The first residents move into April’s Grove

||| FROM CRYSTAL MOSSMAN FOR OPAL COMMUNITY LAND TRUST |||

The first nine households moved into April’s Grove at the beginning of September. It was a day filled with joy, exuberance and relief. On move-in day one woman arrived at 8 a.m., because she had borrowed a friend’s van and needed to return it that morning.
Two single parents now have homes with bedrooms so their kids can be with them. A number of tenants had been couch-surfing or homeless.

Over the next three months 10 to 15 families will move in each month until all 45 townhomes are occupied. Construction is scheduled to be complete by early October, with landscaping to continue through the end of the year.

The project – the first new affordable rental housing of significant size in San Juan County in nearly 30 years – has weathered some difficulties and benefited greatly from the support of many islanders over the five-year journey to completion. Planning for April’s Grove began in June 2015 when OPAL signed a purchase and sale agreement for the land and then hosted listening sessions to determine the greatest need, and community design meetings to create preliminary designs. The next three years were filled with studies on traffic, archaeology, wetlands, stormwater detention, soils and tree health.

It took those years and into 2019 to secure all the county, state and federal funding as well as the generous private donations from the Orcas community.

Thanks to the voters of San Juan County who adopted a new Real Estate Excise Tax in November 2018, a legacy contribution from Bob Henigson, and creative problem solving by many, including staff members of the Washington State Housing Finance
Commission, construction of April’s Grove began in May of 2019.

As construction progressed into 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic began to drastically affect our day-to-day lives, Governor Inslee’s Stay Home, Stay Healthy Order identified exemptions for certain essential activities. Projects like April’s Grove that are providing much-needed affordable housing were considered essential. Therefore, construction continued with the crews working on site adopting new protocols to keep workers healthy.

Now, as April’s Grove is on the cusp of completion, that long journey of twists and turns will soon fade into the background as families move into their homes. OPAL would like to express immense gratitude to the generous Orcas community who contributed their support, time and resources to create permanently affordable housing.

Incorporated in 1989, OPAL Community Land Trust provides permanently affordable housing for 139 rental and ownership households on Orcas Island, with an additional 45 households being added with the completion of April’s Grove.