SEQUIM — Nearly 50 homes priced at $150,000 to $180,000 could be on the market by this summer if Larry Freedman’s City Walk project wins Sequim City Council approval.
Freedman is the developer who, with partner Allen Grant, is marketing estate lots on the far-higher-end Cedar Ridge subdivision in eastern Sequim.
Now he’s hoping to build 48 affordable townhouses on 2.4 acres on Fifth Avenue.
The homes would be within walking distance of the Sequim Boys & Girls Club, Helen Haller Elementary, Sequim Middle School and shopping areas, which is why Freedman named the project City Walk.
The complex also would be adjacent to the plaza at 675 N. Fifth Ave., where dentist Alan Peet has his office.
Peet was among a handful of people who expressed dismay about City Walk during Tuesday night’s Sequim Planning Commission meeting.
He’s an oral surgeon and said a dermatologist will soon move in to the plaza.
Their operating rooms face the City Walk property, so Peet is worried about patient privacy — and other issues.
Vandalism concerns
In an interview on Wednesday, Peet said he’d visited an oral surgeon’s office in Lakewood in Pierce County where the nitrous oxide tanks were stolen twice.
“If you hang around the school — I was a kid once — there’s going to be a lot of vandalism there,” he said.
“That’s too many people on 2.4 acres.
“And in 48 homes, how many animals are going to be there?
“I’ve sewn up a lot of dog bites in my time.”
Peet pointed out that Freedman, besides being a developer and attorney, is chairman of the Sequim Planning Commission.
Freedman recused himself from Tuesday’s two-hour Planning Commission discussion of the City Walk proposal.
But Peet believes that since Freedman has served for years on the commission, he has a close relationship with city planning staff.
“He has access to those people every single day,” Peet said.
“I do not.”
Freedman, for his part, wonders whether such protests are rooted in a NIMBY — as in “not in my backyard” — feeling among some Sequim residents.
“These people come out of the woodwork and complain,” he said. “They say, ‘That’s a great idea. Just don’t do it anywhere near me.'”
The Fifth Avenue parcel is zoned for high density.
Up to 27 units per acre could be permitted if Freedman chose to construct a planned unit development with a portion designated for affordable housing.
But he’s opted not to build the maximum.
City Walk would comprise 20 units per acre; some would be two bedrooms, some three.
The townhouses would be in rows with the middle unit’s three stories rising to 35 feet, while the end units would be two stories tall.
The complex would have 108 parking spaces, plus paths connecting to the Olympic Discovery Trail on Hendrickson Road to the nearby Sequim Aquatic Recreation Center and to the Boys & Girls Club.
The monthly mortgage payment on a $150,000 City Walk townhouse would be about $850, while the $180,000 homes would have payments of just under $1,000, including taxes and insurance, Freedman figures.
That’s a house payment, he added, that Sequim police officers, schoolteachers and young families can manage.
“This is exactly what Sequim needs,” Freedman said.
“There’s a large group of people who live outside Sequim because they can’t afford to live here.
“They are gainfully employed. This kind of housing is for them.”
Freedman has long served on the city’s Affordable Housing Committee along with City Council member Bill Huizinga and a handful of local Realtors and housing advocates.
The committee has provided incentives to developers to build “workforce” housing — a phrase meaning homes working people can buy — but in two years nothing has materialized.
There are rentals such as the Elk Creek Apartments that are fairly affordable for young couples.
Owner occupancy
But Sequim has nothing like City Walk in terms of purchase price and density, said Joe Irvin, the city’s associate planner.
Irvin added that the Planning Commission has requested information on whether the city can require owner occupancy at the City Walk complex.
He hopes to provide that information at the next commission meeting at 6 p.m. on Jan. 20.
The Sequim City Council will hold a public hearing on City Walk during its Jan. 26 session, also at 6 p.m.
Like the commission, the council meets in the Transit Center at 190 W. Cedar St.
If the council approves the City Walk proposal, Freedman said he wants to break ground in February. He’s in a hurry, too, to transport building materials onto the Olympic Peninsula before the Hood Canal Bridge closes on May 1.
The complex will take four to six months to build, Freedman said.
“We’re hoping to have people in the houses before school starts.”
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
