It’s a delightful paradox: A lot of the new housing getting built these days serves people making the least money. Tonight, Capitol Hill Housing, a nonprofit developer that draws from private and public funding, will present preliminary plans for apartments on 12th Avenue. The portion of the street, between Seattle University and the kid jail, was left out of a stalled renaissance that brought a few high-end condos to the northern end of the street and a flourish of shops to the south end in Little Saigon. But on the corner of East Jefferson street, a dry cleaners was demolished years ago and has since overgrown with weeds:

Here’s a preliminary outline of the proposed building for tonight’s presentation:

The site currently allows only 40-foot tall buildings, but Capitol Hill Housing plans to ask the city council to change the rules to allow a six-story, 65-foot tall building on the site. That would make sense. There’s no reason to keep buildings short on an arterial well served by buses and close to downtown, perfect for high-density. Sarah Kontny, an architect for Environmental Works, which is designing the building, says it would contain 40 apartments available to tenants making up to 60 percent of the area median income (no more than $35,000 a year). Monthly rent for a two-person household would be under $1,000 and for a one-person household would be under $885. May seem expensive, but as Anna Markee at the Housing Development Consortium explains, it’s a good deal for the area—especially for a new building. After 15 years, tenants will be eligible to buy their apartments outright.

There’s a design meeting tonight at 6:30 p.m. in room 3211 of Seattle Central Community College, 1701 Broadway. More info here.

Also up for public review—but not a low-income project—Jim Mueller's vision for 20th Avenue and East Madison Street:

I write about it over here. A public design meeting for the latter project is at 8:00 p.m. in room 3211 of Seattle Central Community College, 1701 Broadway.