KCCHA finalizes plans at College Market Place

Published 9:00 am Saturday, October 14, 2006

POULSBO — It may not be Wal-Mart or The Home Depot, but Wednesday’s announcement of plans for Nordic Place Apartments were just as welcomed by city officials.

Since the inception of College Market Place Kitsap County Housing Authority has expressed interest in the multi-family component of the development. The result is the Nordic Place Apartments.

The apartments are part of a 100-unit, 10 building mixed-income development, which will include one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments being built by the KCCHA.

“It gives us another piece to our inventory of housing,” Mayor Kathryn Quade said. “I think it’s a perfect fit for the College Market Place.” With affordable housing identified as one of the city’s needs, the development will provide opportunity for more groups of people to live in the city, Quade said.

“It’s one component of the tool kit that allows the city to meet its housing needs,” Quade said.

The development helps fill out the spectrum of housing that’s available in Poulsbo, said KCCHA spokeswoman Sarah Lee.

“This is another piece of the spectrum,” Lee said. “It helps if we can get a mix of all of them.”

The housing authority is excited about the opportunity to build in the College Market Place with Olympic College-Poulsbo and all of the other amenities including public transit that are already in place, said KCCHA housing development director Julie Graves, noting that in addition to providing the housing authority with a presence in the College Market Place, Nordic Place will be built using low impact development standards.

“This is the first time we’ve tried this,” she said. “Because it’s green doesn’t mean it has to be expensive.”

The estimated $12 million project is slated to begin in summer 2007 and should be completed by 2008, she said. It also prepares the housing authority for its future projects, which will be required to be built using low impact development standards beginning in 2008 to receive Washington State Housing Trust Fund dollars, Graves said.

“One of the things Mayor Quade said is that as the low impact (development) standards are being adopted, government needs to lead the way,” Lee said.

Once Nordic Place is completed, Quade and other government leaders will be able to look at private developers and say they have built to the proposed standards, Lee said.