The site of a waterfront development project in Vancouver, Washington, on the Columbia River.
Alan Sylvestre / OPB
Officials with the city of Vancouver said Monday the vacancy rate for rental units here is below 2 percent. That’s even tighter than Portland’s rental market, putting Vancouver on par with cities like Bend when it comes to rental housing.
Residents in Vancouver also saw a sharp increase in rental prices last year.
To help, the City Council is weighing whether to create a fund dedicated to building and preserving affordable housing. The fund would preserve and grow affordable housing units in the city.
Peggy Sheehan, the community development program manager with the city, said the measure would need to be approved by voters as a ballot measure.
"If we're going to do it, we need to have council make some decision on it pretty quickly," she said.
Under current home values, the affordable housing fund would generate about $8 million every year through property taxes.
Councilmember Ty Stober said there’s an affordable housing crunch across the nation — and he said market forces aren’t fixing the issue.
“This is an opportunity for us to have a pool of funds so that we can make strategic investments to influence the market towards the ends result that we want, which is people in our community to be able to afford to live our community,” he said.
Councilmember Bill Turlay said he'd like to see the city help people with down payments purchase a house rather than get into owning rental properties.
"I'm a little reluctant to get into what traditionally has been the private sector in building homes," Turlay said. "And then we get into being a landlord."
City staff will proceed with next steps to get the measure on the general election ballot in November.