Champion of proposed micro-village for the homeless: Rejection would be a ‘gut punch’
A decision is looming over a proposed micro-home village that would house hundreds of chronically homeless people near Spanaway Lake.
As a Pierce County hearing examiner compiles his decision on the controversial project, The News Tribune spoke with the village’s chief proponent, Tacoma Rescue Mission executive director Duke Paulson, about his thoughts on the process and the future of the project.
Paulson said the Pierce County Village, which is planned for over 280 units of permanent, supportive housing, would house an elderly population, including people who have been unhoused for decades. He said the village would serve people who don’t have many sustainable, long-term options to get off the streets. They would come to the village to work, pay rent and rehabilitate themselves, he said.
Many people support such a vision but say the Spanaway Lake site is the wrong place for it, citing the potential impact on adjacent wetland habitats, among other concerns.
During a land-use hearing that spanned April 29 to May 9, details and elements of the village were scrutinized as the hearing examiner considered the project’s compliance with zoning and environmental regulations.
Here is a synopsis of The News Tribune’s conversation with Paulson. Some of his answers have been edited for clarity and succinctness.
Q: Following the public hearing, what do you expect the future of the project to be? Is there anything that you’re concerned about? Is there any kind of decision that you expect from the hearing examiner?
A: I don’t think anyone is excited about having the Tacoma Rescue Mission be their neighbor. It’s scary.
At the same time, you know, we strategically sought out property that was zoned residential, so that we could have enough space to put a critical mass of people to really get the services and support we want there. And I feel like going through the hearing, what we’re trying to present is we’ve done that.
We’ve met every county standard or exceeded by a significant amount, every county standard of boundaries, people density, impervious surfaces, tree retention, all that stuff. We met everything that the county asked us to do.
The push back is because it’s a comprehensive use beyond housing that we’re asking for. Staff, buildings, bathroom buildings, living-room spaces, gathering spaces for people. Now we have to have this extra level of community-use permit because there’s community services here that are beyond just residential.
I still feel like we’re in good shape going forward. And I’m hoping that prevails, and that we’ll get to keep moving forward in having people live here.
Q: What are your contingency plans if the hearing examiner decides to limit what you have planned?
A: I think someone asked me what our contingency plans are. We don’t have another whole contingency. It’s not like, oh, well, we’ll just go find another piece of property. There is no massive rework contingency.
Q: During the hearing, elements and details of the proposal were scrutinized. In hindsight, what were some things that you wish you had been better prepared for?
A: We met with the county team and said ... what can we do to work with you more on this. And their response was, ‘Well, if you’ve saved more trees, that would be really helpful, because if you can save trees on that Northern boundary, it’s both saving more trees and it’s creating a bigger barrier between the neighbors.’ And the neighbors are the ones that are most upset.
So I went back to the engineer, and we shifted our boundary from 20 feet to 80 feet, which is more than you have to do for a highway, by code. We’re way exceeding the standard to save more trees to create more boundaries to do what we heard the county say.
You know, we’re trying really hard to meet the standards of work with the community and that’s why we’re putting in sewer. That’s why we had a huge boundary. We’re listening to a bunch of stuff and trying to adapt.
At the end of the day, people just don’t want those people to be here.
Q: What do you think the neighbors who oppose it and the Spanaway Concerned Citizens don’t understand about the project? What are some things that you wish you could talk to them about?
A: I understand the fear of people wanting to protect the lake, and the fear that people have when they drive by and see the Tacoma Rescue Mission shelter, and there’s an encampment up the street, and they take a photo of it and say, ‘Look, this is what’s coming in.’
That’s out of my control. That’s on Tacoma Public Utilities land and Sound Transit’s property, and I can’t enforce anything there. But if you come here on our property right now, it’s safe. We don’t have people getting killed. We don’t have people that have knife fights and all this other stuff.
This isn’t a violent, horrific place. These are people ... we’re working with that are just normal people that are trying to live.
I would love for people to get that perspective of someone who’s been living homeless for 10 years [who] suddenly has their own private place, and a job that they’re doing and something that they’re engaged in, and they’re part of that community. They’re not going to want to do bad things to their neighbors because they know they’re gonna get kicked out of probably the best situation they have for their life for the rest of their life. And so there’s every motivation to stay and behave and do a good job.
So I think getting that perspective and helping the fear get calmed down. I don’t think it’ll happen until people actually see neighbors living there, and go, ‘Oh, they’re actually pretty nice people.’
Q: You have brought up your visit to the village in Austin, Texas, as inspiration for the concept for the Pierce County Village. You said it had a “spirit” that was unlike anything you’d seen anywhere. What did you mean by that?
A: ... when I went to Austin I spent the night there several nights because I wanted to see what it was really like. Does it get loud at night when staff leaves? Do people hang out until drug dealers come out? Is there traffic? Do people start cruising?
It was totally peaceful.
And I’d walk around and just talk and ... see people on their porch wave and say, ‘Hi.’ You walk in and it feels like North Tacoma. At its best. And you’re in a village for chronically homeless people.
I would let my daughters walk through it at night and feel OK. It’s just special.
Q: The village property seems to be complicated to develop, especially with the adjacent wetland habitat. Why was this site chosen over other options?
A: From me coming back from Austin and saying ‘What would it look like if we try and do this?’
To do this ... with permanent housing that will remain for 30, 40, 50 years, there is no precedent for. There is no code for it.
My goal was 250 units because I wanted it to be big enough where we could draw in support.
We needed 25 acres that we could buy, that was zoned residential and in a growth-management area. There are county rules we had to follow. We could not just buy a farm and put a residential development on it.
There just isn’t a lot of availability.
We searched for eligible land and simultaneously went to the county and asked how they could help us zone something like this. Because, yes, these are single-family homes, but they are different from every other single-family home.
We looked at multiple properties. A lot of them either had an owner that did not want to sell because they could sell it for money to a larger developer.
We also wanted something that was close to transportation, and not too far. The less rural the better.
But, I wanted to have space around it because I anticipated we were going to have neighborhood issues. The wetlands actually created a buffer that put fewer people around us.
Things started lining up and that became clear that it was the best choice in the whole county.
The next best site was in Peninsula, adjacent to an elementary school. You want to talk about a community fiasco, imagine the neighborhood reaction if we tried doing this adjacent to an elementary school.
Even looking at Pierce County now, trying to find a location for a stability site — they only need four acres. They have reviewed all of the properties we looked at, and they can’t find a single property that they can do something on for a tinier site, for a tinier project — because it is really hard.
Q: What would it mean to you if the hearing examiner makes a decision that prohibits the village entirely?
A: It will be a gut punch, and I will be really sad, and then I will say, ‘Let’s reorganize, let’s reconfigure and reapply.’
We are not going to find another property that is zoned for housing that we can do this with. It’s kind of an all or nothing.
If the money gets pulled, and we have to walk away, I will be literally devastated that we lost a chance to really help the greater community in a way that people maybe don’t realize.
