The Renton Housing Authority recently opened the Sunset Oaks housing project in the Highlands area of Renton as part of the “Sunset Area Transformation Plan,” aimed at transforming the neighborhood.

The 60-unit housing development at 2650 NE 10th Street was funded in part by the federal low-income housing tax credit program, King County’s Housing Opportunity Fund, the Renton Housing Authority, and the City of Renton. The total cost of the project is $26.6 million.

Renton Housing Authority Director, Mark Gropper, said the project is one of many to “transform” the Sunset Neighborhood which has long been characterized by distressed public and WWII-era housing. The Sunset Neighborhood, centered around Sunset Neighborhood Park and the Renton Highland Library, is just one of many affordable housing projects slated for the area including the Solera project and another which Gropper says will include 76-units of affordable assisted-housing for the elderly, disabled and veterans. He called that project Sunset Gardens.

Renton Mayor, Armondo Pavone, said Sunset Oaks is the fifth affordable housing project built in Renton since 2012, in a city and region that is in desperate need for increased housing capacity and affordability.

Twenty-three Project Base Voucher units are reserved for families at 40% of the Area Median Income, 19 for those at 60%, and 17 for those at 80%.

King County Executive, Dow Constantine, said the focus on bringing affordable housing to the Sunset Neighborhood is aimed at preventing the displacement of residents and families that are the “heritage of the neighborhood.”

King County Councilmember, Reagan Dunn, said the Renton Highlands Neighborhood was once referred to as a “blight” by the Seattle Times, but he said he now feels that the neighborhood represents “possibility.”