Some priced out of downtown neighborhoods
Living close to downtown, as many Spokane residents who can afford condos are learning, has its advantages.
You’re close to banks and shopping. You can walk to work and restaurants and the theater – movie or stage.
You can drink your double-martini without worrying about who will drive you home.
Living close to downtown, as many Spokane residents who can’t afford condos already knew, has its advantages for people who don’t make a lot of money, too.
You’re close to parks and public transportation. You can walk to work and restaurants and the theater.
And you can drink your double-Kokanee without worrying about who will drive you home.
Even before all those apartment buildings started transforming into condos and apartment houses back into single-family homes, there were people who loved living close to the city’s core. At least I did.
I lived in downtown apartments for my first three years in Spokane.
So when my boyfriend and I were ready to buy a house, the first places we looked were downtown, Browne’s Addition and Peaceful Valley.
Unfortunately, there was no way to make it work. We just couldn’t afford it.
We’re not the only ones.
“Certainly what’s going on in all the neighborhoods around downtown is some degree of gentrification,” said Chris Venne, development finance manager at Community Frameworks, which develops affordable housing in and around Spokane.
In Browne’s Addition, residents air similar concerns at neighborhood council meetings. As developers set their sights on the area around downtown as a draw for folks seeking upscale housing, longtime residents living in apartments worry they’ll be forced out when their buildings are turned into condos they can’t afford or even demolished to make way for fancier digs.
“They’re very concerned about the neighborhood remaining affordable,” said Mark Wylie, the council’s president.
Not that anybody has anything against homeownership. As Venne pointed out, homeownership attracts residents who have stable jobs and expect to stick around the community long enough to build some equity in their homes.
Homeowners plant roses in their yards and volunteer at local schools, inspiring their neighbors to do the same and creating neighborhoods where people care about their homes and one another.
When neighborhoods of renters transform into neighborhoods of owners, “much is gained,” Venne said. But at the same time, “a lot is lost.”
The problem, he said, starts when changes in the housing stock start “squeezing out people who are the low end of the income scale who can’t find affordable housing.”
That happened a couple of years ago with the conversion of The Ridge apartments in Browne’s Addition to condominiums. Renters were offered the first option to buy the condos, and some did.
Some couldn’t afford it and had to move out. Now, 103 units out of The Ridge’s 136 have been sold, and negotiations with former renters are near their end, said Richard Wilson, a principal in the company that bought the complex.
The Ridge’s least-expensive, one-bedroom units cost $164,000. Compared with other condos in the area, Wilson said, that’s cheap.
When The Ridge conversion began, the neighborhood had a “seedy quality,” Wilson said.
“We’ve completely helped change the dynamic of Browne’s Addition. We now have BMWs and those kind of cars in our parking lot here.”
Developers “absolutely” have a responsibility to offer affordable housing, Wilson said, after I asked him. But developers lack support from the city to help them do so, he said.
“It’s not advanced enough here,” he said. “Portland, even Boise, has it. But this town is still trying to figure out how to keep their pools open in the summer.”
One program exempts construction of multifamily housing in downtown, Browne’s Addition, West Central and Peaceful Valley from paying property taxes for 10 years. The exemption doesn’t apply to The Ridge, Wilson said, and just benefits “million-dollar buyers.”
There are ways for communities to both improve neighborhoods and let people who already live in them stick around. The San Diego Housing Commission offers, among its first-time homebuyer programs, a “condo conversion loan” for families whose buildings are making the switch.
In the same city, condo developers are subject to an “inclusionary housing” ordinance, which requires them to either ensure that 10 percent of their complexes are affordable or pay a fee.
Spokane, as far as I could uncover, has no such programs. Housing assistance programs target people, as they should, but not places, as maybe they should, too, if we’re interested in urban neighborhoods with diverse populations.
What’s so special about Browne’s Addition or downtown or Peaceful Valley?
There are plenty of neighborhoods in Spokane where I can’t afford to live. And home prices are rising all over town, not just the city-center area – at rates among the highest in the nation, according to the National Association of Realtors.
The downtown area is different. People like it for the convenience, but even more, I’d submit, because living in and near downtown feels more cosmopolitan.
(OK, it helps if you squint, and, OK, if you’ve had a few Kokanees. The drunken squinting is especially effective on those downtown blocks with the sparkly sidewalks. The point is, it’s what we’ve got, and some of us like it fine.)
Downtown attracts people who want to live close to lots of different kinds of people, not just people who can afford mansions and expensive condos.
This rags-to-riches trend also seems like a problem for people who’ve made their lives in a neighborhood for years – decades, even – and then are displaced because they no longer can afford their homes.
Also, it stinks in general that there’s a surge of energy going into our city center and a lot of enthusiastic people who’ll be left out.
“It’s too bad, because living downtown is so fun,” said Cindy Algeo, executive director of the Spokane Low-Income Housing Consortium.
“Everything’s close. Everything’s within walking distance.
“But it’s out of range even for people making median wage.”