Chimacum Crossroads: Housing, jobs among top concerns in Chimacum

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Above all, Chimacum needs affordable housing and living-wage jobs, according to nearly all of the more than 80 people who attended a community meeting July 18 at the Chimacum Grange.

Those behind the fledgling Chimacum Crossroads project say the historically agricultural area is on the cusp of significant population growth, and now is the time to plan for it.

“I think we know that change is afoot,” said Kate Dean, who manages the North Olympic Peninsula Resource Conservation & Development Council. “We know that with a changing climate, this place is going to become more and more attractive. We know that this part of the county has been more affordable historically than Port Townsend. Now is the time to say: Do we want to let that [development] happen kind of willy-nilly and let it go to the highest bidder, or do we want to be really intentional in how we help growth happen here?”

Earlier this year, the Citizens’ Institute on Rural Design (CIRD) awarded Dean and her project partners a $10,000 stipend toward a two-and-a-half-day rural design technical workshop set for March 2017 as well as follow-up planning sessions. The project also received $35,000-worth of in-kind design expertise and technical assistance, as well as support through webinars, conference calls and web-based resources on rural-design.org.

“The only project that exists at this point is the conversation,” said Crystie Kisler, cofounder of Finnriver Farm & Cidery, one of the project partners. “When we find unity on whatever it is, then we can go with a collective voice to whomever it is – whether the state Department of Transportation, [Jefferson County] Public Works or the [county] commissioners – and ask for funding.”

David Leyzerovsky of the New York City–based Project for Public Spaces (PPS) gave a presentation about CIRD, which is a National Endowment for the Arts program supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and administered by PPS.

“This region is growing,” said Leyzerovsky, noting that 70 communities in 33 states have had projects funded through CIRD over the past 25 years, and Chimacum's project is the program's first in Washington state. “You have a chance to define how it grows and what comes in and what doesn't. This is why we're having this discussion. You really want to look at this opportunity as seed money to potentially do bigger and better things for Chimacum. I think the sky is the limit.”

SKEPTICISM

Some, however, were skeptical of the project's premise and intentions, not to mention the presence of a big-city outsider.

“Why is there a New York City–based group involved with planning for Chimacum?” asked Claus Dietrich of Swansonville, who also raised concerns over how affordable housing would be defined. “I'd like to know, whose idea was it that Chimacum needs to be redeveloped? I've been priced out of four or five different areas in my lifetime that have been gentrified and pushed out the working class, pushed out the poor, pushed me out. Affordable housing in one area is not at all affordable in other areas.”

Leyzerovsky said this planning process is a perfect opportunity for Chimacum to define affordable housing on its terms.

Ron Riggle, a 1979 Chimacum High School graduate and owner of Riggle's Red Barn RV Repair, said Chimacum is already changing in unsavory ways.

“I moved out here in 1964 with my parents, and the same three families that owned the mouth of Beaver Valley still own the mouth of Beaver Valley today,” Riggle said. “We have two alcohol places down on the corners now and two cannabis sales places, and a mile out, we have a cannabis-growing place. To me, that's stuff that isn't growing in the right direction.”

HOUSING, JOBS

James Fritz of rural Port Townsend said that the Growth Management Act (GMA) has stifled growth and abetted gentrification.

“This antigrowth campaign, instead of preventing growth, totally changed the character of Jefferson County,” Fritz said. “Do we want 10,000-square-foot, big, gaudy houses or do we want to encourage 1,000-square-foot houses with an orchard and shrubbery that actually produces fruit? If I had to come up with a development plan, it would be ‘The Hobbit.’”

Others agreed, although Katherine Baril, retired director of the Washington State University Jefferson County Extension, warned that the GMA won’t go away easily.

“You are not going to turn around growth management; it is what saved our family farms in this community,” Baril said. “I'm tired of seeing our community be exhausted about thinking we can change state law. We need to focus on what creates jobs in this community. People who make enough money can afford better housing.”

Roger Short of Short's Family Farm said the GMA has limited what he can do with his 400-acre farm and decreased its overall value, making it tough to run a sustainable business.

“I have not been sustainable for the last many years,” Short said. “In order for anyone in the county to be agriculturally sustainable, we have to get a higher price for our product. If we can get a good price for our product, then affordable housing becomes easier, and the employees we get become more long-term employees.”

Justine Bedell, housing services coordinator for Olympic Community Action Programs, said not only are people unable to afford housing in Chimacum, they're unable to find it in the first place.

“It's pretty much been declared a crisis in Jefferson County, like an emergency,” Bedell said. “If you look on Craigslist or the PT Leader, there is nothing. I am cutting more vouchers for people to go to Henery's [Hardware] and buy tents because there's nowhere to live and the waiting lists for low-income housing are forever long.”

WALKABILITY, FOOD

Other topics were also discussed July 18, including development of the area around the intersection of State Route 19 (Beaver Valley Road) and Center Road, known as Chimacum Corner, to promote walkability and safety for pedestrians, especially children.

Attendees also weighed in on food system development, suggesting such things as a farm equipment cooperative, a water rights banking program to allow sharing of coveted water rights, and agricultural zoning changes to allow food storage and processing.

Others suggested shared community spaces for food storage, meat processing and commercial-scale cooking.

Thaddeus Jurczynski of Chimacum said it's about time the Chimacum School District sourced its food from local farms.

“It's crazy, because this is where we're growing food and that's where it needs to go,” Jurczynski said.

Simply coming together as a community to talk about these issues and get them down on paper represents progress, Dean said, even if the project must eventually narrow and limit its focus.

“Our project has limited scope and funding, and while we share many of the values and priorities expressed at the meeting, we will be able to drill deeper into only a few of them,” Dean said. “The hope is that by focusing on, for example, safety for kids at the intersection, we'll be able to improve livability. We can’t promise to create 20 living-wage jobs in Chimacum with $10,000 in funding, but we can use the project to identify further needs and inform other processes, such as the comprehensive plan or future grant writing.”

Two themes will likely guide the March 2017 workshop: place-making and connectivity, said Dean, who hopes more volunteers step up to research issues and help with that workshop. She also said a way of connecting and sharing ideas online is in the works.

“There were so many shared values represented at the meeting, many more so than the few divisive issues raised,” said Dean, who is one of five candidates on the Aug. 2 primary election ballot for District 1 county commissioner. “We want our kids to be safe on our roads. We want businesses to be able to succeed and hire people. We want housing to be warm and dry and affordable to people of all ages.

“The more we can create a shared vision of how we want this change to look, and how we want to support the values we hold collectively, the greater chance we have of maintaining what we love about Chimacum.”