7A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2015
Housing: ‘I have never seen it as tight as it is this year’
Continued from Page 1A
“I have never seen it as tight
as it is this year,” said Kent Ea-
som, who has managed prop-
erties through Easom Property
Management in Astoria for
more than 20 years. He put the
vacancy rate at below 1 percent.
Unique driver
A unique driver of demand
is the U.S. Coast Guard, which
has more than 100 housing units
near Niagara Avenue, 12 more
under construction and another
12 planned for 2016 and 2017.
The city’s report said the units
will still fall 60 short of what the
Coast Guard needs, driving ser-
vicemen and their families into
the region’s housing market.
The units at Yacht Club
go between $840 and $940 a
month for one bedroom, Willey
said, and $940 and $1,040 for
two, with Coast Guardsmen and
health care professionals com-
mon tenants. Willey said her
phone is ringing 20 times a day
with prospective tenants want-
ing apartments, and she receives
daily visitors.
Charity Havens, who works
at Aaron’s rent-to-own store in
Warrenton, stopped by Tuesday
and inquired about a two-bed-
room unit for her, a partner and
their two children. They are all
sharing a room in her father’s
house,
“You go online, and there’s
nothing, or you’re paying some-
one else’s mortgage,” Havens
said.
Photos by Joshua Bessex/The Daily Astorian
ABOVE: Omancio Martinez moves a beam in the rafters of
the new Yacht Club Apartments under construction. BE-
LOW: The second phase of the newer Yacht Club Apart-
ments, overlooking Youngs River, are slated to open in the
spring.
An affordable hous-
ing study by the city
concluded the new
U.S. Coast Guard
housing under con-
struction near Niag-
ara will still fall short
of what is needed.
The Coast Guard is a
big driver behind the
demand for mar-
ket-rate housing in
Astoria.
What people want
DeLores Richards, co-owner
of KD Properties with husband
Ken, said her company is an
often-overlooked provider of in-
expensive, market-rate housing,
from $485 a month for a studio
to $800 for a three-bedroom du-
plex.
“We’ve got a lot of working
people coming in, and there’s
no place to put them,” Richards
said. “They’ve got the jobs.
They don’t have the place to
live. We’re down to about one
vacancy right now.”
Michael Claussen, manager
of the Norblad Hotel, said he
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people wanting to live in the
150-square-foot suites rented
out for $495 a month, including
Internet and a communal kitch-
en and bathrooms.
When the economy was
slow, Claussen said, owners
Paul Caruana and Brian Faherty
switched some hotel rooms to
monthly rentals. But with the
economy and tourism on the
upswing, he said, the Norblad
is converting those apartments
back into hotel rooms.
“We have plenty of people
who want to move in,” Claussen
said. “It’s just that we can make
more money selling them as ho-
tel rooms.”
At the higher end of the af-
fordability spectrum is Sean
Fitzpatrick and Wecoma Part-
ners, which operates the Illahee
Apartments. Fitzpatrick said he
operates 68 apartments around
Astoria, mostly two-bedroom
units, with the lowest rent start-
ing at $995 a month.
“There seems to be a
shortage of studios and small
one-bedrooms,”
Fitzpatrick
said. “We used to get a lot of
calls for three bedrooms, and we
don’t get those calls anymore.”
The other shortage is up-
scale housing, Fitzpatrick said, a
niche he focuses on.
Making it affordable
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dened is misleading, Fitzpatrick
said, because it does not take
into account utility savings in
15% off all costume
nicer units and whether people
prioritize higher quality, central-
ized housing over commuting,
eating out or other expenses.
“Unless there’s subsidies,
you can’t build new and make it
affordable,” Fitzpatrick said.
He said developers, such as
Krueger who offer some subsi-
dized housing in Edgewater at
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to navigate those systems.
Easom said zoning and land
scarcity also make building new
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adding the city could help by
easing stringent zoning require-
ments. Another challenge, he
said, is the tapped-out federally
subsidized rental housing pro-
gram — known as Section 8
— which has three-year waiting
lists.
Richards said part of KD
Property’s ability to offer inex-
pensive housing is by owning
the units it manages. The city’s
affordable housing study report-
ed the monthly costs for own-
ers providing housing. Owners
without a mortgage faced on
average a third of the costs of
those still paying down their
properties.
Morgan, the former mayor
of Cannon Beach, said the com-
munal concept of the Norblad is
being recreated in the expensive
beach resort town, where Martin
Hospitality is building commu-
nal workforce housing across
from City Hall. That concept,
Morgan said, could be a good
one for a place like the dilapidat-
ed former Waldorf Hotel next to
Astoria City Hall.
The city is also exploring a
mixed-use project at Heritage
Square that could include a new
public library and workforce
housing.
“Building on top of the new
library is an exciting concept,”
Morgan said. “There’s a lot of
interest in downtown in general.
There are vacant spots here and
there for housing.”
Fitzpatrick and Morgan both
said building more apartments
could help stunt the growth in
rent, and the city is researching
areas for growth. The only ma-
jor apartment project under con-
struction in Astoria is the Yacht
Club. Property managers like
Fitzpatrick and Richards said
they are trying to expand their
stock of rental housing.
Krueger would not pro-
vide details on his next apart-
ment project. But Morgan said
Krueger is interested in building
a new apartment complex on the
vacant city blocks along Irving
Avenue between Eighth and
10th streets.
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