By Steve Ulvi
Early county zoning (“damned socialism”) spawned first by the 1976 Shoreline Act and then protective land use goals in the first Comprehensive Plan (1979), were for development boomers as unwelcome as skunks at a garden party. Friends of the San Juans formed in 1979 to help implement the new zoning and planning. Social turmoil increased.
By the 1980s Nantucket Island, Mass. was already dragging anchor in a nasty tempest created by tourist crowding, rapid growth, tract development and severe depletion of worker housing. During a purposeful visit, their Vision Plan and winning public outreach methods inspired Peter Fisher to seize on the elegant concept of a public “Land Bank” funded by a small real estate excise tax (REET). “The problem helps fund the solution”!
Fisher preached the new gospel widely and presented to the County Commissioners who thought the idea interesting but likely publicly unwelcome. Fisher met with anyone who would listen. Tom Cowan, a pragmatic Lopez Commissioner, was inspired and convened ‘Saturday Morning Breakfasts’ with prominent realtors and other leaders in Friday Harbor to explore common ground. Amazingly, they agreed conceptually, suggesting some sideboards. Prominent realtors rebuffed their statewide association’s intervention.
Later, Cowan spoke at an International Council of Islands held in Marthas Vineyard; another exclusive island nurturing a land bank. Over time, Cowan’s jogging partner, Senate Majority Leader and Lopez cabin owner Dan McDonald, recognized political leverage in the idea. Legislative mark-up of a 1% land conservation REET snowballed unexpectedly in early 1990; then both houses passed the bill! Conservatives, driven by the State Realtors Association, poised to kill the bill, but the Governor unexpectedly phoned Cowan, invited him down, listened, and preemptively signed it on a Saturday.
The Friends developed a community voter survey in March of 1990; 1,000 mailed, 72% returned to reveal widespread concerns. More widely, numerous studies showed property values increase due to nearby public lands as well as revealing that residential development costs local taxpayers more than public lands left natural. San Juan Commissioners concocted an unambiguous ordinance reflecting the earlier agreement of community leaders. A handful of Washington counties put land bank measures on their ballots in 1990, but only we passed it overwhelmingly (renewing it twice since).
By 2001, the scarcity of affordable housing, escalating median home values and low average wages were a growing concern. Darcie Nielsen and Rhea Miller, local commissioners, strategized and tirelessly lobbied organizations, legislators and anyone who would listen. The resulting 0.5% housing REET bill, appeasing anti-tax conservatives, could only be adopted by San Juan County as we already supported the only Conservation Land Bank program in Washington. That affordable housing REET passed and was signed into state law in 2002. Our first housing REET ballot measure failed in 2006. Finally, it passed handily in 2018; our Home Fund and Land Bank were uniquely paired.
This November we have a moral obligation to Island communities and future generations to renew and expand upon the promising success of San Juan County’s Best ideas. The housing REET (and 3-1 grant dollars) are building crucial affordable homes and rentals. The fate of the housing REET is entirely dependent upon continued voter support for our conservation land bank REET funded at 1%. Voting yes ensures that for now, both REETs work together to build a more stable, diversified and resilient economic future here.
