News - Local News

POSTED: Tuesday, May. 26, 2009

Developer to talk about how to create affordable housing in thriving communities

BELLINGHAM - Part of creating a vibrant community is ensuring the workers - teachers, firefighters, retail clerks - can afford to live near jobs, and local governments already have tools to help make that happen, an affordable housing expert said.

Ensuring people with different incomes can live near each other is as important an element to a community's success as desirable coffee shops and grocery stores, developer Hal Ferris said.

"We don't want to have a community that's segregated economically where you have the haves that live in the close-in destinations," he said. "The goal is to create higher-density, compact communities that people want to live in, not seen as a negative but as a desirable outcome."

Ferris, a Seattle-based developer and advocate of affordable housing, will speak in Bellingham on Wednesday, May 27, as part of a talk sponsored by Bellingham-based nonprofit Kulshan Community Land Trust. The trust helps people buy homes they couldn't otherwise afford. Ferris is also assistant chairman of the Urban Land Institute Seattle, an organization that promotes responsible land use and thriving communities.

Including affordable housing in developments can be profitable when local governments take steps like offering tax breaks or incentives, among other tools, he said. For example, when you're building a roughly 65-foot-tall building (short enough that you can use a cheaper wood frame, as opposed to steel) you can sell or rent homes to people earning 100 percent to 110 percent of the area median income. With zoning incentives and tax exemptions, developers can bring that down to 80 percent, he said.

Ferris also plans to talk about impacts to climate change that come from workers living outside the city and commuting long distances.

Ferris is a former principal of development company Lorig Associates, but he now has his own development company, called Spectrum Development Solutions. While he was at Lorig, the company partnered with the King County Library System, which planned a 10,000-square-foot library on one acre in Newcastle, south of Bellevue. The company bought rights to build 90 apartments over the library, 10 percent of which are for renters earning 80 percent or less of the area's median income.

The city allowed developers to build higher and denser than would otherwise be allowed, it offered a break on property taxes and reduced the required number of parking stalls. In the end, the project contributed a net of $900,000 to the city in taxes and fees that it wouldn't have otherwise received, Ferris said, and the library system got half of the cost of the library paid for.

Still, there's generally reluctance from some developers to enter deals like these, he said.

"It's complicated," Ferris said of the government-company relationship. "Most of the development community really doesn't like to partner with a public entity. It slows it down. You have much more of a public process. Often you have public funding and restrictions that go with that public funding."

But as financing has dried up for real estate development, there's more interest in partnerships with government, which can persuade banks to loan for construction, he said.

"There's a lot of developers right now that don't have as much to work on as they did a year and a half ago," he said.

ATTEND THE TALK

What: Seattle-based developer and affordable housing advocate Hal Ferris will speak at two events in Bellingham.

The first is a business partner appreciation breakfast, which is free for business partner representatives and members of Kulshan Community Land Trust. For others, it costs $15. The second talk, at Bellingham City Council Chambers, is free.

When: 7:30 a.m. (business breakfast), noon (council chambers presentation).

Where: The Leopold Ballroom, 1224 Cornwall Ave. (breakfast), City Council Chambers, 210 Lottie St.