Olympia City Council to vote on buying 5.9-acre site for RV safe lot
One month after Thurston County punted on plans to open a short-term parking lot for people living in RVs, the city of Olympia is poised to purchase nearly six acres of property for a larger vehicle lot they plan to operate for up to three years.
The Olympia City Council was to vote Tuesday night on whether to pay at least $1.65 million to buy six parcels located at 519, 523, 527, and 528 Franz Anderson Road (formerly Stoll Road) in east Olympia.
The move comes just days before the city plans to begin sweeping homeless RV residents from a section of Ensign Road just outside of Providence St. Peter Hospital. Many key details, such as the purchase price and contributions from neighboring cities through the Regional Housing Council (RHC), have yet to be worked out.
An appraisal process will determine the final price, which the proposed contract specifies will be no less than $1.65 million. The current owner, Kaufman Holdings — a company* registered to Theresa Wall, who is named in the contract — has the right to pay for a second appraisal should the parties not agree on the appraised price.
Assistant City Manager Keith Stahley said the city — which first floated the purchase publicly in early September — is trying to move quickly as there are other bidders on the property.
“We want to get this closed, and we hadn’t agreed upon a final purchase price, we just agreed upon a methodology that would get us to closing,” Stahley said.
The properties are listed on Redfin for $1.8 million, but were most recently assessed at $1.33 million, according to county Assessor’s Office data.
Also on Tuesday’s council agenda was an agreement with Thurston County that spells out some details of the planned safe lot, which will be capped at 50 vehicles and operate for no more than three years.
Olympia will take the lead on buying the land and establishing the site and has set aside $2 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds. But the county will pay 50% of the cost to buy, develop, and manage the site.
Whether other cities will participate in the effort is unclear.
The agreement states that the county will “provide and coordinate funding support” from the Regional Housing Council, and even says that operation of the site by Olympia and the county is “contingent” on that funding and support.
The Regional Housing Council has discussed pooling ARPA funds towards affordable housing efforts generally, but has yet to agree on whether to support Olympia’s efforts to relocate RVs.
County Manager Ramiro Chavez said language in the city-county agreement reflects the reality that while the two jurisdictions are willing to move forward without the commitment from the RHC, regional funding will be required to continue operating the site long-term.
“We need to concentrate on projects as opposed to just a single funding source,” Chavez said. “We do believe this is a regional asset.”
However, a separate proposal floated at a Regional Housing Council meeting last week — which sought for each city to formally pledge specific amounts of federal relief dollars towards several housing projects, including the RV parking site — generated pushback from Lacey City Manager Scott Spence, who suggested a less binding agreement, such as a letter of intent.
*Correction: This article previously misidentified Kaufman Holdings as an LLC. It is a corporation.
This story was originally published December 14, 2021 at 2:05 PM.
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