Housing development roundup

THE GORGE — Anybody who’s had to rent in the Mid-Columbia region understands that affordable housing is few and far between.

High prices force the people who keep our communities running, from farmworkers to servers (and journalists as well), to commute instead of living down the street. According to a 2025 report from Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, nearly half of renters living in Hood River and The Dalles are cost-burdened, meaning they spend more than 30% of their monthly income on housing.

Data wasn’t available for Klickitat County, but a different study shows that 26% of renters there face the same challenge. And while several factors are at play — persistent inflation, relatively stringent building rules outside urban growth boundaries, seasonal surges — overall supply undergirds the entire equation.

Luckily, Hood River, Bingen, White Salmon and The Dalles will all see major housing projects completed in the coming months or years, and some are specifically for lower-income folks.

Under construction

The largest is Mariposa Village off Rand Road and Highway 30 outside downtown Hood River. Led by Community Development Partners and the Columbia Cascade Housing Corporation (CCHC), as previously reported by Columbia Gorge News, all 130 apartment and townhouse-style units are reserved for folks earning up to 60%, or less, of the area median income.

CCHC’s parent organization, the Mid-Columbia Housing Authority, will also provide rental assistance via federal housing vouchers to 39 of those units. Beyond the six multi-story residential buildings, there will be a community center, shared garden, park and trail connections.

A total of $76 million in funding came from a variety of sources: direct appropriations from Congress and the Oregon Legislature, state programs, and a grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. In January 2020, the City of Hood River purchased the land and subsequently donated it to the co-developers.

A waitlist for Mariposa Village opened on April 6, and within three days, more than 350 households had applied, according to CCHC Executive Director Karen Long. The first apartments are expected to be available in August, with the remaining coming by early 2027.

Across the bridge, and next to Dickey’s Farm Store on State Route 14, five more apartment buildings are sprouting up. A private venture led by McKenzie River Company Development, the 22 one-bedroom, 42 two-bedroom and 16 three-bedroom units will be market priced and overseen by Cascade Management. As of an April 7 presentation to Bingen’s City Council, the monthly rates have yet to be set.

Each unit will have one bathroom per bedroom, a washer and dryer, air conditioning, seven-foot windows, and a patio or balcony. McKenzie River expects the first two buildings to be complete come July, with the other three available by September.

In the works

Several other projects are in the planning phase, or close to breaking ground, and two are in The Dalles. First, and again led by CCHC, a $47.5 million, 76-unit apartment building is slated to replace the former Westgate Market on Chenowith Loop Road, with construction targeted to start in September.

Similar to Mariposa Village, all units will serve folks earning less than 60% of the area median income, with 20 specifically reserved for veterans, and the rest set aside for working families. There’s also space for the Mid-Columbia Center for Living and Mid-Columbia Community Action Council to provide on-site resident services, and 40 units come with federal rental assistance as well, according to an April 27 presentation to The Dalles City Council.

CCHC will also rehabilitate 12 apartments in Cascade Locks and expects to break ground on the Carson Community Land Trust, a 14-unit, single-family home development on seven acres in Skamania County, later this year. Buyers will own the homes but lease the land from CCHC for a nominal fee via a long-term ground lease, reducing the initial investment costs.

But probably more familiar to residents, primarily since the proposal originated eight years ago, is Basalt Commons, a five-story building with 116 market-rate apartments that recently took one step closer to occupying the old Griffith Motors lot on East Third Street. As previously reported by Columbia Gorge News, the Wasco County Board of Commissioners agreed to buy the land and immediately lease it back to Hanlon Development on April 1.

It was an effort to jumpstart the stalled, $31.2 million venture that, as Mary Hanlon, principal of the development company, explained, has struggled to secure funding sources while navigating rising construction costs and high interest rates. Public pushback, primarily about it altering the downtown area’s historic character and inadequate parking, has followed the project as well.

While Hanlon didn’t immediately respond to a request from Columbia Gorge News about the expected construction timeline, she told commissioners that her team just needs to re-bid Basalt Commons to confirm the total price tag and then finalize the associated bank documents.

Back upriver, two subdivisions in White Salmon, which have a combined 62 buildable lots, are nearly past a key infrastructure hurdle. Located right next to each other off Main and Spring streets, city council first signed off on the Four Oaks subdivision in early 2023, subject to several conditions of approval.

One was that the city must resolve poor water capacity in that area by installing the North Main Booster Pump Station before construction can start. Those updates began last September, and according to Public Works Director Chris True, should be wrapped up in the next two months or so.

Following several planning commission hearings, which saw robust public comment about safe routes to school and the condition of Spring Street, council then approved a revised plan for the Cherry Hill Estates subdivision in January 2025. While the city purchased 10 of the Four Oaks lots with a commitment to ensure the housing is attainable for those making less than 80% the area median income, the rest will be market rate.

The developers for Four Oaks and Cherry Hill, Main Street White Salmon LLC and Curtis Homes, respectively, weren’t immediately able to provide a construction timeline.

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This is not an exhaustive list of all housing development underway or planned for the Gorge, but rather an overview of the largest projects.