Habitat for Humanity has brought its philosophies around equality — and sweat equity — in home ownership to 11th Ave E between Harrison and Republican on Capitol Hill.

Over the weekend, it celebrated the completion of the Capitol View Community building along with the new condo owners who will call the development home.

“My best friend used to live down the street from here near the park,” new owner Amber Cortes said at Saturday’s ceremony. “And she said when she first lived here 10 years ago, there were all sorts of people in the building — an opera singer, a landscaper, a pastry chef. And over the years, rent went up, housing cost went up, and people started moving out.”

“I’ve honestly lost track and count of all the artists I know who have moved out of Seattle, and they’re bringing their talents and their potential to enrich the city with them,” Cortes said.

Ownership of the 13 units at the Capitol View Community is restricted to households making 80% or less of Area Median Income. Habitat says 11 of the 13 units have completed the purchasing process with five going to BIPOC homebuyers. Part of the Habitat tradition, the new owners also gave 250 hours of “sweat equity” volunteer work as part of the purchasing process.

CHS reported here in 2021 on the early plans for the Habitat project as the organization launched new efforts to create affordable housing on Capitol Hill and in the city’s core.

A 1904-building that started as a single family home and served as a 6-unit apartment building made way for a 13-unit condo complex with six one-bedroom units, five 2-bedroom units and 2 three-bedroom units. The condo design allowed the project to maximize the number of new homes in the development. Habitat could have tried to put up two or three townhouses, but going condo allowed them to more than quadruple the total number of units. The project also did not include parking in this transit-rich core of the Hill.

The organize is billing the development of one of its first efforts “building differently now during the housing crisis by ‘building up.'”

Habitat Homeowner
Amber Cortes

More are coming including plans underway on Capitol Hill’s 14th Ave. That new building will include 13 one-bedroom units, two one-bedroom with a loft units and two two-bedroom units and replace an old single-family style home. Construction there is pending completion of the city’s streamlined design review process for affordable projects which began last month.

Not every nearby resident welcomes the new density and the new neighbors.

“This project is a cash grab by the developers, and will not significantly contribute to solving any housing crisis,” one neighbor told the city in its public comment process on the 14th Ave project. “The people who will be able to afford these units are not the ones who are being impacted by the housing crisis, so don’t let them fool you that excluding parking in order to maximize the number of units is a good idea.”

Others are ready for the change.

“I fully support this project, which will add seventeen homes for current and future Seattle residents in a neighborhood rich with amenities and active transportation choices,” another neighbor writes.

Meanwhile, Cortes, a digital storyteller at the Washington State Historical Society, reminded the crowd at Saturday’s ceremony marking the completion of the Capitol View Community project what is at stake in a city that won’t fix its affordability crisis as she listed off some of the ways the building’s new residents make a living — one in social services and earning a master’s in psychology, a podcaster, performer and small business owner, a worker at a local radio station, a social worker, a registered nurse, and a worker at a disability nonprofit.

“It’s the loss of culture and diversity that happens when people who make the city vibrant and vital can no longer afford to live here or grow their families or their futures here,” Cortes said, “and how we can work together to change that and build the kind of city that we want to live in.”

To learn more about the Habit for Humanity developments on Capitol Hill, visit buyhabitat.org.

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