Building a neighborhood on Vashon Island
VASHON ISLAND -- What does it mean to know your neighbors?
That you'll collect their mail for them when they're out of town, and they feed your cats? Or maybe you have them over for the occasional barbecue?
In a 19-home development going in here, just blocks from the Vashon town center, it means a lot more than that. Here, surrounded by trees and wetlands in a place called Roseballen, neighbors have slogged though the mud to help lay one another's foundations. They've nailed on roof sheathing together and unrolled bundles of turf for each other's lawns.
"I'll know my neighbors here better than anyplace else I've ever lived," said Tom Whelan-Miller as he set plywood onto roof joists in a persistent November mist. "I've seen them out here on good days and bad days."
But Roseballen isn't just an exercise in neighborliness. It's a "community land trust," an increasingly popular way to create "affordable" homes not just for the current residents, but those who will follow.
By doing two-thirds of the construction work themselves or with the help of volunteers, the owners get new homes -- ranging from two to five bedrooms -- for an average of $850 a month, perhaps half of what they'd pay on the open market.
There are caveats: Unlike many "sweat equity" projects, residents here agree that when they sell, the prices they charge will be strictly limited. And while the occupants will own their houses, the land underneath them will continue to be owned by the nonprofit Vashon HouseHold.
In Washington, community land trusts trace their roots to efforts on Orcas and Lopez islands dating back to the late 1980s. The need for such a project on Vashon has become particularly pressing in the last five years, as the median home price doubled to more than a half-million dollars.
Sam Hendricks, executive director of Vashon HouseHold, said the goal is to help keep families of modest means from being priced off the island.
"We've got teachers there [at Roseballen], health-care workers, store owners, musicians and artists," Hendricks said. "These are tremendous contributors to the cultural health of the community."
