PORT ANGELES — With its plan approved by City Hall, the Peninsula Housing Authority is taking another important step toward remaking its Mount Angeles View neighborhood: fundraising.
And it’s no small task.
The organization needs $58 million to meet its ambitious goal of replacing the existing 110 housing units with another 232.
It will seek funds beginning early next year from state and federal agencies, housing authority Director Pam Tietz said.
“We’ll get there,” said Kay Kassinger, the housing authority’s development director.
“It may take a little longer than we thought, but we’ll get there,” she added, noting a reduction in public funding for such projects.
The redevelopment plan, approved by the City Council last month, would completely remake the housing authority’s oldest neighborhood, situated on about 16 acres alongside the Peabody Creek ravine between Lauridsen Boulevard and Park Street.
Construction is expected to start in 2013 or 2014, Tietz said.
Add open space, units
The new, more densely developed neighborhood will add 2.5 acres of new park and open space, a 33-unit low-income apartment complex for the elderly, a new location for the Port Angeles unit of the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Olympic Peninsula and a new main office for the housing authority.
Additionally, the housing authority will add rain gardens to control stormwater and connect Francis Street with Lauridsen Boulevard.
Tietz said more units will be added to meet rising demand and help erode any stigma of low-income housing.
The latter is done, she said, by making housing more modern — some homes were built in the 1940s — and mixed with the addition of 11 homes that will be sold at market prices.
“It integrates low-income people into another community,” Tietz said.
The redevelopment will be broken up into eight phases and take about 10 years to complete.
Kassinger said the housing authority will have to pursue a mix of public funding sources since there is less money available for housing projects due to government cutbacks.
About 80 percent, she said, will come through the sale of tax credits.
The rest is expected to be filled in with state Department of Commerce housing trust fund and community development block grants.
Tenants relocated
Tenants residing in about 20 to 30 units will be relocated at a time to other units in the neighborhood as each phase progresses.
The housing authority will eventually begin limiting enrollment to ensure units are available for relocated residents, Tietz said.
That would mean a reduction in available low-income housing at a time when, according to Tietz, demand has grown by 30 percent in the past five years.
Currently, “hundreds of people” are on the housing authority’s waiting lists, she said.
Tietz said the loss of units during each phase is expected to be made up by other housing projects that are in the works, including a 50-unit development in Port Angeles’ eastern urban growth area.
Funding for that project will also be pursued in January, she said.
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Reporter Tom Callis can be reached at 360-417-3532 or at tom.callis@peninsuladailynews.com.
