PORT ANGELES — One of two dozen lots for sale off the Olympic Discovery Trail near Hollywood Beach has been sold.
Exactly what can be done on the property remains an open question.
A few months ago, Jack Glaubert of Port Angeles sold the parcel to the Allen & Charters Enterprises Inc., a Sequim residential construction company.
“We bought a piece of property,” John Allen said last week, declining to explain why his company bought the parcel and what he and his business partner intend to do with it.
“It’s not that big of a story. Other issues will be worked through.”
The lot, valued by the Clallam County Assessor’s Office at $444, was sold for $500, according to the real estate excise tax affidavit, though Glaubert indicated in an interview that the $500 was a down payment and the full price includes “other valuable considerations.”
The actual purchase price will be closer to $150,000, Glaubert said.
“Other items are going on that are confidential with the purchase on that property,” he said.
“The value received is in the neighborhood of $150,000,” or $3,000 a foot for 50 feet of frontal footage, the seller said.
“They’re going to take it on as an investment in the future.”
Twenty-four lots still are for sale for a total asking price of $990,000 on the 5 rectangular acres that straddle the trail, said Glaubert of Port Angeles, who owns the lots with Gerald Austin, also of Port Angeles.
Glaubert owns 13 lots and Austin 11, they said Friday.
The lots are valued at $21,788, according to the Assessor’s Office.
The for-sale signs are a stone’s throw from what may be the most popular stretch of Olympic Discovery Trail and sit right in the middle of public property just east of the Red Lion Hotel.
The signs say: “Waterfront Property and Tidelands, 180-degree view of Mt. Baker, International Harbor and Victoria B.C.”
Eighteen of the parcels are in Port Angeles Harbor tidelands — underwater.
And four of the six upland lots are covered by a pond-like body of water frequented by birds.
None of the lots has sewer or water service, and there is no street access.
And the entire parcel is zoned light-industrial, meaning marinas and residences are not allowed, City Planning Manager Sue Roberds said.
But those limitations haven’t stopped Glaubert and Austin from marketing the lots.
“Waterfront property is always a good investment, always,” Glaubert said. “It’s never going down in value.”
Neither single nor multifamily homes can be built on the 3,500-square-foot lot purchased by Allen & Charters, Roberds said.
That lot size would be too small for a residence of any size in Port Angeles, where the minimum lot size for new, single-family dwellings is 7,000 square feet, she said Friday.
“It’s not undevelopable,” she said of the 5 acres.
“It has some issues, some development constraints, and that’s obvious because it hasn’t been developed thus far. You have a very small amount of land and a lot of water.”
The Austin-Glaubert lots were platted in 1890.
When Austin bought the property about 40 years ago, the son of the seller lived on an upland portion, Austin said.
Shortly before 2010, a man stayed in a trailer in that same area to maintain the parcel.
But that has no bearing on what’s allowed there without a rezone, Roberds said.
“The only thing that stays constant is the size of the lot,” she said.
Glaubert recalled several years ago “pushing pretty hard to get condominiums on that property,” he said.
He and Austin tried to get the parcel rezoned in 1985, but the request was denied by the City Council.
Austin, a Port Angeles native, said he wants to harvest clam beds in the tidelands as soon as Port Angeles Harbor is cleaner — and the city stops dumping stormwater near the parcels.
“I just want to do something for the city,” Austin said.
“And I’d still like to develop the property if possible,” he added.
The 5-acre parcel “is an odd piece of property,” said Elsie Stevenson of Fireside Homes, the listing agent for about half the lots.
“Someone with money will be able to do something with it.”
In 2009, Tacoma-area building contractor and investor Steve Rodrigues attempted to negotiate the purchase of 400 feet of shoreline frontage and an acre of uplands with Austin and Glaubert.
It was part of Rodrigues’ plan to bring the rusting, dilapidated yet storied art-deco ex-ferry Kalakala permanently to Port Angeles
Rodrigues owned the vessel, which plied the Port Angeles-Victoria route from 1954 to 1959 and was retired from Puget Sound in 1967.
Rodrigues had wanted to build condominiums on the uplands owned by Austin and Glaubert.
The ferry, which is still in Tacoma’s Hylebos Waterway, was sold to an anonymous buyer for $1 in December.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
