The Philomath City Council moved forward Monday night toward partnering with an affordable housing developer by voting in favor of an exclusivity agreement and to begin negotiations with the ultimate goal of building an apartment complex at the corner of Main Street and North 20th Street.
The decision means the city will work with Commonwealth Development Corp., a Wisconsin-based nonprofit organization that has developed more than 125 affordable housing projects nationwide, including six in Oregon — five completed and one in development.
“They feel like they’ve got a project that they can pitch to the city that would work there for affordable housing,” City Manager Chris Workman said after the meeting. “The City Council has looked at the initial proposal and there’s enough interest there that we want to have an exclusivity agreement with them.”
The vote on the exclusivity agreement passed 6-0 (one absent) after the councilors had met for 70 minutes in an executive session, allowable under state law to “negotiate real property transactions” and suggested by City Attorney Ashleigh Dougill. In the open meeting, Mayor Christopher McMorran made the motion and councilors did not discuss the matter before the vote.
The decision moves the city another step closer toward achieving a major affordable housing goal.
“The City Council has for a long time wanted to recognize that we’ve got a housing affordability issue in Philomath and they’ve been looking for a number of years on a way to help alleviate that,” Workman said. “So in a small way, this is the City Council’s way of trying to address some of the affordability issue, if not for everybody in the city, at least for a small number of households that otherwise couldn’t live in Philomath because of the cost of housing in town.”
Earlier this month, the council met with Danny DiFrancesco, Commonwealth’s vice president of development, who pitched a 33-unit, four-story complex that would run in the neighborhood of $12.8 million.
Workman said the exclusivity agreement will give Commonwealth “what they need, essentially, to apply for some of the state and federal funding that’s out there for affordable housing” and prevents the city from selling the property to another developer during the negotiation period
“We’re not going to have open discussions with other developers … I imagine we’ll have a time frame on that,” Workman said. “We’ll probably put it out four months, five months or so, and that’ll give us time to negotiate some type of a purchase agreement.”
In his initial proposal to the city that was made public a few weeks ago, DiFrancesco proposed a purchase price of the city property for $1 — a transaction designed to strengthen the feasibility of an affordable housing project in Philomath.
DiFrancesco’s initial proposal included a timeline that estimated construction would potentially begin in June 2026 with completion in August 2027.
“The funding for that is cyclical so they want to get in line as quickly as possible,” Workman said in reference to grant opportunities and the developer’s timeline that was shared. “If they miss this grant cycle, it just puts the whole thing out another year until the next cycle comes up.”
DiFrancesco’s proposed design featured 26 one-bedroom apartments and seven two-bedroom apartments with on-site property management, a maintenance worker, community room, fitness room and business center. Following construction, Commonwealth would manage the property.
DiFrancesco took councilors and staff on a tour of Commonwealth’s 53rd Flats complex in west Corvallis — a 100-unit project completed about 18 months ago — prior to an Aug. 11 City Council meeting.
The city purchased the half-acre site in March 2023 for $337,500.
This is very disappointing. More out of state investors, high density four story high apartments, fast tracked over crowding of our schools and roads. This kind of development is political fluff, that takes away from the quality of our neighborhoods and integrity of Philomath. This takes away from local developer home builder businesses. Philomath and Oregonians need more quality starter homes that give an opportunity for home ownership and quality neighborhood feel that aren’t surrounded by multiple story high apartments in their backyards. Philomath should be developing for quality. Not high density that out paces every other aspect that makes up our town. Degrades it in the short and long term.