Letter to Editor | HolliWalk update from SJC Home Trust

||| FROM AMANDA LYNN and PAUL FISCHBURG for SJC HOME TRUST ||| 

An open letter to the San Juan Island community from the Home Trust:

As we enter the month of June 2025, the families living in our HolliWalk neighborhood still cannot purchase their homes. On May 9th, two years after construction was completed and facing ongoing delays in the Town’s recording of our Binding Site Plan (BSP), our attorney sent a letter to the Town presenting the legal basis of our complaint against the Town’s delay. On that date, we began letting our community know what is happening.

The Town’s response to-date has included adding an unannounced agenda item to the May Town Council meeting enabling a completely one-sided presentation of the issue to the Town Council, cutting off our ability to comment in that same meeting, denying that they received our attorney’s letter, scheduling and then canceling a Special Town Council meeting that might have allowed the HolliWalk residents and the public a voice, and an email exchange that shows a complete misunderstanding of what the Home Trust is asking for.

In that same time period, nearly 600 people have signed a petition in support, demanding that the Town record the BSP.

We are not asking for financial support or special treatment. What we want is actually quite simple: on 1/6/2025, the Town’s Draft Notice of Administrative Decision (NOAD) laid out 40 conditions the HT must meet for the Town to record the BSP. Twenty-eight of these conditions are acceptable to the Home Trust. However, 12 of these conditions are illegitimate because they either 1) misinterpret the code or 2) demand new requirements that were not part of previous decisions and approvals provided by the Town. An Independent Hearing Examiner ruled on this legal principle related to the Town’s after-the-fact Street improvement requirements at HolliWalk in July 2024, yet, the Town continues to add additional requirements.

The Town’s delay to-date has cost each HolliWalk family roughly $10,000 in equity they should be accruing had they closed on their purchases when the project was completed. In addition, the Home Trust has several hundred thousand dollars tied up in the project until these homes are sold. The Home Trust has been counting on these funds for staff salaries, stewardship activities at our existing neighborhoods, and other initiatives.

The Town’s delay is also forcing us to pay construction loan interest long past the time the project was completed, and preventing repayment of a $1 million construction loan provided by the state; money which could support other affordable housing projects.

The Town holds the keys to the way out: Remove the illegitimate conditions and record the Binding Site Plan. Today.

Beyond this, we need the Town to be a fair, consistent, and timely agent in all of our projects. Rather than blocking the only permanently affordable housing being built on the island, we would welcome the day when the Town of Friday Harbor becomes a true partner, seeking ways to, as the governor said in his Executive Order 2025-02 “make the review, planning, approval, and processing of permits related to housing a priority.”