From being a proactive, bold step to address the affordable housing crisis… to “waiting for the stars to align,” the once-vaunted Evans Vista Project has been left in the hands of astrologers.
Millions of dollars have been spent to acquire property and prepare and approve a Final Master Plan for the development we have been told would add 300-400 housing units. But at City Manager John Mauro and Mayor David Faber’s March 5 State of the City address, there was not a single mention of Evans Vista. That is, not until some members of the audience asked about it.
When confronted, Faber tried to dodge any responsibility for the failure of the project.
Evans Vista was supposed to be the city’s grand assault on the affordable housing crisis. In 2021, the city with state funding purchased 14.4 acres at the city’s entrance by the first traffic circle. As reported here, what started as an attempt to create much needed low-cost housing morphed into a grandiose master plan approved by city council to develop a village of multi-story apartment buildings, townhomes, retail shops and other structures, complete with a daycare center, dog park, amphitheater and other amenities. Economists hired by the city to judge the feasibility of the plan told the council it was simply too expensive to build.
I am in the process of writing up an alternative approach in which the city would completely ditch their absurd fantasy and get real about what can be done with what is probably the most undesirable plot of land within city limits.
In the meantime, Mayor Faber has put out several falsehoods about why the project is all but dead. This article addresses his dissembling.
State of the City Address
The annual State of the City address was billed as a review of “2024 Successes… Challenges & Lessons Learned… Aspirations for 2025.” The presentation was delivered in the Port of Port Townsend’s Point Hudson Pavilion, with the first hour broadcast by KPTZ.
Despite an anticipated $6.37 million outlay as itemized in the city’s 2025 budget ($2.15 million spent to date), the stalled-out Evans Vista Project was not mentioned once in the 37 pages of State of the City materials.
One slide declared: “Housing is a basic need and it has risen to the top as one of the most pressing issues our community is facing.” [city’s emphasis] Yet not one photograph among the scores displayed showed either the current state of the Evans Vista property or any future vision for the 14.4 acres the city took off tax rolls to build its affordable village of the future.
City Manager Mauro led the presentation with a list of “major highlights” for 2024. Unsurprisingly the Evans Vista Project was not among the highlights. However it was also not included among the challenges facing the city, or among the “lessons learned.” It was not addressed at all until after Mauro’s presentation when Faber and Mauro fielded questions from the audience.
“Waiting For the Stars to Align”
Following Mauro’s prepared address, a couple of people asked about Evans Vista. Faber had to admit:
“We can’t actually get it built right now because we can’t afford it and developers won’t build it because you’d have to charge sky-high rents to make it actually pencil.” [Editor’s note: meaning, make it economically feasible]
Faber blamed lack of actual progress on the ground (as opposed to drawing pretty pictures) solely on interest rates. He said that when the city got started in 2021, the interest rate environment was very favorable. Indeed, it was about 0%. But now, as anyone who had passed Econ 101 would have expected, interest rates are much higher. Going back to the city council meeting when it voted to acquire Evans Vista and take on the project, not one second whatsoever was spent discussing the impact of interest rates on the project’s likelihood of success.
Did Faber and the rest of city council really believe that interest rates would stay at zero for years to come? Did they really base their decision to launch the city into what then-Mayor Michelle Sandoval predicted would be “an incredibly expensive” project based on such economic naivete?
Maybe. Let’s not forget this was the same city council, on which Mayor Faber and current Deputy Mayor Amy Howard served, that got the city deeply in debt to build the fiasco formerly known as the Cherry Street Project. This is also the city council that, with only one exception, voted to approve the mega-bucks Taj Mahal aquatic center to replace the Mountain View pool, another fantasy that never stood a chance of being built.
There was absolutely no consideration given by city council to economics when it jumped into the Evans Vista Project. None whatsoever beyond Sandoval’s dire prediction that it would be “incredibly expensive.”
Faber now says the city is “waiting” for interest rates to decline, and that they are “waiting for the stars to align.” He suggested the problem lies with the federal government, where things are, as he said, “spicy.”
Evans Vista has fallen far from what Faber lauded as a “proactive” effort by the city to create affordable housing. It has become a long-term, drawn out morass… at the mercy of the stars.
The Half-Million Dollar “Concept”
Another attendee asked about our recent report on city council spending half a million dollars soliciting and adopting a Final Master Plan that can’t be built. The questioner asked whether we had accurately reported what council paid for and approved.
Faber then lied.
He told the live and radio audiences that while he had not read our report, there was in it “something about a claim that the plan adopted by city council was a final plan. In fact, it was a conceptual plan.”
They paid $500,000 for a concept?
The record speaks for itself.
Table of budget and expenses for Evans Vista Project, from the city’s 2025 final budget. Right-hand column are expenditures to date.
As my recent article reported, in August 2022, Jefferson County gave the city $500,000 of federal COVID money to fund “the Evans Vista Master Plan.” The city then put out a request for architects. Interested architects were informed that:
“the project is to develop a master plan and land use entitlement applications [e.g. plats] to develop Evans Vista into an affordable workforce housing development.”
On November 7, 2022, the city approved a contract with Thomas Architecture Studios (TAS) to develop that master plan. On November 20, 2023, the action item under “New Business–D” on council’s agenda was “move to approve Exhibit A, the final site design for the Evans Vista Master Plan so the Project Team can apply for subdivision entitlements.” [emphasis mine]
Exhibit A showed the overall layout of the final site plan:
Evans Vista Master Plan adopted by city council
After the architect presented the site plan, the economists told city council that the design was too expensive to build. Construction costs would start at $111 to $126 million. Those were 2023 dollars. The cost today would be higher due to inflation.
Much higher rents would have to be charged than currently prevail in Port Townsend’s already unaffordable rental market. Interest rates would have to drop significantly and the economy would have to return to conditions resembling those in 2013. And construction costs would also have to be reduced significantly, which was not possible if the kinds of buildings in the Final Master Plan were used.
After hearing that the plan was economically unfeasible, city council nonetheless unanimously approved this Final Master Plan for Evans Vista.
My article also reported that the city has not moved forward with platting the project based on the Final Master Plan… because it is unfeasible and no builder will touch it. Instead, the city is pivoting and trying to interest developers in taking on smaller pieces, without being tied down in any way to the grandiose plan approved by city council. In other words, the $500,000 Final Master Plan adopted by council has in fact been demoted to a mere “concept” that is now being cast aside because it cannot be built.
Meth Meadows
What is the actual “State of the City” at Evans Vista? We have provided some photos.
The featured photo at top shows a sample of the garbage left behind nightly by transients taking up residence at what would be the entrance to the proposed development. The city has provided a dumpster to encourage transients to be tidy. I have observed people going in the dumpster and coming out with the trash that soon again surrounds their camps.
The photos below show the growing transient camp on the city’s property near the DSHS building.
This camp, according to law enforcement sources, has become a violent place. Heavy methamphetamine use makes matters worse. While taking these photos a man emerged quickly from one of the tents and came straight at me quite aggressively. I got in my truck and drove off, watching him glare at me from my rear-view mirror.
We might want to call Evans Vista “Meth Meadows” to reflect the reality on the ground for the foreseeable future. In 2022, I had named the wooded part of Evans Vista “Port Townsend’s Fentanyl Forest,” as that was the drug of choice for its residents. But the city cleared them out. Now a sprawling camp of addicts has taken over the meadows on the northern part of the property.
Few Hard Facts, an Exercise in Political Theater
A lot of time and expense went into the preparation of the State of the City address. None of Faber’s predecessors staged such political theater. Nor did Mauro’s predecessor expend resources and staff time in producing such a show.
We got a lot of glib phrases and self-congratulatory sentiments. We got adjectives. We did not get data.
One key metric not reported by Mauro and Faber is the only meaningful measurement of progress against the affordable housing crisis declared to be an emergency by local governments in 2017. Though the mayor and city manager did not report that statistic, we can confidently give the precise number of affordable housing units added in response to the city’s costly forays into the housing market, from the Cherry Street Project to the Evans Vista Project. That number is zero. And it will remain zero, as Mayor Faber rationalized in an act of surrender, until “the stars align.”
Or we can search a different universe of possibilities. That will be the topic of my next article on the Evans Vista Project.
Jim Scarantino was the editor and founder of Port Townsend Free Press. He is happy in his new role as just a contributor writing on topics of concern to him. He spent the first 25 years of his professional life as a trial attorney, with a specialty in litigating complex construction disputes, involving everything from massive electrical power generation plants in Puerto Rico to ethanol production and interstate highway projects in New Mexico. For his second career, he launched an online investigative news website that broke several national stories. He is also the author of three crime novels. He resides in Jefferson County. See our "About" page for more information.
If you are delusional, it’s not a lie. It’s a delusion. Faber checks the boxes in many fronts.
DELUSIONAL- “characterized by or holding false beliefs or judgments about external reality that are held despite incontrovertible evidence to the contrary, as a symptom of serious mental illness: based on or having faulty judgment or perception; severely mistaken: “their delusional belief in the project’s merits never wavers” · “I think the guy is being a bit delusional here”
If the definition fits………..
Delusional Faber is not responsible for anything, from Mauro’s control over council and himself (fool king and court and shady prime minister) to Cherry Street to Evans Vista to parking to ignoring early FWPDA audit problems at Fort Worden. If he (and council) were responsible, 4 council seats last election would not have been unopposed. The people have spoken. Or been unaware. If anyone thinks this crew is able to self-correct, they are delusional. (See above).
Looking forward to an alternative plan by Jim that would be such a threat to egos that being deer staring into headlights doing nothing will be the preferable path. Like turning down the buyout offer for Cherry Street. Still sitting vacant. Perhaps something like sub dividing into affordable lots and allowing manufactured homes. The money has been burned. Time to salvage and accept the waste. If not the responsibility.
Elected Mayor. Term limits on council. Not a sure bet, but a better one.
I’ve lived in Jefferson county all my 49 years, there has been a very dark strong hold on this area for a very long time. I have a feeling a 1000 points of light to shine on all the corruption going on here…it’s rampant and everywhere….I have multiple lawsuits I might file against Jefferson county as well…you can fool some people sometimes but you can’t fool all the people all the time… it’s the darkness is cast out of here…
Although there is resistance to government subsidies for social needs in this community – nationally, there is always such need for health, housing, education, food, transportation.
Every community has the less than equal residents: Low wage and seasonal workforce, 63% of residents are housing stressed by income, 1/3 of high school graduate don’t leave the county, handicapped and single people, and seniors who are downsizing. These all fit the demographic needing low and moderate income multi unit apartments. The ill-conceived public/private, for profit partnership, Evans Vista, does not address this urgent need.
So I again bring up the shovel ready location for centrally located, multi unit housing – the Mt View tennis courts at the corner of Kearney and Blaine Streets. This corner abuts a multi-use district, the Kearney St Apartments, with access from Lawrence St. onto Gaines St. It has infrastructure, buses, sidewalks, school and recreation access. And the land is publicly owned.
The project would be not-for-profit involving the school district, non-profits such as Olycap, the City, possibly the hospital; such a coalition could access government grants and low interest loans for low and moderate income housing. This project would be similar to the Seventh Haven apartments next to QFC.
However, the city refuses to consider this option claiming the school district has not asked for a rezone. The school district documents designate the site for housing. One might conclude that Mayor Faber and Manager Mauro, others, have future plans for this land – perhaps a parking lot to access some new project of their choosing.
I conclude the lack of interest may indicate a bit of class prejudice;
not in my back yard. Or, as Mayor Faber told a person at the Saturday market
last year when asked about low income housing on the golf course land he wants to rezone for development, “I’m not going to build ghetto housing on the golf course.”
Manager Mauro recently inserted a new phrase “structural sustainability,” meaning “… designing and constructing buildings and infrastructure that are environmentally friendly, socially responsible, and economically viable, aiming to meet current needs without compromising future generations”.
Mt View tennis court multi-unit apartments fit this concept nicely.
Keep catering to the bums who chose to get addicted to drugs and/or choose not to work, and you will have more and more of them. OTOH, arrest them for illegal drug use, create NO CAMPING WITHIN CITY LIMITS, and otherwise make life increasingly difficult for them and responsible citizens will no longer have the eyesore and danger among them. Use the money saved by no longer catering to the “homeless”– a massive money-laundering program where administrators get wealthy and only encourage more homeless– to provide mental health care for those that will benefit from it. Why should it be taxpayers’ responsibility to bail out those that CHOOSE this lifestyle?
Many did not choose this lifestyle, some may, but many lost their jobs or their partner, some may have been ill or injured. Obviously you are unaware of how many families are one pay check away from being in a similar situation. Empathy?
Yes we need a plan B and I suggest consideration of an affordable solution of manufactured housing. Yes it means one of the first views visitors see is housing that is looked down on. I live in a lovely new and affordable park model. Get real, Mauro, Faber and Council. Life is good not living in a million dollar home.
Thank you Frances – great idea! And I am always greatful that Jim gives us the skinny.
Are the people involved in these stupid plans Landlords? Do they gain from sky high rents? Are the people that support these stupid leaders not really stupid, but are protecting their interests in keeping new rentals off the market and area? How about NIBY ? Are People actively working to kill these projects?
I believe a large issue on the affordability of these projects is design. Instead of building design basic, affordable to build housing, these projects turn into architectural masterpieces. There is a push for “built green” and “net zero” and those options cost money.
Look at the Lynnsfield development by the fairgrounds. There are 4 plex’s and 6 plex’s that were designed by a local designer (the late Laurie Stewart) and built by Campbell Construction and have provided affordable housing for close to 30 years.
I have looked at a number of these current projects like the Olympic Housing Trust project at the corner of Sheridan and Hastings which has 5 units designed, donated land, and 1.45 million dollars raised and is still not getting started. These projects are bogged down with administrative overhead and feel good designs that delay getting basic dwellings built.
My family spent 3 generations and over 60 years building work force housing in Port Townsend and Jefferson County. The design was basic, the construction was solid, and the end result was affordable.
The fact that David Faber:
• could not be bothered to read Jim’s last article, viewed by thousands of his constituents (going viral on multiple social media sites), about a major city project for which he bears significant responsibility; and
• did not read dozens of community comments under the article (including Ben Thomas’, the only council member open-minded and engaged enough to ever participate in Free Press discussions); and
• presumably did not read the many dozen more on NextDoor and Facebook which also had thousands of views; and
• responded to questions from audience members at the “State of the City” dog and pony show based on hearsay,
… tells you all you need to know about our mayor’s interest in listening to and representing all of Port Townsend.
That Faber “had not read our report” demonstrates the closed echo chamber in which he and most of city government reside. They reinforce their grandiose and untenable schemes in a political clique that ignores voices opposed to the wasteful fantasies that have characterized City Hall.
Even when their own consultants advise caution.
Perhaps even more telling than ignoring constituents is the determination to railroad fanciful projects regardless of opposition, practical issues, or even prohibitive costs:
See page 35 of the “Evans Vista Pro Forma, Final Design,” which council voted to approve after being provided with this analysis. Their own consultant answered this question:
Sensible options, like those described by some of our commenters, are not allowed in the echo chamber. And when failure is inevitable, no responsibility is taken.
The city has zero desire to build housing for homeless and other such projects. They say they do, collect money for something that they set up for failure from the beginning (pretending to be heros with good intentions the whole way) then pocket the money or funnel it to other projects that would otherwise be unfunded. There’s a lot of rich people in Port Townsend, and they’re not interested in it being a haven for poor, homeless, or addicts. I believe that’s why we’re seeing this stuff.
Cui Bono ? Somebody’s making money in this pattern of corrupt PT boondoggles; who is it? Banks, realtors, title companies, insurance companies, architects? Where’s all that money gone? And what of collusion with city officials?
How else can one account for the approval of a plan known to be impossible. Tell me whose benefitting, whose pockets are being lined….. It ain’ the unmonied people that are being used as an excuse or as a whipping post…..
I daresay the best the monied can come up with as justification is not out of compassion but rather to have housing for their workers and servants. Marie Antoinette never actually said it, but the monied people sitting by and exploiting the unmonied peoples survival here are now saying it loud and clear: Let them it cake…….
Thank you, Jim!
How many of the homeless grew up here, or do they come here because they heard it is a good place to squat and beg?
These same vainglorious mavens of the administrative professional class now want to shrink the statute of limitations for ethics complaints against city employees from 3 to 1 year. What is the concern with ethics complaints if you’re ethical?
Seems the following (only one example) is and was unethical at very least. Misappropriating public funds also seems to fit. This is a prime example of systemic corruption that cannot correct itself. The city council on the surface knew nothing of their employee taking public funds to pay for and then hiding studies contrary to his personal desired outcome. Mauro was recently given very high scores in the council’s assessment of him. Who is checking his public checkbook? Faber? Six of your other neighbors on council? Are they also unethical? This is just one item on a list that could be put together covering many years.
Here is the link to the whole article. Just more burned money and nothing accomplished. Perhaps something affordable prevented? Any pattern emerging? Time for another raise for Mauro? Next move may well be giving Faber the power to pardon all involved in so much, so many places.
https://www.porttownsendfreepress.com/2024/03/06/concealed-public-records-reveal-affordable-pool-options/
The pool study cover-up is veering off topic, but it IS illustrative of the practices common at City Hall which could also be riddling this project. And there’s more to that story.
Two months after our exposé about the concealed public records was published, we learned from Jim Scarantino, who had been appointed a member of the county’s pool task force, that Carrie Hite (Director of Parks and Recreation Strategy who orchestrated the cover-up) rationalized withholding those publicly-funded reports at one of their meetings. Jim told us:
“At the third task force meeting Carrie admitted to intentionally withholding the CG and WTI reports. Her justification for keeping these reports from elected officials and the public: “So they (the reports) would not be taken out of context.” The CG engineers said that their assessment is that the current Mountain View building would last another 50 years if it is maintained properly. WTI said the city could have a functional pool “for decades” if it followed their proposal to repair and modernize the aquatic systems.” [emphasis mine]
What we’ve seen repeatedly is that the primary players at the city predetermine their vision for specific projects long before they invite any public feedback and then manipulate the public process to suit their agenda. In the case of the “Taj Mahal” pool endeavor, a new $131,000/year position was created by Mauro (filled by Carrie Hite) — literally titled a strategist, to game the public.
With the Evans Vista Project, close to half a million dollars was spent to develop yet another “Taj Mahal” vision that in no way met the brief to provide low-cost workforce housing. What had been declared a state of emergency (lack of affordable housing for local workers) was lost in fanciful architectural design with all the bells and whistles of an upscale village.
Unethical? Or simply a reflection of the elite clique at City Hall?
Ana and Harvey —
“Unethical? Or simply a reflection of the elite clique at City Hall?”
Both.
Mauro and Hite — from appointed positions, not elected — conspired to deceive council and the taxpayers. We paid for those studies. These managerial barons determined the citizens weren’t sophisticated enough to properly ‘contextualize’ the studies that thwarted their fantastical vision. Our feckless elected council members weren’t the least bit concerned about that criminal malfeasance. Thus, they aided and abetted it. That’s why we can count on them voting in favor of reducing the ethics complaint statute of limitations to one year, perhaps with the exception of Ben Thomas. I’ll be thrilled to be wrong.
To those who blame us for electing these reprobates, and not running better candidates, understand that the mindset that allows and accepts these derelictions of duty is in the great majority of the voting members of the city. In fact, the county. It’s a feature, not a bug.
Annette – Agree 100% Not any of this is “off topic” related to Evans Vista. The same players and methods will be in place regarding anything done with that problematic property and all city business.
Remember “streateries” and ignored public input to benefit one clique member?
Again, who was tracking what Mauro and underlings were doing with public funds?
Could the city council possibly find themselves lacking in oversight? What would that look like?
The Leader reports that the ethics policy changes were “fast tracked”. 3 council including the mayor they appoint recused themselves because they have ethics complaints against them. City manager Mauro as well. Every dot to connect the big picture is “on topic”.
Oh boy, do I remember the ‘streateries’ scam.
Could the city council possibly find themselves accountable for lacking in oversight? And what would that look like?
Losing their jobs, that’s what it would look like. See above for why that won’t happen here.
Back there in the rear view in one of the streaterie article comments, with public property being taken for private use contrary to law, damaging the many for the very few someone asked who is John Galt? Still wondering. Still seeing the trajectory.