The sign facing Davidson Street lists companies involved in the housing project called “15Fifty Place” on Monday, Aug. 4, 2025.
In a large open area between Southeast Waverly Drive and Davidson Street in Albany, crews have been preparing the ground for what developers hope will become a community of small houses.
The site is south of the main Albany Public Library. On social media, someone recently asked what all the activity was about. So on a bike ride through town on Monday evening, I stopped to take a look.
No one was around, but the ground had been cleared, and a construction sign was in place.
The sign pointed me to the website of “Affordable Housing Oregon” that says: “We are proud to introduce our latest project, 15Fifty Place — a transformative affordable housing community designed to meet the needs of local workforce, veterans, individuals with disabilities, and more.”
Even though site work has clearly started, the city’s online listing of projects in the planning process did not mention this one.
David Martineau, the city’s manager of current planning, explained in an email:
“The 15Fifty Place project is a master-planned community consisting of 83 small housing units and a community center. The project requires a replat, site plan review for tree removal and conditional use review. … It will go before the Planning Commission in September or October. The public hearing notice will go out around the end of August once we deem the application complete.”
Linn County’s online property records show the site includes three vacant tax lots totaling just under 4 acres. The address of one of the lots is 1550 Waverly Drive S.E., which gives the project its name.
The property is owned by GEH Waverly, a limited liability company with an address in Lake Oswego.
JBLC Construction, which built the Hub City Village “tiny house” development in Albany, is one of the partners in this venture. Plans submitted to the city show that the units proposed for “15Fifty Place” will be not quite that tiny.
One set of drawings shows a two-story dwelling of just over 700 square feet with two bedrooms and one bath.
The site was proposed for other developments in the past. From Martineau’s email:
“A planned development was approved in 2008 for two commercial buildings and 45 condominium units. While the two commercial buildings were constructed, the residential units were never built and the rest of the planned development expired. In 2018, conditional use approval was granted for a 96-unit apartment complex, but that project was never completed.”
Affordable Housing Oregon also proposed a development they call East Albany Town Center, with about 1,000 “workforce” dwellings on about 30 acres east of I-5. The Albany council voted in June to initiate proceedings to bring the acreage within the city limits, but the annexation has not yet taken place. (hh)
Looking toward Waverly Drive across the future construction site for the planned development of 83 small houses.
seems like a good idea. sure beats the bold face outright lie helping hands fed us on the 70 small apartments they had no intention to build. we were suppose to forget about that. it would be interesting to see how things are going financially on the first tiny houses built. we have heard little to nothing about them since they opened. no crime, no fights, no drunks, no drugs, no graffiti.
No news is good news, then?
no crime, no fights, no drunks, no drugs, no graffiti. …if you do not see that as good news, shaun, your blind in one eye, and cant see out of the other eye!
It was sarcasm ;)
At the tiny homes if you have police contact and your the perpetrator you have 72 hours to move. No ifs, ands or buts about it, however nobody has stopped to see if they company that built the tiny homes for homeless people has stayed true to the purpose, that was supposed to help the homeless become housed, has it? No it has not, from the time they opened their doors there has been 1 person move in that was homeless at the most 2. Someone at one point was “couch surfing” that is not homeless that’s is having a dry place to sleep with access to running water, a kitchen and power. Homeless is with or without a tent in the elements without power, running water etc….. The grant money the company received to build that place is being paid back by the residents that live there so it’s not really a non profit company. Also the two bedroom consist of the “2nd” bedroom the walk way between the kitchen and bathroom with out a closet or a door and the space to put a closet is open to the stairwell that goes to the loft or 1st bedroom. The 10 hours a month each resident is supposed to be contributing to the co op doesn’t happen because most of the people that live there are mental health clients and for some reason the services that were supposed to be in place to help the homeless that were supposed to be moving in obtain jobs or skills to aquire employment to become self sustaining members of society do not exist, maybe because why have those services when that is not the community you have housed? I’m not sure how the scrutiny of the residents at tent city was an abhorrent when it first opened it wasn’t to bad there but 15 tent sites and 6 spaces for campers didn’t put a dent in the homeless population, just like it shut down right after the tiny homes opened and the city made it illegal to camp in Albany at the same time because 27 units opened up that only one or 2 at the most housed a homeless person, that 27 units, even if it served the population it was supposed to didn’t touch the amount of people that are homeless!
I wonder if they will last as long as the lovely 2 bedroom 1 bath homes built after the war in SW Albany. Those are some wonderful little homes! They are close to the same size and have a garage. Will be interesting to see!
Would also love an update on the tiny homes that were built, how is that going?
Thank you for all you do.
They tiny houses only serviced 1 person that was actually homeless the rest of them rented to people that wanted lower rent prices.
They tiny houses only serviced 1 person that was actually homeless the rest of them rented to people that wanted lower rent prices.
Until reliable services can be provided and jobs created the population doesn’t need to grow. There are too many people here now.