SPOKANE VALLEY, Wash. — The Spokane County Commissioners Office is considering an ordinance that would make it easier for extra and unused properties owned by the county to be turned into affordable housing.
One site up for consideration is the old Sheriff’s Community Oriented Policing Effort (SCOPE) building nera Evergreen and Riverside.
“This is an opportunity for us as a local government to potentially get creative and bring solutions to the table to meet a really big need in our community,” said County Commissioner Chris Jordan. “Anything we can do to move the needle on making more affordable housing opportunities available for people is worthwhile.”
Jordan wants to create an ordinance that would allow unused property to be gifted or sold at a lower rate to affordable housing organizations.
“The inability to get land affordability is often a big barrier for these affordable housing projects moving forward,” he said.
State law allows for the discounting of these properties, Spokane County just needs to put a policy in Place. The City of Spokane already has one.
Local organization Thrive International is working on building 48 affordable housing units on a plot of land it purchased from the Spokane Public Library at a discounted rate.
“It works out great because Thrive gets access to the land and gets to save some money that we would have to spend to buy land for the building,” said Thrive Executive Director, Mark Finney.
Jordan said he is excited about moving forward with the ordinance.
“The next steps are research, drafting the ordinance, answering questions and having more opportunity for community input,” he said.
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