Port Townsend is inching closer to addressing affordable housing through Evans Vista, a planned development on 14 acres of land northwest of the Port Townsend Paper Mill.

Efforts are heating up for the housing project, with the Port Townsend City Council hearing the master plan kick-off presentation during its Tuesday business meeting.

Spearheading the Evans Vista plan is Olympia-based Thomas Architecture Studio, with company president Ron Thomas presenting at the Feb. 21 kick-off meeting.

“We want this to be open to all, therefore we need to reach out to a diverse group of people that we want to seek out their input on, and what they feel this housing should be,” Thomas said.

The studio’s president touched on a variety of lofty goals for the housing project, from three-story and dense housing ideas to constructing a Makers and Artisan District within the property.

Initial drafts of what the project could look like include mixed-use development of a gateway circle, a live/work district, and between 80 to 150 workforce housing units.

The project also comes with federal, state, and county funding.

The city received
$3.1 million from federal and state coffers, which will be used in part for the land purchase, utility design, and installation of a lift station. A total of $500,000 from Jefferson County will be used for Evans Vista’s master plan.

While all designs are still preliminary and subject to change, Thomas Architecture Studio has offered previously-built projects for comparison, including The Lurana (a $6 million mixed-use project in Olympia), The Village at Mill Pond (a large-scale housing development in Olympia), and Silver Leaf Housing (a senior housing development in Olympia).

“The takeaway here is this should not be a housing project. Put that out of your mind, this is a new neighborhood,” Thomas said.

Port Townsend purchased the land south of the Rainier Street and West Sims Way roundabout in 2021.

Councilmember Libby Urner Wennstrom raised affordability concerns at the kickoff meeting and potentially faulty data used in planning.

“There was a slide … that had some figures which are data from 2018,” Urner Wennstrom said. “Those numbers are five years old.”

Comparing the 2018 median house price of $300,000 in Port Townsend to the latest figures in January 2023, Urner Wennstrom highlighted a more-than-double increase in the median house price of $685,500.

“House prices have gone up 220 percent in those five years,” Urner Wennstrom added.

The city’s consultant for Evans Vista noted those figures would be updated in the weeks to come.

“ECO Northwest is on our team, and so they’re going to be starting right away doing just that,” Thomas said. “They can do a lot of number generation for us, and I’m sure the city will be helping us, too.”

ECO Northwest is a Seattle-based consulting firm involved with the Evans Vista project.

Some of those who spoke at the kick-off meeting underscored the housing crisis in Port Townsend, and what should be done to address it.

Local resident Kelsey Caudebec spoke via public comment, putting a face on the local housing crisis and discussing Port Townsend’s median age of 56, and what age range Evans Vista should be developed for.

“I grew up here and I recently moved back to try to start my own family here, a new generation of Port Townsend-ites, and I might just have to say goodbye again because of lack of housing, and I hope I don’t have to,” Caudebec said.

“I know a lot of people in my generation are in the same boat,” she added.

Port Townsend resident Kathryn Maly agreed.

“We desperately need housing that is affordable for people who work in our local economy — like nurses, teachers, folks in the marine trades, artists, grocery clerks, utility workers, and nonprofit and government employees,” she said. “We cannot sustain a hospital, schools, public utilities, and emergency, government, and social services without housing that is affordable for the people who provide these services.”

Former mayor Michelle Sandoval said the city can’t assume homes in the new neighborhood will go to people who already live here.

“There are questions in this community about who gets the housing. Is it locals? Is it people who are working here? Or is it somebody who puts their application in from afar?” Sandoval said. “And that’s always been a concern that comes up.”

“I think you need to be clear as council to consider the local workforce but to be very clear that you may not be able to stop people from other areas, or the applications, just because of the law,” Sandoval added.

Thomas Architecture and the city are set to host public outreach meetings to gain more feedback from the public in the coming weeks and months.

The city hopes to complete the master plan by August, and Thomas Architecture intends to provide updates every two or three months, according to Thomas.