Homeless mitigation site near Lacey on hold
The Regional Housing Council paused plans Thursday to open a homeless mitigation site near Lacey, at Martin Way and Carpenter Road.
A mitigation site there had been a topic of county discussion since February, according to The Olympian’s previous reporting, but the timeline for opening the site was never clear and cost estimates to ready the site were high.
Instead, the council will now shift focus to drafting an agreement that lays out how Thurston County, Lacey, Olympia, and Tumwater will work toward the broader goal of addressing homelessness at the regional level.
The administrative and elected officials who make up the council met Thursday and discussed the estimated costs of the project, potential funding sources, and possible creative paths forward before ultimately landing on the decision to halt progress on the mitigation site.
An updated estimate from Public Works at the meeting predicted readying the site to cost $635,000 if not fully ADA compliant, $985,000 if ADA compliant, and over $1.1 million if it included power to 30 housing units.
An additional cost estimate for connecting water and sewer ranged from about $95,000 to $100,000.
“We’re looking really at a $1.7, $1.8 million project,” County Manager Ramiro Chavez clarified at the meeting.
Applying for a particular state Housing Trust Fund grant to fund the project was part of the conversation, but the council ultimately decided it wasn’t a good fit. For one, the grant required projects to last for at least 50 years, which County Manager Chavez flagged as a concern.
Lacey City Council member Carolyn Cox questioned if perhaps some of the location’s characteristics, such as its proximity to a gravel pit and junkyard, might make it an undesirable site for long-term supportive housing.
“As we’ve looked initially for mitigation sites — and Olympia’s been looking for a year and a half — this is a great mitigation site,” Olympia City Manager Steve Hall said. “But, then when we started layering on the need for infrastructure costs, it maybe doesn’t make sense to add all that infrastructure cost unless it’s a good site for long-term supportive housing and... maybe this isn’t a good site for long-term supportive housing.”
Ultimately, the council agreed that all planning for the site should pause, at least for now. But every member who spoke agreed on the need for a regional response to housing and homelessness, and for an interlocal agreement to lay out how the council might coordinate and fund that response.
“I just wonder if the effort for this group would be to spend time on an interlocal agreement, make a commitment that we want to work regional to deal with affordable housing issues, then, as we get that figured out in terms of our roles and responsibilities, basically it’s a powerful statement that we’re working together to solve this as a region,” Lacey City Manager Scott Spence said. “Then we start working on these one-off projects.”
This story was originally published October 18, 2019 at 3:53 PM.
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