River Street building to have ‘affordable’ units. But what about housing already there?
A planned building at River and Ash streets would bring more apartments to downtown Boise but would remove existing affordable housing.
The six-story, 130-apartment building at 672 S. Ash St. would use funds from a soon-to-expire urban renewal district to designate 13 of its units as affordable, meaning at or below 100% of the area’s median income, which in Boise is $70,026 for a two-person household.
At a hearing Tuesday, members of the Boise City Council expressed concerns about the affordability of the apartments. There are now 16 “naturally occurring” affordable units in two-story fourplexes at the location, which would be torn down to build the new development. “Naturally occurring” affordable housing refers to units that do not have capped or subsidized rents but which charge less than market rates.
Dean Papé, a partner at deChase Miksis, the developer, said the proposal would designate 10% of units as affordable.
A tenant in the existing apartments testified that the tenant’s two-bedroom rent is $1,100 a month, and asked that the new building designate more future units as affordable. But what tenants consider affordable might not be what the city deems affordable: up to $1,751 per month for a two-person household earning the median income of $70,026.
Council members indicated they liked dense development at the River Street location. Council Member Jimmy Hallyburton asked why the developer had not tried for more units with less parking, since that would be allowed under proposed changes in city zoning.
“I don’t know that there’s a council member up here overly concerned about the parking,” Hallyburton said. “If you’re able to reduce parking and get more units, and thereby get more affordable units, I think that’s something that everybody would like to see.”
But Papé told council members that the 13 units are tied to the funding from the Capital City Development Corp., Boise’s urban renewal agency, and that if the project did not go forward now, the company would “hold” until the city updates its zoning code, which is expected to happen later this year.
Under the new zoning, such a development would be allowed to go forward without City Council review — and without a city-required development agreement that requires the affordable apartments if the developer benefits from urban-renewal money. That money comes from property taxes collected within an urban-renewal district.
“We understand if unsuccessful to move forward, the property owner would then hold and wait for the future zoning to then go into place … without those additional housing units,” Papé said.
The land is owned by River Street BE LLC, a business registered in Idaho in 2022 by Heath H. Gregory, the chairman, CEO and sole member of Baron Equities in El Segundo, California. The city in 2021 approved another Baron development, also with deChase Miksis, nearby at 1103 W. Lee St., where aging mobile homes were demolished to make way for a building with 48 apartments.
The affordable requirement would be in place for four years, according to a housing covenant included in the development agreement.
The council unanimously approved the proposal.
“I think that this application provides more than we will get nine months from now,” Clegg said, referring to the impending zoning changes and the coming sunset of the urban renewal district and its funding. The River and Myrtle Urban Renewal District will expire in 2025 after 20 years.
The building, which is being designed by Pivot North Architecture, would include two stories of interior parking and 1,000 square feet of commercial space.
Business and Local News Editor David Staats contributed.
