HRB accepts an invitation to partner at Island Terrace. The 48-unit complex was built using the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program, in which developers receive federal tax credits for the rehabilitation or construction of affordable rental housing for low-income households. The program requires that a non-profit partner, typically a minority owner, ensure that affordability and income eligibility provisions are met.
In anticipation of a large donation of land and with plans to develop a neighborhood of homes for ownership, HRB becomes a community land trust. With this model, HRB can keep the homes affordable even after they are sold by retaining ownership of the ground beneath them and leasing it to the homeowner for a 99-year term. The ground lease requires that homes to be resold to other income-eligible households at a price that is affordable. The following year, Lois Curtis (1933 – 2022) donates six acres of land, valued at $2.1M, to HRB. This parcel will ultimately become Ferncliff Village. Curtis served on the Bainbridge Island School Board, City Council, and Planning Commission and cared deeply about maintaining the island’s economic diversity through housing.
Dore Cabin is donated and trucked to the city-owned parcel occupied by HRB’s Sadie Woodman House.
The two stacked, factory-built modular homes of Sparrow Condominiums were created in 2007 as an affordable housing prototype commissioned by developer Unico Properties, designed by Mithun and Hybrid Architecture, and displayed at Rainier Square in Seattle. In 2009, Bainbridge Island resident and retired CEO of Unico Dale Sperling donates them to HRB. They are stored at the city’s public works site before being transported to HRB’s primary rental neighborhood on Knechtel Way. Sperling means sparrow in German.
Phase 1 of Ferncliff Village, 24 single-family homes, is built on land donated by Lois Curtis. HRB receives funding from HUD’s Self-Help Homeownership Opportunity Program which requires that the first generation of homeowners perform 50 hours of sweat equity. As part of the program, Ferncliff Village buyers landscape their homes and common spaces.
Phase 2 of Ferncliff Village, 16 townhomes, follows. The hilltop homes border extensive community gardens and give some lucky residents views of Puget Sound.
The financially strapped Housing Kitsap is looking to sell its 13-unit property at 550 Madison Avenue. The residents launch a passionate campaign, “Save 550 Madison Avenue,” broadcasting their plight on social media, petitioning Housing Kitsap, and ultimately generating widespread support in a community growing increasingly concerned with the lack of affordable housing. After an unsuccessful bid by HRB to buy the property, the new owner announces plans to develop the site, along with its adjoining parcels, as an 80-unit market-rate apartment complex. HRB and the developer enter a partnership which allows HRB to purchase 13 units at the cost to build. HRB will add these homes to its community land trust where they will be kept permanently affordable. Construction begins 2023.
HRB begins fundraising for the purchase at Wyatt & Madison and to develop the Ericksen Community, an 18-unit multifamily rental building. The Ericksen Community will occupy a parcel at the corner of Ericksen Avenue and Knechtel Way that was sold to HRB in 2019 by a founding board member at half its appraised value. The city of Bainbridge Island contributes $2 million to the Wyatt & Madison purchase from funds it received under the American Rescue Plan Act.
HRB hires its first public policy specialist, strengthening its partnership with the city and becoming more strategic in its advocacy of policies that support affordable housing. HRB institutes a system of advocacy alerts that let supporters know when an action item related to housing is on the agenda at City Council or Planning Commission and would benefit from their endorsement in writing or with public comment.
HRB acquires two townhomes in a market-rate neighborhood of 17 single-family homes. As part of the city’s Housing Design Demonstration Projects, the Wallace Cottages developer, Central Highland Homes, received bonus density in exchange for selling two of the homes affordably. HRB secures the homes for its community land trust and further subsidizes them so that they will be affordable to its buyers. The second home sells at just 35% of its appraised value.