Low-income Portland residents and families seeking affordable housing close to downtown will have 240 new options come 2019.

The Portland City Council on Wednesday unanimously approved spending almost $6 million on a 12-story affordable housing complex on Northeast Grand Avenue in the Lloyd District. The buildings will have 240 studios, one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments.

The project is expected to cost $74 million, or about $300,000 per unit not including the costs for 7,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space. The price includes building to environmental standards, paying construction crews the prevailing wage and building to the neighborhood's standards.

The city on Wednesday gave the property, which has sat vacant since the city bought it in 1989 and is worth about $2.5 million, to Home Forward, the local housing authority that will lead the development of the project.

All of the apartments will be affordable to individuals or families making 60 percent of the median area income. Fewer than 10 percent will be affordable to those making 30 percent or less than the median area income.

Though commissioners voted together to launch the complex, tensions ran high during discussion of it.

Former housing commissioner Nick Fish said housing officials did not go far enough to ensure that the project would include housing with access to social services for those recently homeless or at risk of becoming homeless.

The city and county in October pledged to add 2,000 additional apartments with services such as physical and mental healthcare, drug addiction treatment, employment coaching or other social services by 2028.

"We now have a policy saying we're going to hit 200 a year and we're going to miss an opportunity in this project to get one," Fish said. "I want to make clear that when we're doing our underwriting, that this is not discretionary ... we're going to build these in."

Fish directed much of his frustration and questioning at Mayor Ted Wheeler, who oversees the housing bureau, and Housing Bureau Director Kurt Creager.

"We've got to figure out a way, mayor, to make this intentional and institutional because we're not going to get there if every project has a laudable other goal," Fish said.

Home Forward Director Michael Buonocore said the agency is "explicitly expressing a preference" to use apartments in the new complex to house victims of domestic violence.

While Fish said he "completely supports" housing for victims of domestic violence, he questioned the decision to serve that group before applying the city's recently adopted pledge to provide housing coupled with mental health care and other support services.

When Creager told Fish that he wanted to "reframe" Fish's characterization of the project, Fish shot back: "I want to get the outcome, not the framing."

Fish told the mayor that he would not support another housing project that does not include support services.

"I can assure you because I've been on the council long enough," Fish said. "Unless we keep our feet to the fire and seize an opportunity on each development to find permanent supportive housing units, we'll never meet the goal we've set. I'm tired of setting goals and then falling short."

Between several interruptions from the crowd, the mayor told Fish that the housing bureau is working on such a strategy.

"I've heard nothing that suggests this project cannot be included under the strategy being developed under permanent supportive housing," Wheeler said.

Commissioners Amanda Fritz and Chloe Eudaly said they shared Fish's concerns.

Eudaly noted, however, how important affordable housing is to protecting domestic violence victims.

Fritz urged Creager to also prioritize housing people who were displaced from the Lloyd District when Portland's development commission purchased the area around the Convention Center.

The city of Portland approved spending $5.1 million of urban renewal money and $500,000 from Multnomah County.

Home Forward will also contribute about $13 million to the project in the form of cash, deferred fees and loans.

Bank of America Merrill Lunch will serve as construction lender, bond investor and a tax credit investor.

"It leverages our resources, 10-to-1 with outside and private resources," Wheeler noted.

Note: This post was updated at 1 p.m. on Nov. 30 to correct where the money the city spent toward the housing project came from. Multnomah County contributed $500,000 to the project

--Jessica Floum

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