Apartment expansion in the Valley

Good news is building around the Skagit Valley for commitments to construct apartments. In Anacortes, the Arts Festival organization will build apartments above the O Avenue Anacortes Cinemas it has purchased and will develop into a performing arts center. That must have been made possible in part from the City of Anacortes owning the property.

In Burlington the American Legion and Volunteers of America Western Washington have teamed up, agreeing to demolish the Legion’s Post and replace it with apartments catering to various income levels with 20% reserved for veterans. A full range of social services support is part of that development.

The project gets $347,000 from the $1 million Skagit County and the HOME Consortium plans to spend on housing and homeless programs in the county.

In our backyard, The Port of Skagit invites the greater La Conner community to a public hearing when it meets with the town’s council and planning commission next Tuesday, May 17, to introduce its vision for developing 10 acres of its La Conner Marina site north of the slough extension that connects with Sullivan Slough. The Marina’s offices and buildings are on the west side of North Third Street, including Dunlap Towing.

The Marina’s RV park and the town’s public works department are across the street.

The potential for the Port and La Conner are vast. The shortage of housing for workers employed at Port businesses, from Mavrik Marine just north of the site, to the Amazon warehouse going up at the Burlington airport is critical. Postal employees, restaurant servers and retail staff are driving in from Bow, Burlington and farther hinterlands to their shifts here. Without local working class priced housing, it makes perfect sense if they choose to take jobs in Anacortes or Mount Vernon, saving themselves gas, time and, of course, money.

What will the Port propose? Attend the hearing and find out. It is almost certain that as a quasi government agency with relatively deep pockets but unhindered by the profit motive, they are thinking on a longer term regional basis. Their slogan is “good jobs for the Skagit Valley.” The businesses they lease to are a primary constituent. But the people who work at these companies who cannot find, or afford, housing in this county are key to future business success.

La Conner’s government leaders have thrown up their hands on the issue of developing a systematic long term plan for adding first time starter homes, pleading the town’s small scale, the resulting lack of resources and the need to be cautious, not risk takers. With those parameters the local housing market is left to private developers who, as all capitalists do, strive to maximize profits with market rate housing.

The Port of Skagit has a different mission and a different approach. Their vision needs to be heard, carefully considered and perhaps wholeheartedly supported. Its development and success is not certain, but its potential to bring La Conner into the 21st century offers a game changing opportunity for the town and the entire Valley.