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About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (June 10, 2015)
28 Wednesday, June 10, 2015 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon HOUSInG: Tight market has city council’s attention Continued from page 1 costs. Extreme rent burden means more than 50 percent of income goes to housing costs. For a resident of Sisters who has a full-time (40 hours a week) job that pays $10 an hour ($1,600 a month gross) and has to pay $700 a month in total housing costs, they would be considered to have rent burden. Statistics show that 30 percent of Sisters residents are rent-burdened, 20 percent have extreme rent burden, and the other 50 percent are with- out rent burden. The affordable housing and family-wage job merry- go-round in Sisters has been spinning for some time. It takes more family-wage jobs in town so residents can afford to live here, but without adequate affordable housing, new businesses may be hesi- tant to locate here, and local employees are forced to live elsewhere like Madras and Prineville. Kemper and the Council discussed a number of options for things the City/County could do to help increase the supply of affordable housing. By waiving or reducing system development charge (SDC) fees (for sewer, water, Specializing in Central Oregon Rural Properties K Kathy Hansbrough H Broker, CDPE, GRI, SRE B C Cell: 541-408-2998 Offi ce: 541-728-0033 O kjhansbrough@remax.net www.kathyhansbrough.com RE/MAX Key Properties 431 NW Franklin Ave. Bend, OR 97701 Licensed Broker in the State of Oregon parks, etc.) or other City fees such as costs of permits, build- ers would be able to pass those savings onto the buyer, offer- ing homes at a lower purchase price. City Manager Andrew Gorayeb reminded the Coun- cil, “To offer waivers, the City would have to get the County on board because they (the County) provide building ser- vices to the City (for inspec- tions, etc.). The County would have to agree to the waivers.” Homes built utilizing the fee waiver approach look exactly like other houses in the development, just with a lower purchase price. An example of the difference fee waivers would make is obvious when you consider that the average Habitat for Humanity house incurs $10,000 in fees in order to be built. Before approaching the County to get their buy-in on waiving SDC fees, the waiver requires a change to the City charter, which must be voted on by the residents of Sisters. Some of the urgency around the affordable housing issue is being driven by getting the wording for the ballot mea- sure worked out and turned in by August for inclusion on the November ballot. “The inventory of afford- able housing in Sisters is on the short side,” Gorayeb said. Currently in the works is a residential development in Sun Ranch, across from the airport, which will consist of seven single-family afford- able-housing units. Housing Works will purchase and hold the land and the homeown- ers will pay a nominal ground lease amount each year. That way, the land cost is backed out of the home purchase price, allowing the buyer to pay $180,000 to $190,000 for their home, and they will be eligible for an 80 percent home loan. Not all lenders will handle these kinds of pur- chases but locally, Umpqua Bank does. With Housing Works retaining ownership of the land, there is no prop- erty tax on the land because of Housing Works’ nonprofit status. Housing Works hopes to break ground in the next four months, with houses ready in early 2016. Peter Hall’s devel- opment north of downtown will provide eight afford- able homes over the next 48 months. Habitat for Human- ity, which builds about four houses a year, will provide 17 affordable homes over the next four to five years. The proposed McKenzie Meadows project next to the high school will be providing one afford- able house for every 10 built as well as affordable senior apartments. Kemper also proposed that the City could consider seed- ing housing development by providing land at no or lower cost as well as acquiring land T ON For Sisters, mlack mutte Ranch & Camp Sherman Real Estate R ERF RIV call Ellen at On the Metolius River! Fly fi shing, walking, biking, cross-country skiing & more. Accommodates 10-12 people. $375,000 and putting out a request for proposal to developers. The City can implement zoning measures to encour- age affordable housing. There can be inclusionary zoning in which developers are required to have an affordable-housing element as part of the larger development, such as the one in McKenzie Meadows. Builders can be granted a density bonus for building affordable housing. They may be able to build taller struc- tures than regularly allowed (Tamarack Village), or more units per acre, or utilize reduced lot sizes, thus recoup- ing money lost by charging lower purchase prices. By lowering other code restric- tions, production costs could also be reduced. Temporary property tax reductions for a period of time would reduce the home- owner expenses for the buyer, therefore possibly increasing their ability to qualify for a mortgage. To address the obvious shortage of affordable housing in Sisters, Council is going to establish an Affordable Hous- ing Task Force to research the problem and make suggestions for remediation to the Council. The task force will consist of people knowledgeable about the issue including represen- tatives from Housing Works, NeighborImpact, Habitat for Humanity, Economic Devel- opment of Central Oregon and the development community. 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