The Fields Apartments: Affordable Housing Melds with Nature, Urban Transit, and a 40-Year Old Neighborhood

April, 2021

At the junction of Wall Street and Hunziker Street in Tigard, OR sits a parcel of land offering access to nature, sweeping views, and close proximity to public transit. While originally zoned for commercial development, the City of Tigard, local residents, and the Washington County Housing Authority had other ideas. The developer, DBG Properties, also saw the greater opportunity—one that answered both housing and commercial needs—and together with Otak’s vision, addressed the concerns of the existing 40-year-old neighborhood.

The opportunity lay within how the property was to be divided. The majority of the 17 acres had been zoned commercial with a mandate of being able to provide 280+ jobs, however, a portion of the property had been set aside for residential development. When Otak was brought into the project, the plan was to build office space along Hunziker Street and push the residential development to the back of the property, however, the housing project was to be developed first.

“Knowing that the office piece was not going to be developed right away, we decided to bring the residential to the front of the property and pushed all the office to one big piece in the back,” states Matt Neish, Otak Senior Project Manager. The rearrangement had two key benefits. First, it allowed for a bigger piece of the property to be commercially developed with either a couple of office buildings or one larger building. And because of the necessary road extension, the address would be on Wall Street. “Now, who doesn’t want to be on Wall Street?” Matt asked.

Second, with the housing situated in the front of the property, there was a greater opportunity for creating something special for residents that would be integrated into the steep hillside, taking advantage of the abundant nature, and sweeping views.  

There were challenges, of course, the steep hillside, being one of them. The bigger challenge, though, was gaining approval from the residents of the long-standing neighborhood community immediately adjacent to the property. “The residents were very entrenched and organized in what was happening around them and they were initially opposed to the development,” Matt said. Increased traffic and overflow parking on the neighborhood streets were top concerns. There was also a negative connotation around the concept of affordable housing. 

Collaborative Approach Leads to Positive Outcome

With this understanding, Otak took a collaborative approach working with the residents, the city, and the developer to come up with solutions that met all the stated concerns as well as the primary objectives for the property. As Matt explained, gaining the trust and approval of the residents began with the first neighborhood meeting. “When we first presented the project, we were careful in our use of the term workforce housing versus affordable housing. We knew affordable housing is not always well received into existing neighborhoods. Workforce housing, on the other hand, represents an annual median income around forty thousand dollars, and tends to be more positively received.”

Otak’s approach to the Field’s project was nothing new for the firm and is standard practice for the integrated teams who are accustomed to creating solutions to complex situations. Ultimately, Otak was able to bring all of the project’s ambitions into one cohesive design that met the needs of all parties involved. “By the time we got to go before the planning commission, we received unanimous approval of the design and we were able to get the buildings permitted,” Matt said.

Blending into the Scenery

Adding to the complexity of the project was the geography of the site itself, which is situated on a steep hillside. In the end, though, it was the hillside that led the team to creative design solutions that ultimately appeased the neighborhood residents. A key decision was to cut into the slope so that all the units could have daylight. As Matt explained, “We went through a couple of different iterations and ended up with four-story buildings, three of which have bridges to an upper parking area,” He added that “the views this site offers are just amazing, and because the site keeps sloping down, even the first floor buildings are going to be higher than anything that will be developed next door.” According to Matt, any commercial development will most likely be single-story, concrete, industrial-style buildings.

An added benefit to cutting into the hillside was that it allowed the housing development to have a lower profile, which was appealing to the adjacent property owners. The completed project also includes a green roof on the clubhouse, further blending the development into the hillside, and surrounding trees and nature. “We actually had to put a fence up because otherwise the deer that are still on site would jump from the hillside onto the roof and eat the vegetation!” Matt exclaimed.

The final design also maintained a one-hundred-foot buffer along the eastern property line that backed up to the neighboring homes, many of which were completely open without fencing of any kind. “The homes simply backed up onto this treed hillside that had been there for forty years, and the homeowners felt like they were losing that,” Matt said. The buffer helped to preserve a good number of the trees and the natural setting for the property owners.

Providing Connectivity

One of the city mandates was to make a connection from the adjacent neighborhood, onto and across the property, and ultimately connect to future development to the west. The developer was also directed to ensure that connection would then continue on down to Wall Street. The city also wanted to put in a sky bridge connection from the site over neighboring rail lines, which are used by both freight and the West Side Transit system, to a trail system on the other side that eventually connects to the Tigard City Hall and Library. As Matt stated, “in addition to preserving the views and surrounding nature to satisfy the neighborhood, the design also had to be centered around walkability and connectivity.” 

In the end, the Otak and DBG Properties were able to deliver an affordable housing development that met the multiple mandates by the City of Tigard and the Washington County Housing Authority but also overcame the objections of the neighborhood. With 264 units of mixed one, two, and three-bedroom units geared towards families, sweeping views, a clubhouse integrated with nature, and a walkable trail system connected to neighborhoods and urban transit, The Fields is an example of what modern affordable housing can look like. It is also an example of how a collaborative approach working with the community can lead to innovative solutions and positive outcomes that benefit all parties.