NCW Real Estate Blog

It looks like the Wenatchee City Council is set to talk about Affordable Housing at 5:15 pm during their July 17th Work Session at City Hall.  The Affordable Housing Action Plan is attached and it is 9.9 Meg to open.  Rick Smith, Community Development Director, discusses the history of rising home prices in Wenatchee and hiring David Rosen Consultants to write an assessment on affordable housing in Chelan.  The report is attached to the above plan.

Currently, rather than having one of the fastest rising housing markets, Wenatchee may have one of the most slowly declining.  I have to admit, with the consultant selection process I was expecting that the conclusions of the city staff would be something along the lines of we must tax the citizens to build more affordable housing. 

Director Smith’s recommendations fall into three general categories I’ll paraphrase:

1. Develop some affordable housing through a public/private partnership on city or private land.  They would send out a request for proposal asking for specific incentives a developer might want from the city to develop a property with 20% set aside for affordable housing for people earning 80% or less of median income.  I call this the cast your line and see if something bites approach.  Or maybe there is already a project and partner in mind and this is a way to start the competitive process to arrive at that answer or something better if it exists.
2. Start a Rental License and Inspection program.  This would make landlords get a business license and submit to inspections since many rentals in Wenatchee are not in good condition.  This will increase landlords’ expenses to do business and probably won’t create anymore rentals.  But, it might help get rid of some of the run down ones even though all rents may increase as landlords’ expenses go up.
3. The city could regulate condo conversions.  State law prevents local authorities from doing much to regulate condo conversions, but the city proposes looking at doing what they can to keep more of these as rentals. 

So, the City of Wenatchee is going to take some small steps to say they’re doing something about affordable housing.  I am pleased that it appears the city is not taking big, expensive, unproductive steps in a volatile market that is getting more affordable every day.   I’ll take smaller, less wasteful, also not very productive steps any day and have confidence that the markets will address the problem if they are allowed to. 

Tags: General Interest, Local //