Friday, November 7, 2025
The Olympia City Council is set to consider whether to apply for a $1 million state grant to support infrastructure costs for South Puget Sound Habitat for Humanity’s housing development at 3900 Boulevard Road SE.
The proposed resolution, listed on the city council’s consent calendar for Tuesday, Sept. 9, would authorize Olympia to apply for 2025 Connecting Housing to Infrastructure Program (CHIP) funding from the Washington State Department of Commerce on behalf of South Puget Sound Habitat for Humanity’s housing development.
Habitat has asked the city staff to submit the application for the project.
The requested $1 million CHIP grant would complement existing funding, including a 2023 CHIP grant of $2 million already awarded to the project. Other financing includes federal Community Project Funding, state appropriations and local Home Fund dollars.
CHIP grants specifically support infrastructure costs like water, sewer and stormwater improvements that are essential for new housing developments, but can be prohibitively expensive for affordable housing projects.
In 2023, Olympia sold the 10-acre property to Habitat for Humanity for $1. The organization was chosen from 12 applications based on priorities, including housing affordability, homeownership opportunities, environmental sustainability and quality design.
The $56.3 million project would create about 112 affordable housing units, including owner-occupied townhomes and cottages, plus a small neighborhood center. Construction is scheduled to begin in fall, with housing units coming in phases through 2029.
All units are going to incorporate accessibility features with most multi-level homes, including first-floor bedrooms, wheelchair-accessible doorways and bathrooms, zero-step entrances for cottages and reinforced walls for future accessibility devices.
The accessibility features aim to address needs identified in the city’s Assessment of Fair Housing, which found an estimated 7,385 Olympia residents experience disabilities, with 16% living below the poverty level.
The project aims to target a significant gap in Olympia’s housing market.
According to the Thurston Regional Planning Council, approximately 7,605 of Olympia’s 23,000 households are cost-burdened, spending more than 30% of their income on housing. The city needs an estimated 14,295 new housing units by 2045, with over half needed for low-income households.
Under Habitat’s model, the homes would be affordable to households earning 50-80% of the area median income. The organization provides homebuyer education, financial guidance, and offers second mortgages to make homeownership accessible to working families who might otherwise be priced out of the market.
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longtimeresident
I already commented on another article saying just get moving on this project! That's a lot of affordable housing and is needed NOW. Hope you can get it done before 2029.....
Friday, September 5 Report this
KentReister
I live right next to this planned neighborhood. They can't start soon enough.
I can't wait to meet my future neighbors.
Friday, September 5 Report this
KentReister
Oh, and I'm already on the Habitat volunteer mailing list. As soon as they start asking for volunteers to help with this, I will be there!
Friday, September 5 Report this
Southsoundguy
The city should stop growing.
Saturday, September 6 Report this
JulesJames
Math: 112 housing units for $56.3m, plus the $3m of "grants" (taxpayer) = $529,464 per unit. Built on "free" (taxpayer) land. Habitat for Humanity is a fine organization. Affordable housing is a fine cause. But these numbers are screaming something -- don't know the future specifics -- but its not good. Basic math says so.
Saturday, September 6 Report this
ddttwo2
Why are you not considering Manufactured Homes as an alternative? You talk a good story about "Affordable Housing" but I will bet you have never even gone to a Manufactured Home facility or to a local Dealership to walk through a finished home to see what strides the industry has taken in the past several years to build a Quality home and really be the "Affordable Alternative"
Saturday, September 6 Report this
LouBow
This is needed and a great opportunity to invest in home ownership. However, the issue with this particular location is that it's a known FEMA Flood Zone (Zone AE - high risk).
https://msc.fema.gov/portal/search?AddressQuery=3900%20Boulevard%20Rd%20SE%20Olympia%20WA%2098501
This property does flood, and some years is like a lake. If anyone builds and lives on this property, they are required by the Federal Government to pay Flood Insurance. This can cost as much as $2,000 per year and is not optional per county and federal laws. This will add to the cost of the home ownership which seems counterintuitive the goal of this project. The city and county know this, and I wish someone would make them explain how fair this is to Habitat for Humanity or any potential homeowner.
Monday, September 8 Report this