"An old private airstrip near the Jefferson County Library in Port Hadlock could become the site of a new neighborhood of up to 120 homes of workforce housing.
Habitat of Humanity of East Jefferson County has secured an option to buy the 17-acre property in the hopes it can raise roughly $5 million to build the new subdivision.
The nonprofit is developing a proposal for the project in tandem with the Jefferson Community Foundation, and Habitat has the property, located at the southwest corner of Mason and Cedar streets, under contract for $1.24 million.
Jefferson County commissioners approved a $500,000 grant to assist with the project at their meeting Monday.
Commissioners received a full briefing on the project at their meeting last week.
Jamie Maciejewski, executive director of Habitat of Humanity of East Jefferson County, told commissioners there is high demand for Habitat homes. The organization just closed an application cycle for potential new home owners.
“We received 60 applications for six openings,” Maciejewski said, adding that Habitat was surprised by the large number of applicants who were above the threshold of 80 percent area median income, a benchmark that Habitat usually serves.
“And what we find is that’s just confirming what we’ve been hearing; That housing is problem not just for people in the service industries and lower-income households but it’s also a real problem for middle-income residents,” she said. “People who work as skilled laborers and business owners and health-care workers and teachers.
“What we’ve seen in terms of the stress, I think, is real,” Maciejewski said.
She recalled looking through a recent issue of The Leader for homes for sale and rentals.
“There was one availability and it was a studio. And that was it,” Maciejewski told commissioners.
People are worried that their rents will increase to the level that property owners can receive if they were charging vacation rental prices, she added. Property owners are also cashing in rentals to sell homes while they are at historically high values.
“One of the people that we had to call and say, ‘I’m sorry, your income is too high,’ broke into tears. And just said, ‘I don’t know where I’m going to live. My landlord is selling and I will not be able to afford what they’re selling it for,” Maciejewski recalled.
This is affecting employers, she added, because they can’t fill vacancies because people can’t afford to live here, even if they are making decent wages.
“This is just a real drag on our local economy,” Maciejewski said.
Siobhan Canty, executive director of Jefferson Community Foundation, told commissioners that both the foundation and Habitat for Humanity were contacted late last year by local community members about a piece of land in Port Hadlock that might work for affordable housing.
“They had done initially vetting,” Canty said, and approached both organizations individually.
EARLY PLANS
The plan in progress is to create a new neighborhood of low- to moderate-income homes with restrictions in place to keep them permanently affordable. The subdivision would include community gardens, pocket parks, and other amenities.
“We feel like this is an incredible opportunity to dream big and collaborate on an unprecedented scale for the future of our community,” Canty said. “It has the potential to significantly impact our critical need for more affordable workforce housing.”
“Because this neighborhood ... would be larger than any other that Habitat or any other Jefferson County organization has undertaken, Jefferson Community Foundation is playing a support role,” she added.
The foundation, Canty said, is identifying organizations and people would could help support the development of the neighborhood.
Habitat, however, would be the purchaser of the land and steward of the land in perpetuity.
Maciejewski said the land would not be sold to individual homeowners but people could buy or rent residences and, in exchange, they would agree to limit the rise of the home’s value.
“We’re really envisioning a community that’s robustly diverse in terms of income ranges and household makeup,” Maciejewski added.
Homeowners would have exclusive use of their property, “so it feels very much like regular ownership or rental,” she said.
Similar projects have worked elsewhere in Washington state, Maciejewski said, noting a community on Bainbridge that has the same model.
“These will be first homes. They won’t be vacation homes,” Maciejewski said. “They will not be rented out for profit. They would be for our local community that needs to live here.”
Canty said Habitat has made an offer on the land but the purchase has not been finalized.
The feasibility of the project is being explored, she said, and Habitat has until May 15 to make a final purchasing decision.
Environmental and wetland issues are being studied. And as a moderate-density development, the Port Hadlock sewer system would need to serve the new neighborhood.
Funding issues also need to be explored. If Habitat does buy the land, Canty said it would be three years before anything would happen on the property.
“That’s plenty of time to engage the community in the visioning process,” she said, adding that neighborhood support is essential.
Habitat estimated it will take $3 million to $4 million to develop the property — with infrastructure such as streets, sidewalks, utility installation, and more — before the homes are built.
Both Canty and Maciejewski said county assistance would help inspire other support. The project will be primarily funded with private money, but state and federal grants could also be pursued.
County commissioners said last week the grant request was a worthy one.
“I’ve been excited about this project since I first heard about it,” said Commissioner Heidi Eisenhour, chair of the board of commissioners.
“It sounds like we have the right partners at the table to take this on,” added Commissioner Kate Dean.
“I want the county to be a part of it,” Dean said. “I’m really excited to dig into this.”
Maciejewski said the new neighborhood would not include large apartment buildings.
Instead, it would be a clustered mix of single-family homes, multi-family homes such as duplexes or townhouses, and potentially eight- and 12-plex units.
“We really want this to feel like a neighborhood, that feels like home to people,” Maciejewski said.
FEDERAL FUNDING
The $500,000 grant from Jefferson County is expected to be covered by federal money that’s pending in the next tranche of
American Rescue Plan Act funding.
Mark McCauley, Jefferson County’s interim county administrator, said the county is expecting to get an additional $4 million to
$5 million for 2022 and 2023.
County officials said the development could play an important role for the future of the Port Hadlock water treatment facility.
“This project could really be a game changer for the Port Hadlock sewer,” Dean said.
The number of units would make the sewer project more feasible and lower potential future subsidy costs for maintenance and operation of the treatment system, or could lower the rates for customers in the sewer service area, she said.
Even so, addressing the housing crisis in Jefferson County is paramount.
Eisenhour said she has heard more about housing, houselessness, affordable and workforce housing since the first day of her term as county commissioner.
“More than anything else,” Eisenhour said.
“And we all know that it’s a critical problem in our community. Eisenhour noted she’s lived in Hadlock for 40 years and knows a lot of people who have not been able to find housing, or work here and living in rentals that are at-risk.
“And so I am super motivated to see all kinds of models of housing be considered for our community. But this is a real exciting one,” she added.
Eisenhour noted the entirely positive response the proposal has already generated.
EARLY SUPPORT
In written comments to commissioners, there were unified voices of support for the project.
“The vision to create a vibrant neighborhood of mixed-income permanent affordable single- and multiple-family residences is bold and exciting,” said Earll Murman of Port Townsend.
“This parcel is uniquely suitable for such a neighborhood, being adjacent to the Jefferson County Library and the Chimacum Creek Primary School, located on a Jefferson Transit route with over 20 daily stops, within a short distance of shops and other services, and on a parcel that is well suited for residential development,” Murman added.
“This project is critical for our area given the crisis in housing affordability that we are facing, with the price of single-family houses in Jefferson County nearly doubling in the past five years,” noted Jaisri Lingappa of Port Townsend.
“Employers throughout the community are facing hardships in attracting employees because of this crisis, and the stress that the crisis creates on young working folks is tragic,” Lingappa continued. “This innovative and visionary project deserves funding given the huge positive impact it could have on housing security and stability for people who work in our community.”
Source
https://www.ptleader.com/stories/habitat-has-plans-for-new-neighborhood-in-hadlock,81769