31.04.125 Affordable housing – Policies.
(1) Affordable housing opportunities will be available throughout the Port Angeles region in urban and rural areas. Strategies for supplying affordable housing opportunities will vary in rural and urban areas in order to maintain the character of these areas.
(2) Clallam County should encourage the development of affordable housing opportunities in urban areas. Affordable housing in urban areas will be provided through the following techniques:
(a) Multifamily developments will be encouraged to locate in the urban growth areas where transit access, availability of facilities/utilities and other factors important to multifamily development can be provided.
(b) Manufactured home parks and developments will be encouraged within the urban growth area. Existing manufactured home parks will be encouraged to remain in operation. Home prices within these parks are generally less than stick-built homes on individual sites due to smaller lot sizes or lot rental practices.
(c) The smaller lot sizes and higher densities allowed within the urban growth area should allow building lots and housing units to be available at prices affordable to many County residents.
(d) Accessory housing will be allowed in all urban and rural zones.
(e) Accessory housing and multiunit apartments will be allowed above commercial buildings and multifamily dwellings will be permitted to locate behind commercial highway frontages or along back streets in commercially zoned areas. The zoning designation of urban neighborhood commercial will be established in the unincorporated portions of the Port Angeles urban growth area as mixed use districts allowing a blend of commercial uses and multifamily development.
(3) Affordable housing opportunities should be encouraged in rural areas but will follow rural density and open space guidelines to maintain rural character and limit the development of large urban pockets within the rural area. Affordable housing opportunities in rural areas will be met through the following techniques:
(a) Accessory housing or “granny flats” will be an allowed use.
(b) Under rural character conservation homesites smaller than one acre will be approved in rural areas as long as the overall density of the site is not increased over present levels and open space areas (10 acres or larger) are provided as an integral part of the development. Half acre lots should sell at prices affordable to many moderate income residents in the County.
(4) The County should place a high priority on the provision of infrastructure to serve high density housing in the unincorporated portion of urban growth areas by working out agreements with urban service providers for sewer and water service to such developments and should consider partially subsidizing infrastructure costs to low-income affordable housing projects.
(5) Planned unit developments will be encouraged within the urban growth area with incentives provided to supply a percentage of affordable housing in each development. Prime consideration for planned unit development in rural areas should be maintenance of surrounding rural densities to maintain rural character, although some affordable units may be produced through this technique.
(6) The County-wide Housing Task Force should set goals for the provision of low cost and special needs housing in the Port Angeles region. These goals should recognize the needs identified in the Clallam County Needs Assessment Report published in June of 1991 as well as more current data or plans.
(7) Repealed by Ord. 725, 2002.
(8) Infill development in urban growth areas should be encouraged to take place at the maximum densities allowed.
(9) Clallam County should examine the feasibility of encouraging the construction of very low and low income housing by exempting these units from impact fees, should such fees be adopted.
(10) Clallam County should encourage the housing authority to obtain more HUD Section 8 rental assistance vouchers for the Port Angeles area.
(11) Clallam County should develop a housing rehabilitation program under the Community Development Block Grant Program to aid low income residents of the Port Angeles Planning Region.
(12) Flexible zoning techniques, such as cluster housing, transfer of density on a parcel, and plan unit developments that maintain current densities and the essential character of the area in which they are located should be allowed in order to lower the cost of land for affordable housing opportunities.
(13) Multifamily developments within urban growth areas should be allowed in all residential zones where density exceeds seven units per acre. Areas zoned at lesser densities in urban areas are usually heavily impacted by wetlands and other physical constraints which would severely constrain multifamily development.
(14) The County should ensure that development standards do not discourage the provision of affordable housing.
(15) The County should ensure that sufficient lands are designated within urban growth areas for the provision of high density and affordable housing development.