The city of Vancouver on Monday sold a portion of its parking lot next to City Hall for $1, where 95 affordable housing units will be built as part of the Waterfront Gateway development. The Portland-based co-developers Colas Development Group and Native American Youth and Family Center plan to break ground on the affordable housing project in May. “It’s going to be a beautiful building right in the center of downtown,” said Andrew Colas, CEO and president of Colas Development Group. The architectural concept of the building is influenced by Native American ancestry and tribal ties to the land and rivers, according to the project’s architect, Scott Edwards Architecture.

“The exterior’s facade is inspired by the patterning of Native American-woven baskets made from native plants, the use of color and movement to represent the rivers, and movement in the building’s massing to visually break up its length while expressing the flow of a river,” the architect told the city, according to a staff report. The building to be erected at 615 W. Sixth St. (the northwestern corner of the Vancouver City Hall parking lot) will have 17 units affordable for people making 50 percent of the area median income (a one-person household making $41,300) and 78 units at 60 percent of the area median income (a one-person household making $49,560). Those units will consist of studio, one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartments. NAYA declined requests for an interview. However, Colas said residents will have access to NAYA’s programs, which include job coaching, family services and youth activities. “Like NAYA, we’re grounded in mutual commitment to build inclusive supportive communities, not just housing,” Colas said.

The project is moving quickly, Colas said, because his company is working closely with NAYA while providing the development, construction and financing. “We fully understand that more of this housing is needed, and we need to be able to deliver it faster,” Colas said. Although tariffs have driven up the cost of construction supplies, Colas said the project has taken that into account. “We priced for that, we planned for that. We knew it was coming. It’s not something that we’re excited about, but we’re confident that … we’ve got that all priced in,” he said.

The project will cost about $32.5 million, according to the city. It’s supported through various funding mechanisms, including $1.275 million from the city’s affordable housing fund, according to the fund’s dashboard. The project has also received funds from the state’s Connecting Housing to Infrastructure Program, as well as the state low-income housing tax credit program. At Monday’s Vancouver City Council meeting, councilors approved a construction sales tax deferral, making the project one of the first to receive it. The city passed an ordinance in January allowing a sales and use tax exemption for projects providing affordable housing on underdeveloped sites previously used for parking lots. The city estimates its forgone tax amount to be $390,000, the state’s to be $2.1 million, C-Tran’s to be $227,500 and the county’s to be $130,000 over the three-year construction period, according to a staff report.

At that same meeting, councilors approved an 80 percent exemption to park and traffic impact fees for the project, resulting in an estimated loss of $72,390.76 in potential funding for traffic improvement projects in the area and $319,656 in potential funding for nearby park projects, according to a staff report. The $1 sale is part of a slew of affordable housing production in the city over the last few years. The city’s housing action plan includes a goal to produce at least 1,000 new units per year affordable to those earning 80 percent of the area’s median income or less to meet 20-year growth projections. “This is a significant milestone in making the project vision a reality,” City Manager Lon Pluckhahn said in a staff report.

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