Ideas for Camas site on the way
Housing agency is expected to unveil possible designs in January
Monday, December 28, 2009
For the second time in five years, a public housing developer is eyeing an old drive-in movie lot in Camas.
The Vancouver Housing Authority, the government agency that runs publicly owned housing in Clark County, has been reviewing architects’ ideas for putting 51 units on the 3-acre Prune Hill lot, on the southeast corner of Northwest 28th Avenue and Logan Street.
The VHA hasn’t yet run any design past the City of Camas, said VHA development project manager Frank L’Amie.
That might come in “probably mid- to late January,” L’Amie said.
Greg Anderson, a Camas city councilor who voted against an earlier plan for the property in 2004, said he welcomes a new opportunity to build apartments there.
“It’s a suitable site,” Anderson said. “I couldn’t see a commercial use there, just because of the fact that it’s totally surrounded by developed residential.”
Anderson added that he hasn’t seen the plans or made any decisions.
In 2006, a different nonprofit company that builds subsidized housing, Affordable Community Environments of Vancouver, scotched its plan to develop the property, citing changes in state funding.
Some people who live nearby had loudly objected to ACE’s 51-unit plan. They said it wouldn’t fit into their neighborhood of single-family homes.
ACE then sold the lot to the VHA, along with their permit to develop it.
That permit will expire in summer 2010, L’Amie said. The VHA hopes to act before then.
L’Amie said he hopes neighbors will like the VHA’s new plan better than ACE’s old one.
“This is not the same project,” he said. “It’ll be 51 units of mixed-income housing. … The old project was strictly low-income housing, very low-income.”
Most of the new project would be “workforce housing,” targeting families that make 60 to 80 percent of the local median income.
People with questions about the VHA’s plans should contact L’Amie at 360-993-9553.
Michael Andersen: 360-735-4508 or michael.andersen@columbian.com.
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