Retired developer Bert Loomis wants to invest proceeds from his past success into the future of his hometown of Port Ludlow by buying 5 acres next to the Bay Club to build condominiums and-or an assisted-living center.

It’s a limited-time offer based on Loomis’ need to do a 1031 exchange – a way to defer taxes on the sale of one property by purchasing another. He has until Jan. 20 to make a deal for the 5 acres.

The upfront, on-paper and publicly discussed offer is the talk of the community.

Gil Skinner, president of the South Bay Community Association (SBCA), calls the timing “awkward at best” in the wake of community uproar about timber harvesti ng done in 2015 by Port Ludlow Associates (PLA).

“I’m violating negotiation 101 by publishing my offer,” Loomis acknowledged. He added, “I think I have an uphill battle.”

The property at the heart of the deal is forested land that some Port Ludlow residents had no idea was zoned for multifamily housing, Loomis said.

Community members met at the Bay Club Dec. 5 to learn more about the proposal.

Loomis said Tuesday morning that there was a good turnout of more than 100 people and that a majority appears, as he had expected, to be opposed to developing anything on the property.

Loomis also said statements were made about the zoning of the property that were not corrected.

Loomis said he is not giving up on his plans.

“I will pursue it until I get a response from the community that says, ‘Yes, we want to sell’ or ‘No, we don’t.’ I want the community to vote on it,” Loomis said.

The SBCA board of directors is to meet Friday, Dec. 9 at the Bay Club to consider a motion to reject, accept or delay a decision.

If the board opts to move forward, all SBCA members – about 600 – would have an opportunity to vote on Loomis’ offer to pay $690,000 to buy land some thought was a greenbelt.

The SBCA represents a variety of neighborhoods in Ludlow’s South Bay development. The Ludlow Maintenance Commission represents the interests of Ludlow’s North Bay residential neighborhoods. Members of both entities are part of the Port Ludlow Village Council, an advisory body.

LOOMIS’ PROPOSAL

Buying land wasn’t on the the 74-year-old Loomis’ radar until about two months ago, when he received an out-of-the-blue offer on a piece of property he had developed in Southern California.

“The timing I’m working on is a 1031 exchange. It’s not my timeline. I’d much rather say, ‘Get back to me when you can,’” Loomis said of having 90 days to move forward with the deal for the California property or move on.

“If there is a written offer, it could buy us some time,” he said. His 1031 exchange needs to be addressed by Jan. 20, 2017.

Loomis said he’s making the offer – and making it public, including making 100 copies of his plans to hand out to people – because he loves Port Ludlow and he thinks it’s not only time that the community to know what’s going on with the 5 acres next to the Bay Club and adjacent tidelands, but it’s time that PLA had some competition.

“Competition is doggone healthy,” said Loomis, who is no newcomer to development, or to crossing swords with PLA.

PAST PROJECTS

Since moving to the community 26 years ago, Loomis has built three commercial buildings, two houses and five condos in Port Ludlow. He bought 5 acres on Oak Bay Road on which Sound Community Bank sits for $49,000 and rezoned it, making it one of the neighborhood’s first commercial areas.

The projects he built in Southern California are now worth an estimated $100 million.

Loomis previously has been a lightning rod regarding land use in Jefferson County. Legal actions he took against Jefferson County and Pope Resources – which sold its Port Ludlow property to PLA – were a catalyst for the creation of the Port Ludlow Master Planned Resort in the mid-1990s.

“The first map they did for urban growth designations in Port Ludlow excluded one piece of property, and that was my 5-acre parcel,” Loomis recalled.

“I’m not opposed to development. It should be done by the law and with integrity. I live here,” he said.

SEWER CONNECTIONS

Loomis has been closely watching some numbers that are tied to how Port Ludlow develops.

Those numbers are the measurement equivalent residential units (MERUs) of sewer taps available in Port Ludlow. Of 2,575 allowed in the master planned resort, there now are about 133 residential hookups available for the future, he said. That doesn’t include commercial units, only residential units.

And then there’s the land that’s available to develop.

Loomis, who was on the South Bay Community Association board of directors until recently, became aware of that 5-acre parcel next to the Bay Club while a board member. The information that the Bay Club owned the land, called the “gazebo property,” was revealed after the association did an appraisal in order to obtain a loan to repair the Bay Club. That repair work cost the club $770,000.

A second, independent appraisal that Sound Community Bank did on its own revealed that the Bay Club not only was paying taxes on property it didn’t own, but that it had 5 acres next to the Bay Club that the bank’s appraiser concluded was worth $690,000, Loomis said.

The bank’s appraiser, according to both Loomis and Skinner, called the 5 acres “excess” land. That’s a term real estate agents use to refer to land that “is not needed to serve or support the existing improvement.”

Loomis put his knowledge of the MERUs together with that appraisal, and when the windfall offer for property he owns in California was made, he concluded it was time to act and put a plan together.

THE PLAN

Since early November, Loomis has been going from one Port Ludlow neighborhood to the next to explain his idea of buying the land and building as many as 46 condos and possibly an assisted living facility. He’s open to a project revision.

“Like any big proposal, there are millions of rumors running around,” Loomis said.

He said he feels like he’s being vilified by people who don’t know all the facts.

“I explain my offer and I explain what the law is. A lot of people are not well informed, and a lot of people are intentionally misrepresenting the facts in order to justify not having that property developed,” Loomis said.

“The community has been under the mistaken assumption that it’s a greenbelt, and that is patently false,” he said.

“I think that regardless of PLA, [not wanting to cut down trees] is always going to be a problem in a community like this. A developer is not warmly received. People don’t like change, and there are a whole bunch of rumors that people feed on.”

Loomis said if the community doesn’t want him to pursue the purchase, he won’t, but he also said that SBCA members need to be informed of the fact that the property exists and is zoned for housing, and that there is a shrinking number of sewer connections.

“If I can do nothing more than make them aware of the facts that they have a piece of property that has value that they may not be aware of ... in the next three or four or five years, it may have no value.”

“I’m no Goody Two-shoes. I’d like to buy the property. There are a lot of risks involved. It’s a difficult piece to build on, but I’ve got a great team and I know I can do it,” Loomis said.

From talking to the community, Loomis said, he has heard that some people want smaller, single-level homes into which they can downsize, and others think an assisted living facility is needed. He’s open to developing both, but wouldn’t operate the assisted living facility. That, he said, he’d have to sell to someone with a goal of giving preferential access to SBCA members.

Loomis said he would retain and enhance an existing trail system on the land, relocate the gazebo to an area that would take advantage of the view and make the property a community asset.

He said he’s also agreed to have his plans scrutinized by the SBCA architectural review committee.

“I’m listening to what the community wants because if I don’t, they won’t support me, and I don’t want to have an adversarial relationship with the community.”

Over the long range, Loomis said, the reality is that what he’s offering means competition for PLA and a change in the demographics of Port Ludlow.

“If you can get a community built out in seven years instead of 20 years, you get more population, an increase in the tax base and maybe merchants coming to Port Ludlow sooner,” he said.

GO, NO GO

Skinner, SBCA president, won’t endorse or oppose the Loomis plan. He’s encouraging board members not to express an opinion, although most have already formed one, he said.

“What I tell people to do is to walk the property so they have a sense of what they are selling. For many people, this is a very peaceful place. They enjoy the trees. For other people, they weren’t aware of it at all,” Skinner said.

Like Loomis, Skinner said he’s hearing more opposition than support.

But then, Skinner said, “When we first started the [Bay Club] repair project, we heard ‘no way, that’s not going to happen.’”

Skinner said there’s the short-term question of whether to sell now to Loomis, a long-term question of whether to sell at all and a third option: “You say it’s ‘no’ now, but if I change the number, would it change your mind?”

Both Loomis and Skinner acknowledge that Loomis’ offer is going to raise a lot of questions – both now and later.