56 units of housing to remain affordable thanks to Pierce County investment
Pierce County has helped purchase nearly 60 units of housing in the Parkland-Spanaway area as part of a greater effort to preserve and create affordable housing in the region.
Hidden Firs is a 56-unit apartment community at 15008 A St. S. According to Pierce County Human Services spokesperson Kari Moore, the longtime owners of Hidden Firs wanted to sell the property to an organization that would preserve it as affordable housing.
The Pierce County Housing Authority (PCHA) and private real-estate partner Kidder Mathews saw the opportunity to acquire the complex. Moore said PCHA applied for funding through the 2024 Rental Housing funding opportunity last spring and was awarded more than $892,000 toward the purchase of the property.
The funding was a part of a $17 million collective investment in affordable housing announced by the county in March and was made possible by sales-tax revenue generated by the Maureen Howard Affordable Housing Fund.
In 2023, the Pierce County Council approved the sales tax, which collects one-tenth of 1% of sales to leverage additional revenue for affordable-housing investments. The tax was named after Maureen Howard, a prominent advocate for the homeless in Tacoma who died in January 2023.
Before the purchase, PCHA determined that no major rehabilitation work nor displacement of current tenants would be required, making it a turn-key, acquisition-only project. Moore said the 'readiness' of the project was an incentive for the county to invest in its preservation.
According to Moore, the purchase price for Hidden Firs totaled $10.3 million.
'With 56 total units, that comes out to an average cost of roughly $180,000 per unit,' Moore told The News Tribune. 'By comparison, proposals for new construction projects of affordable housing in the last couple years have averaged about $500,000 per unit.'
She said the county estimated a new construction project of 56 units could be expected to cost roughly $28 million.
'While we know that we need to create many units of affordable housing to meet the needs of our community [according to data from Housing Action Strategy], we recognize that preserving existing affordable housing is also important,' Moore wrote in an email to The News Tribune.
The county's Housing Action Strategy, published in 2022, estimated the region would need to produce on average 2,300 units per year of housing affordable at or below 50% of area median income (AMI) through the year 2044 to fully meet the housing needs of current and future residents.
According to Pierce County, the region's Area Median Income is about $98,200 per household.
According to Pierce County's Human Services Department, the Maureen Howard Affordable Housing Fund has contributed to the creation of 741 affordable housing units since it was created in 2023. As of March 27, 253 of those units are completed, 227 are under construction, and 261 are in the development pipeline.
Meili Cady, a spokesperson for Kidder Mathews, said the property would maintain lower rents through U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development funding and vouchers.
'Each resident's rents will be lower than previously existing,' Cady told The News Tribune. 'The specific amount or percentage that the rent will be lowered varies based on the specific individual's income.'
Hidden Firs is a low-density, tree-lined community spanning two acres. The community is in the unincorporated community of Parkland and is also on a bus line and within walking distance to grocery stores, a park and other amenities.
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