Olympic Housing Trust's Dundee Hill Project Tackles Affordable Housing Crisis in Jefferson County
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Concept art illustration by Kristina Stimson [/caption]
By Angela Downs
The median-priced home in Jefferson County is now selling for over $600,000, and based on the median income, most people who live in Jefferson County cannot afford to buy a home here. Fortunately, there’s The Olympic Housing Trust (OHT), which focuses its work on building and stewarding permanently affordable housing. Currently undertaking The Dundee Hill Project.
“By its very nature, Port Townsend is a white pioneer town that has a very tragic history with Indigenous peoples, Chinese immigrants that helped make it what it is, and many other non-white people that have tried to settle here over the past 170 years,” said Kellen Lynch, who was born in Port Townsend and serves as OHT’s head of fundraising, “It has exclusivity baked into its core as a city, that is something that we are looking to confront with this work as a community land trust, and I think most people here would like for people of diverse income and background to be able to live here and participate and contribute.”
The community land trust model grew out of a movement in Georgia when, in the civil rights era, black tenant farmers were violently removed from their farms by White farmers to bar them from registering to vote. This galvanized organizational efforts led by black leaders from Chicago to support folks in Georgia. They secured land for both farms and building housing.
“Our model is rooted in this really fascinating, really heart-wrenching legacy that has since grown into being an international approach to developing permanently affordable housing. Olympic Housing Trust uses this model in Jefferson and Clallam County to secure housing for folks that earn regular and real wages, yet still cannot compete in the housing market. Those folks then own their home outright. The Olympic Housing Trust maintains ownership in the land beneath it so that it can ensure that the houses will stay permanently affordable and do not enter into the market when that homeowner chooses to sell,” Lynch said.
The Dundee Hill project is the first project the trust has done in Jefferson County, initiated by the donation of five city lots from Pete Von Christierson, who decided that he didn't need all of the land that he had purchased inexpensively 30 years ago. Only two of those lots will be developed into housing, the rest will be used to preserve the community garden that is already at the site to be maintained as open space.
“This is something that very much aligns with the values of our member-based organization, and as a community land trust that can really do more than just build homes. We can act on the values of the community in a really nimble way that you won't see from larger housing developers, and certainly not from for-profit developers whose mission is not to make a community happy, but to make their shareholders wealthier.” Lynch says.
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The board emphasizes the use of open space and agricultural space in and outside of the city, and are able to utilize green building practices to build non-toxic, energy-efficient homes that will stand the test of time.
There will be five new 1,000-square-foot homes, built in a townhouse style, there will be three, three-bedroom homes and two, two-bedroom homes, all contained within two physical buildings. At max capacity, this would house about 15 individuals.
Lynch says, “In some cases, you could see that as being a very small, modest development, but just one house being available for someone is actually a life-changing event. It’s a permanent investment in the community, these homes will be here and held for the people of Port Townsend that need housing and are committed to this area, work in this area, are from this area, and they'll be here as long as Port Townsend is here.”
Lynch continues, “The median income of Jefferson County for a household of two is $72,000 and we serve, based upon funding requirements from the state, what we call 80% of the area median income. That means that folks that are earning about $58,000 for a household of two can purchase one of these homes.”
To qualify, folks have to be first-time home buyers, meaning they haven't bought or owned a house in the past three years. They also have to be able to qualify for a mortgage, either with a conventional lender or with a state lender like the Washington State Housing Finance Commission, and they will need to be a resident of either Jefferson or Clallam County for at least one year.
Projects like Dundee Hill won’t exist without local community buy-in. “For one, the money needs to be there, but for two, the state and other foundations look to see that the project has local support, and they look for the local dollars to identify that,” Lynch explains.
In almost two years, OHT has raised $1.15 million in committed and secured funding, most of that money coming from the state and about a quarter of that coming from local contributions. There’s not much more to raise, but it’s a critical time for people to consider if they want to see permanently affordable housing in their community that also exemplifies their values.
The Olympic Housing Trust needs $85,000 from local individuals and another $300,000 from foundations. They are looking to raise about another $400,000, with the goal of being fully funded by the end of this year or the beginning of 2025. Lynch says, “We are one of about a dozen very successful community land trusts in Washington State, and the one I always love pointing to is the one in the Methow Valley. They started in 2019 after a wildfire devastated the community. They rallied and formed the Methow Housing Trust, and they have been able to fundraise 100% of their funds from private donors, the millionaires of the Methow Valley, and they have built 45 new homes in the past four years! I want everyone to know that we can do this work and do it well if we want to.”
Dundee Hill is one of two projects that OHT is focused on, the other being the Chimacum Commons project. Jefferson Land Trust owns approximately 16 acres of property in Chimacum, Washington, and they are working in collaboration with the Olympic Housing Trust to create housing for those who work in food systems in the county. Agricultural housing has become a huge issue in the past few years, as a lack of affordable housing has farmers struggling to find workers. This project is currently in the planning stage and is looking for feedback. If you are a food-system worker, filling out this questionnaire will help inform their work.
Correction: an earlier version of this article stated that “An opportunity to purchase 47 acres of protected farmland is still a few years out from any groundbreaking.”
In fact, the Jefferson Land Trust already owns 16 acres, and they are partnering with the Olympic Housing Trust to provide food-system worker housing.
