A sample floor plan of a two-bedroom unit at Station House
CHS reported on the January 7th opening of the application process for the 110 affordable apartment units slated to open later this year in Station House, the development from Capitol Hill Housing part of set of brand new buildings rising above the Capitol Hill Station light rail facility.
Just how big was demand for the six-story building’s affordable units? Capitol Hill Housing tells CHS that within 10 minutes, 300 respondents had filled out the form expressing interest in the application process — and more than 1,300 registered through the mid-January deadline.
Station House’s mix of studios, one-, two-, and three-bedroom units are available to those earning at or below 30%, 50%, and 60% of area median income. Capitol Hill Housing will assess eligibility during a screening process and applicant reviews. Under Seattle’s “First in Time” ordinance, Station House applicants will be called in the order in which they applied in the early interest round.
“We are continuing to call applicants back in the order the online form was received,” a message posted this week by CHH reads. “Due to the high volume of people interested in living at Station House, this is still an ongoing process. ”
Capitol Hill Housing says flyers and information were being shared out to its community partners in advance of the application process.
In another recent example of Seattle’s continuing need for new affordable housing, this 23rd and Jackson affordable project recorded 850 applicants for its 75 units that are being made available under a “community preference” policy that requires residents to prove they lived in the neighborhood before the year 2000.
Capitol Hill Station is set to open in March.
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I would like to know more about the “community preference” policy which is being used at the 23rd/Jackson development, under which those who have lived in that area since before the year 2000 are prioritized. Is that cohort of people somehow legally protected to allow this to happen? It seems like discrimination to me.
I don’t think they were prioritizing based on having actually lived in the area but were doing it through Africatown. IOW it seems like racial discrimination.
It’s a breadcrumb to centuries of historical racism and you are complaining even about that?
Come on Bob. This is GREAT for the CD to get back to its black roots. Seattle’s black population is shrinking because of redlining then gentrification right after. This isn’t about people who sold their houses when property taxes shook them out, it’s about the impoverished who were redlined in and never given a fair chance to be hired in an economically booming city the way their parents and grandparents were at Boeing during the war effort in the 40s.
So, an effort to mitigate past discrimination by instituting a discriminatory policy is OK?
Actions to correct the systematic racism baked in to our world by white people is not racial discrimination.
Please define racial discrimination.
The community preference was to keep the sunlight of the existing homeowners.
We could have built taller and give more people a chance, but that’s not the Seattle way. We need 200 buildings like this in the city (15-20 in CH).
For low-income people, community networks make a huge difference in mitigating their hardships. Poor people develop ties that provide help in times of stress, and information networks that allow them to stretch their resources. Allowing them to stay in their life-long neighborhood means they’re more likely to thrive and less likely to fail. This is a good policy.
Who are the “community partners”?
I was not happy with the process for the LINK units. I did get a call but because of work, I do not keep my phone on me and missed the cut off to call back by 20 minutes.