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To make up for housing demands created by over 800 new employees at Seven Feathers, Canyonville & the UCDC are acquiring OHC & HUD funds to build and make available housing for low to moderate income families.
CANYONVILLE -- When Seven Feathers Hotel and Casino Resort became one of the largest employers in the county about two years ago, 800 employees converged on Canyonville.
The housing market bottlenecked, leaving some resort workers with no option but to travel 50 or 60 miles to work.
Some of the housing problems are expected to ease if the state gives final approval Friday to a 40 unit complex on Stagecoach Road for families with low to moderate incomes.
"There is a lot of need for this type of housing," said Betty Tamm, executive director of Umpqua Community Development Corp. in Roseburg. "There are lots of service wage jobs that make affordable housing hard to find.”
Tamm and Umpqua CDC are acquiring grant funding for the $3 million project through the Oregon Housing Council in addition to federal Housing and Urban Development dollars.
There will be 10 buildings in the complex with a mix of one-, two- and three bedroom apartments. A community building with a meeting room and a laundromat will also be built with three play areas scattered through out the 3-acre site.
"This is definitely a positive step,” City Manager Larry Andrew said. "With the rapid growth in employment, people were forced to drive a great distance. There were few rentals--prices were rising."
Rent will be based on income, with qualified tenants earning 50 to 60 percent of the median income in Douglas County. For a family of four, that it about $17,000 a year. The monthly rent will range from $260 to $490 depending on unit size and income level.
Building the complex also opens the door for improvements to Stagecoach Road, the street that provides access to the project, through Community Development Block Grants. The grants are earmarked for off-site improvements for affordable housing projects.
It has been about two decades since Canyonville has seen a major housing development, Andrew said. Growth has been stagnate in the city since the down turn in timber jobs in the 1980s. That, coupled with an overtaxed and aging sewer system, made building to meet housing demands difficult.
The Department of Environmental Quality put a limit on tapping into the city's sewer system and it wasn't until recent improvements were made that the system could handle additional hookups, Andrew said.
System development charges from the project, as well as from any other new construction in the city, will be used to finance future sewer system improvements. That takes some of the financial burden off current residents, Andrew said.
If approved by the state, construction on the housing project is expected to begin next spring.
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