Zero vacancy in Chelan: 80 affordable units needed

CHELAN – In March of this year, Julie Brunner got hired by the City and obtained her services as housing consultant in Chelan.

On Sept. 25 during the council meeting, Brunner presented the council with the Housing Study Update.

Brunner has 25 years of experience in Affordable Housing and her contract with the City will soon come to an end.  

“There has been a lot of effort and data gone to this and I think you will find it fascinating,” stated Chelan Mayor Mike Cooney before Brunner began her presentation.

“It’s always fun for me to come to a community  that I am not so familiar with and become very familiar with it … I’ve enjoyed working in Chelan because I come from Orcas Island and we have a lot of similarities in terms of geographic challenges, some distances and a very attractive place to live for most folks,” said Brunner.

That evening, Brunner went over the Chelan Valley Housing Trust update, housing needs assessment highlights and wrapped it up with some solutions based on her study results.

The Chelan Valley Housing Trust has been working on getting their organization together. So far the board has drafted articles of incorporation and their bylaws and they are also working on the 501 (c)3 application.

“They had a meeting last night with 11 folks, who are interested in participating as board members and that sort of thing. They’ve been having lots of conversations about the in donations, about where housing might go and how to bring it to the table,” stated Brunner.

The Housing Trust is starting conversations regarding fundraising and planning, “we are finding that all the traditional sources of money that we have gone to in order to make affordable housing happen in our community are pretty much no longer available,” she explained.
With funds shrinking and shrinking, “we can’t rely on those state and federal folks the way we used to be able to, so now we are trying to take matters into our own hands.”

Brunner also talked about numbers in the Chelan Valley, she collected data from the Chelan Census County Division (CCD). Brunner then combined the Manson and Chelan CCD, “there’s under 10,000 people in the Chelan Valley according to the 2016 data, which is right under 4,000 households and around 7,000 housing units.” About 34 percent of housing is seasonally vacant.

In Manson alone, Brunner found “pretty dramatic ageing” from 2000 to 2016. The 45-65 population went from 22 percent to 33.9 percent while the 65 or older group went from 12.2 percent to 20 percent.

When it comes down to household income levels, Brunner found that 25 percent of the population earns less than $25,000 a year. “Half your population earns $50,000 or less, it seems like a pretty good guide to be thinking about who you need to focus on the provision of affordable housing,” said Brunner.

Brunner also broke it down to even lower incomes, “four hundred and twenty household earn less than $10,000 a year, when we look at that $10,000 income, which is very low, one of the things another data point struck out is that 15 percent of the seniors live below the poverty level,” Brunner explained.

For a one bedroom the median rent is $950, “that translates to $18 an hour to be able to afford that rent.” The median home sale price for the month of August was of $512,000 for the combined Manson and Chelan area.

Brunner did some research and learned that currently there are 148 single family homes listed in the area and only 10 of them are listed below $250,000.

Last time Brunner was in town, she collected data from some of the employees in Chelan, “I based these numbers on staring wages because part of the concern is recruiting and maintaining folks,” reported Brunner.

Chelan Service Workers: $14 hour/full time $29,120 annually, $728 affordable rent/mortgage, $103,000 conventional mortgage, $180,000 USDA mortgage.

Chelan Small Business Owners: $35,000 annually, $962 affordable rent/mortgage, $134,000 conventional mortgage, $234,000 USDA mortgage.

Chelan Nurses: $17 hour/full time, $35,360 annually, $972 affordable rent/mortgage, $135,000 conventional mortgage, $235,000 USDA mortgage.

Chelan Mid-Management: $20 hour/full time, $41,600 annually, $1,144 affordable rent/mortgage, $166,500 conventional mortgage.

Chelan Teachers: $42,290 annually, $1,163 affordable rent/mortgage, $170,000 conventional mortgage.

Chelan has affordable housing targeted to the population with the very low incomes, there are 181 total affordable housing units in the community. “It’s not enough units, but it’s substantial, it plays a large role, those units need to be protected and supported over time,” said Brunner.

“People want to know what’s the need … there’s 3,928 household units in the Chelan Valley, we know that 1,900 of your residents are earning below $50,000 and we know that almost 1,300 of those are renters … we also know that there are 1,200 occupied rentals,” Brunner stated.

Brunner also mention the fact that there’s a zero vacancy rate in the community, “a healthy vacancy rate is considered six to seven percent.”

In order to reach the healthy vacancy rate in Chelan there needs to be 80 new affordable units. Projecting into the future 857 additional housing units will be needed, 187 will be seasonal housing and 670 will be full time housing units.

“Fifty percent of those housing units would be for that population,” said Brunner, meaning that 335 additional affordable homes will be needed to serve the folks earning less than $50,000.
Brunner then talked a little more about Community Land Trusts which preserve affordability, protect subsidies, help homeowners and tenants become and remain successful, and maintain the community’s character.

Community Land Trusts are non-profit organizations, community based, they have a housing mission, have a big membership base and also have a board structure.

They focus on stewardship, partnerships with other agencies, various housing types and various housing tenures.

“This brings us back to questions of the Chelan Valley Housing Trust and these are the questions I am posing to the soon to be board. Who are you going to serve? What size units are you going to build? What are the target incomes? Are you building single family homes? Townhomes or Condos? Are you looking at homeownership or rentals?,” said Brunner.

Council woman Erin McCardle was very vocal during Brunner’s presentation, she asked “as a municipality what is our responsibility and rightful engagement in developing this Land Trust?”

“It’s not an uncommon phenomenon at all, as I said in the world of local reality we are looking for those local partnerships with our local governments because the state we can’t rely on anymore,” answered Brunner.

Based on the study’s results, Brunner believes that best option that fits in Chelan for affordable housing is the resale restricted homeownership model.

“It’s the shortest term win, the longest term pay off. What that looks like is up to the community to decide and to the site. The one  project that has been on the table … if the land is free at the

Lookout the 2.5 acre parcel down at the bottom that they are talking about donating, cost to build it is $150 per square feet … site and utilities get you a 900 square foot home at $170,000 or a 1,100 square foot home at $200,000 … even your service worker could potentially buy a home for $170,000 and then that same $170,000 in 5 years will sell for $185,000, depending on what happens in terms of a resale formula, it’s always ideally going to be affordable,” explained Brunner.

After further discussion, the Mayor ended Brunner’s presentation saying, “I think the city is listening, the city will be doing the right things, I just want to make sure something gets done, that we all address it, that’s what people are asking for.”