PORT ANGELES — Housing in Clallam County is at a crisis point, according to Clallam Housing and Grant Resource Director Timothy Dalton.
No one actor, regulation or economic force is the sole culprit in this “perfect storm,” Dalton said during a presentation Tuesday morning to the Port Angeles Business Association.
Instead, the current housing crisis, which stretches statewide, is caused by a variety of factors.
Three factors are helping to drive up building and operating costs, said Dalton: energy codes, prevailing wages and insurance.
Over the past several years, the state’s 15-member Building Code Council has implemented increasingly strict energy codes for new construction, Dalton said.
These codes require buildings to have amenities such as electric vehicle charging stations and solar panels, which Dalton said are impractical for some projects.
However, “builders don’t have a choice whether they get to do it or not,” he said.
Every time the energy codes get stricter, Dalton said, “it adds costs, but it doesn’t move the needle far enough [in terms of energy savings].”
Prevailing wages, or the minimum hourly rate for workers on public works projects, also drive up building costs, he said. In Clallam County, prevailing wages often are higher than in King County, he added.
A third factor is insurance, which Dalton said is especially expensive for low-income housing.
“Making these projects pencil is difficult to do from an investment … standpoint,” Dalton said.
Once the housing is built, there are other factors that drive up the competition — and therefore, the prices — for the existing housing stock.
Clallam County has been a victim of Seattle investors, who buy a second home in the area when interest rates and housing prices are low, Dalton said.
There are also what Dalton called “climate chasers” from out of the area who can usually can afford higher home prices than local individuals.
Affordable housing should cost no more than 30 percent of a person’s gross income, Dalton said. A single individual making about $64,000 annually could likely afford a $240,000 home. A family of four with an income of about $94,000 could afford a house of about $350,000, he said.
In Clallam’s current housing economy, Dalton said $350,000 would get someone a two-bedroom, one-bath house between 800 and 900 square feet.
“That is not a family home,” he said.
Given the current state of the economy, Dalton said only 11 percent of the county’s population can afford to buy in the area.
“Eighty-nine percent can’t, with what we have going on,” he said.
Two years ago, recognizing the housing crisis, Clallam County formed the Housing Solutions Committee, which currently has a list of housing projects it is working to move forward. The top three projects are all supportive living units, and a large number of the other ones are self-help builds.
“These projects are in the pipeline, and they’re going to need funding,” Dalton said. “In order to make these projects work, you need a variety of funding sources coming to the table.”
Some available sources dedicated to housing include 1406 and 1590 funds, both of which are derived from local sales tax.
Other actions need to be taken to help ease the housing crisis, Dalton said, although not all of them can be taken at the local level.
To get around the high costs of prevailing wages, Dalton said manufactured homes could be built off-site.
Dalton also said the state Building Code Council should “back off on the energy code.”
“Let’s get some housing built before we do that [implement the strict energy codes],” he added.
Solving the housing crisis is essential, Dalton said, because housing is the cornerstone of a community.
While the North Olympic Peninsula has recently received a $35 million Recompete grant, aimed to improve the economy and employment conditions in the area, Dalton said unless things change, those workers might struggle to find housing.
“If we can’t house them, what are we doing?” he said.
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Reporter Emma Maple can be reached by email at emma.maple@peninsuladailynews.com.
