive Director Lona Hammer told the Herald in an email.
That funding will be pooled with $13 million in bond capital already allocated, as well as $3 million Hammer said that Senator Patty Murray’s office helped secure from the federal Community Projects Fund.
Hammer said that after soliciting feedback from neighbors, they’re going to work to incorporate a more residential look for the project, rather than the initially planned modern look.
New renderings show the apartments looking more like rows of townhouses than the originally planned modern, block-style buildings.
The apartments will be aimed toward serving very low to extremely low-income individuals and families, with set-asides for veterans and people with disabilities, she said.
With the infrastructure grant in place, that work should start soon and they hope to host a groundbreaking this fall.
The initial plans showed a mix of one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments, plus amenities such as a community garden, computer lab, playground, courtyards and grassy areas.
The apartments will be just down the street from another affordable housing project, Kennewick Housing’s Tiny Home community Lilac Village.
Tierra Vida Phase III
Building permits show the third phase of the apartments will eventually add 120-units across eight new buildings just west of the current apartment complex on A Street in Pasco.
Work started on grading for the site this month. The expansion is part of a years long effort to grow the neighborhood, which is a mix of apartments and homes, stewarded by the Broetje family.
The family created the community as a means of helping their employees at the Prescott-based Broetje Orchards find housing and eventually become homeowners.
The apartments are open to anyone, but have traditionally offered discounts to low-income residents who volunteer in the community.
The expansion site is just shy of 7-acres and will include about 300,000-square feet of new apartments, according to building permits filed with the city of Pasco.
In addition to Tierra Vida, Pasco also recently became home to another low-income housing initiative. Last April Catholic Charities of Eastern Washington opened its 60-unit supportive housing building, Bishop Skylstad Commons.
