‘Can’t afford us’: Residents speak to need for affordable housing in Anacortes | Anacortes

It won’t be the last opportunity to weigh in: The city will continue to accept written public comments through Sept. 24, when the commission expects to pass the plan off to the city council, which will hold its own public hearing.

At its next meeting on Sept. 10, the commission is set to continue its public hearing on the draft comprehensive plan while discussing for the first time proposed updates to the city’s development regulations.

Following an Oct. 22 public hearing, those will also be sent up for city council consideration.

The city council must adopt both the updated comprehensive plan and the updated development regulations by the end of the year.

A majority of the 18 residents who spoke during the Aug. 27 public hearing explicitly called for policies that would lead to more housing development throughout the city — particularly housing affordable to residents who make far less than the area’s average income.

“We have lots of families here who are below the median income: They are the people that are working in the restaurants, the nursing homes, the hospitals,” said Vicki Stasch, noting that the plan, as drafted, intentionally looks to encourage housing affordable to those residents.

“We can’t just be a community of ‘Can’t afford us,’ which we are known as in many ways,” Stasch said.

The city is planning for a population increase of 27.7% — or about 5,000 people — over the next 20 years, based on projections by the state Office of Financial Management. As a result, the city expects it’ll need 2,942 more housing units and 3,145 more jobs.

Three-fourths of those new homes need to be affordable to residents who make less than the area’s median income, or AMI, which was about $108,000 in 2024, said John Coleman, the city’s director of Planning, Community and Economic Development.

“At that wage, you can see it would be tough to buy a new, single-family house when it’s going for over $700,000,” Coleman said.

A state law passed in 2021 requires the city to consider all income levels as it plans for the next 20 years. A 2023 state law requires it to expand housing options by reducing barriers to building ADUs, or accessory dwelling units.

“What we’re trying to achieve — what we’re required to achieve — is making sure that we have zoning and housing policies in place to accommodate other types of housing besides single-family,” Coleman said.

Unlike the majority of those who spoke during the Aug. 27 public hearing, many written comments raise concerns about how apartments, duplexes, triplexes, ADUs and other forms of multifamily housing might affect single-family neighborhoods, urging the city to provide notice to neighbors ahead of any such development.

Speaking at the public hearing, Mary Stahl said she understands the need for more affordable housing. Still, she said she’s worried that multifamily housing would compromise the character her single-family neighborhood.

“This is our concern: that our lovely little neighborhood is going to somehow be ruined by either triplexes or mini homes,” Stahl said, referring to the potential development of a specific lot in her neighborhood.

Trina Wherry pointed out that a majority — 53% — of the new homes needed over the next 20 years need to be affordable to residents who make less than 50% of the AMI.

“We need service folks,” Wherry said. “So that kind of housing is just critical.”

Mark Lione, former owner of Cap Sante Inn, and Pat Barrett, whose son owns Pelican Bay Coffee & Books, both said that developing more affordable housing for workers is critical to the success of hospitality and service-industry businesses.

“Eli says very eloquently that the biggest risk to true small business in this town is housing,” Barrett said of his son. “We can’t hire people for restaurants in this town because they can’t afford to pay those people to live here. And it’s not that they want to buy a big house. His employees just can’t find a rental.”

Darene Follett said she’s been excited to see Habitat for Humanity’s new affordable housing come on line, but she said even that isn’t affordable for many of the city’s working residents.

“Our paraeducators that work in our schools, that help our children, can’t afford a Habitat for Humanity house because they can’t afford 70% to 80% AMI in Anacortes,” said Follett, who also argued that people with developmental disabilities need affordable, non-group housing to receive support services.

Dustin Johnson, executive director of the Anacortes Family Center, said many of those who make less than 50% of the AMI — about $50,000 a year or less — are families with children.

“The biggest reason that our school district is constricting in so many ways is because we don’t have the ability for new families to move here,” Johnson said, “and so our enrollment rates are dropping and dropping and dropping.”

As a board member for the Anacortes Senior Activity Center Foundation, Johnson said he’s continuously heard that seniors can’t afford to downsize from their single-family homes to smaller homes to age in place in Anacortes.

And many people who work at Anacortes’ assisted living facilities, clinics and hospital commute because they can’t afford to live here, Johnson said, warning that the consequences could be huge if either of the bridges to Fidalgo Island were cut off.

“People are going to die,” he said.

Johnson urged the city to remove barriers to building affordable housing. He wasn’t alone.

Terry Schoenthal urged the city to avoid the conditional-use permitting process that allows neighbors to argue that a development will change the character of their neighborhood.

“The way to avoid some of the NIMBYism that happens in our community is to simply permit outright the housing that we want,” Schoenthal said.

Kris Yaun, owner of Keystone Building Services, said he understands, as a 50-year resident, that people want things to stay the same, “but like all small towns in this country, there’s going to be change.”

As a homebuilder, Yaun said he’s seen his cost per home rise by an average $36,000 over the past five years. He urged the city to reduce the cost of permits for multifamily housing, saying he has to pay permit fees for two homes when building a duplex.

“The time it takes to get a permit, the cost of permits, the impact fees, all those things, it just keeps growing the price for me to build a home to the point where, at the end, it’s not affordable to just about anybody in that low to medium income,” Yaun said.

Reducing costs for developers is key, Sarah Roberts said, because zoning alone may not be enough.

“I’m concerned that we won’t actually get these lower-income and mid-income houses in there unless we have a way of controlling or incentivizing the developers to put in those houses,” she said.

Roberts said she’d like to see a mix of housing types throughout the city.

“Even in precious downtown,” she said, “I think we can look at ways to move up to some higher-density housing.”

Tarn Ohana agreed, saying a variety of home types should be available throughout the city.

“The current plan continues to cluster high-density homes, which are going to be more affordable to younger families, people with children, on our high-volume arterials, which tend to be much more dangerous, more polluted,” Ohana said.

“I think that is an error when we talk about the planning document as a vision for our community.”

Betsy Braun said she lives on property that has an old covenant restricting developments such as ADUs. Nevertheless, homeowners convert garages into living spaces and build three-story homes in violation of the covenant.

“Clearly nobody wants it,” Braun said, urging the city to help remove it. “I know that there are similar covenants and similar homeowners association restrictions in many other parts of the city that are going to prevent the development that this plan is intending to encourage.”

Commenters also touched on transportation and environmental issues covered in the plan, which, beyond housing, address land use, economic development, environment and conservation, transportation, capital facilities, utilities, and parks, recreation and open space.

Braun thanked the city and all the community members who’ve weighed in on the draft plan, saying she read the entire, nearly 500-page document.

“I’m really excited after reading through it about where the city is going and how thoughtful and how forward-thinking this plan is,” she said.

Jordan Hay, Executive Director of the Downtown Anacortes Alliance, echoed that, saying the alliance strongly supports the emphasis on gathering spaces, workforce housing and pedestrian-friendly streets, among other things.

“This plan gives us clear direction,” Hay said, “and we really look forward to partnering with the city to bring it to life.”