50 apartments in the works for Whitewater Park area

The Boise City/Ada County Housing Authority is in the planning stages for a 50-unit, affordable-housing apartment complex near Whitewater Park Boulevard.

The Sandhill Crane Apartments would be on three acres of land in the 3100 block of Moore Street.

The development, a few blocks south of State Street, would “replenish some of the supply that’s turning into non-affordable housing,” said Deanna Watson, executive director of the housing authority.

People with housing vouchers often cannot to find rentals, Watson told the Statesman in October. Much of the new construction in the Treasure Valley is higher-end housing, and landlords are renovating once-affordable units, which raises their rents.

Whitewater Park Apartments near Whittier Elementary School last fall told tenants to prepare for a rent hike. A one-bedroom apartment facing Quinn’s Pond would increase from $777 to $1,176.

Rent for the Sandhill Crane apartments likely would range from $290 for a one-bedroom to $750 for a four-bedroom unit. The tenants would be workers and families whose household incomes range from about $15,000 to about $36,000.

The project is in the early stages. No permits have been filed, and the tax-credit project relies on financing through the Idaho Housing and Finance Association.

If all the pieces fall into place, construction could start as early as spring 2017, according to local housing officials.

“We have some details to work out on the site itself, in terms of a local road the city would like to see constructed,” Watson said.

The developer is Affordable Housing Solutions — a nonprofit subsidiary of the housing authority — in partnership with Northwest Real Estate Capital Corp., which recently worked on the Trailwinds Apartments development in Garden City.

This story was originally published June 7, 2016 at 6:11 PM with the headline "50 apartments in the works for Whitewater Park area."