McLean unveils plan to build 1,250 Boise apartments for low-income workers. What we know
Mayor Lauren McLean plans to partner with developers to create 1,250 apartment units of affordable housing for low-income, working-class renters over the next five years. McLean says the program aims to produce “multifamily rentals at Boise budgets.”
City officials said they plan to acquire more trust land to build on, repurpose current non-affordable apartment buildings into affordable housing, and turn underused buildings, such as an office buildings, into apartments.
The 1,250 units would be produced for renters making very low incomes, defined as 60% or less of the area median income. Under last year’s income guide, their rent would be $792 per month for one person making $31,680 and $905 for a two-person household making $36,180 or more.
In addition, the city aims to preserve 1,000 existing apartments for people earning 80% or less of the area median income. Those could include “naturally occurring affordable housing,” such as apartments in old buildings.
Under the city’s 2021 income guide, those tenants’ rents would be $1,055 per month units for a single person with a salary of at least $42,200 and $1,205 per month for a two-person household two with a combined income of $48,200.
The city also said an additional 250 units will be supportive housing for residents experiencing homelessness. Those would bring the total new apartments to 1,500 and raise the combined total of new and existing units to 2,500.
The homeless units were announced in December. They will be “housing first” units, which provide housing to homeless individuals regardless of their background, sobriety or mental health status, who are experiencing chronic homelessness and have a high level of service needs.
The plan includes 272 affordable apartments that are already in the works through land-trust projects. Those include the Moda Franklin apartments at the southwest corner of Orchard and Franklin streets on the Bench, and an apartment building at 3912 W. State St. on the site of the former Smoky Davis smoked-meat store.
Locations for new apartments beyond those already in the works were not immediately disclosed.
“No matter their income, Boiseans need home options that don’t threaten their ability to pay their bills, put food on the table, get medical care, and contribute to our community,” McLean said in a news release. “This program will allow the city to better partner with developers, speed up the process, and help us create a city for everyone by offering everyone a place to call home.”
The city will use its existing land trust to offer leases of city-owned land to developers. The owners would have to pay taxes only on the buildings, not the land, which they would lease from the city. The city said it will also “ provide gap financing,” meaning short-term loans.
As an example, the city said it might provide $1.8 million in land and $3.3 million in gap financing to support 185 affordable apartments in a 205-unit apartment complex. That would amount to a city investment of $27,568 in each income-restricted apartment.
The city is establishing a prequalification process for developers that officials say will allow housing to be built faster.
“We’re going to prequalify development teams, so that we then don’t have to start over every time we have a site that’s suitable for housing and go through a lengthy RFP process to find a developer with the expertise and the experience to bring those units online,” said Maureen Brewer, Boise’s senior manager of housing and community development. RFP means request for proposal.
The city said it would open its prequalification process for interested developers on Friday.
Business Editor David Staats contributed.
