Key Grant Awarded for New Affordable Housing Project

The quest to build much-needed year-round rental housing on Orcas Island is one step closer to reality. OPAL Community Land Trust and San Juan County were recently awarded a HUD Community Development Block Grant of $562,672. The grant will help fund the purchase of 2.5 acres of land on North Beach Road that OPAL will develop to provide 30 affordable townhomes.

“This grant is excellent news for the community,” said County Councilman Rick Hughes, whose advocacy for the project led to the county sponsoring OPAL’s application.

“Local businesses are operating fewer hours because they can’t find employees, and they can’t find employees because of the lack of affordable housing,” explained Hughes. “This project is vital to the health of our economy.”

The CDBG award is contingent upon two other government agencies also funding the rental project. OPAL recently submitted a request for $1.9 million from the Washington State Housing Trust Fund and will learn in December if that grant is awarded. OPAL applied last year, but was turned down. Since then OPAL has made significant progress in strengthening the competitiveness of its application.

Lisa Byers, executive director of OPAL, stated that one key factor in the potential success for the application is the level of community support. The project budget includes over $750,000 in contributions from individuals. “People who love and care about Orcas have been very generous with donations and pledges, which will significantly increase OPAL’s chances of being awarded the Housing Trust Fund grant,” she said.

In addition to grant funding, the project will rely on dollars from the federal Low Income Housing Tax Credit program. “The Tax Credit program is the largest funder for affordable rental housing in the country, but no project in San Juan County has been funded by tax credits in almost 30 years,” said Byers. To increase the project’s chances of being funded, OPAL staff members participated in stakeholder meetings to provide feedback on scoring and evaluation criteria.

“We also met with our state legislators to educate them about the impacts of legislative mandates on funding for affordable housing,” Byers added. “What’s needed on Orcas is different from what’s needed in other parts of the state.”

This will be OPAL’s first all-new construction project since building the Wild Rose Meadow neighborhood, across from the Medical Center, from 2005 to 2010. More recently OPAL has concentrated on moving and “recycling” existing houses and renovating the eight buildings and 22 units of the Lavender Hollow apartments.

Incorporated in 1989, OPAL serves 132 rental and ownership Orcas Island households and continues to accept applications from people who are not able to purchase a house in the traditional market. For more information, go to www.opalclt.org or call (360) 376-3191.

OPAL’s proposed rental neighborhood on North Beach Road includes 30 affordable townhomes on 2.5 acres in Phase I, and an additional 15 apartments on 1.3 acres in Phase II.