EVERETT — A nonprofit’s request to upzone an area and clip the boundaries of a historic neighborhood so it can build a low-income housing apartment project fragmented the city’s planning commission last week.
The all-volunteer commission split evenly 3-3. They gave no formal recommendation to the City Council for when councilmembers make a final decision next month.
Housing Hope wants to build a row of houses along Norton Avenue and lower
the land in the back and build an apartment complex. In total, the project would create 44 housing units for homeless families with students in the Everett School District. It would go on an unused three acres owned by the school district west of the downtown core called the Norton Avenue Playfield.
Single-family homes make up the rest of the neighborhood. Most neighbors oppose the project because they say it doesn’t fit the character of their neighborhood, a concern that a few commissioners telegraphed with their vote.
City planners instructed the commission that the project isn’t being measured on its purpose, but whether the city should upzone a piece of the Norton-Grand historic overlay to allow the apartment complex, and to pull back the historic overlay’s boundaries to allow the three-story apartment building’s potential height.
The City Council will hear a project presentation Sept. 30. It’s scheduled to take a vote Oct. 14 after a public hearing.
In summer 2019, the City Council set a six-month emergency pause to supportive housing projects citywide to reassess where such housing projects can be built.
This February, they voted 4-1 to restrict supportive housing from single-family neighborhoods. If Housing Hope doesn’t get the upzone, the project could not be adjusted to be “viable,” Housing Hope’s CEO Fred Safstrom told the Tribune.
Safstrom addressed last week why the nonprofit can’t move the homeless-students project to a different piece of land: It’s only because this spot is school district land that homeless Everett students are given exclusivity. Otherwise, the site falls under the county’s homeless placement system, which fills available units to whoever is highest-priority in line, Safstrom said.
The district has more than 1,000 students who experience homelessness any given year.
In August, the city’s Historical Commission voted 6-2 against adjusting the boundary line for the project. They opposed creating an unwanted precedent on eroding historic neighborhood protection boundaries to make way for other developers’ projects.
Safstrom hopes it will be amended. Housing Hope’s design calls for steep roofs to meet the historic character. “We could do a better project if we weren’t constrained by these rules,” Safstrom said.
If the overlay stays, compensating for this could mean shortening the building and widening its footprint, which takes away on-site parking and open playing spaces on the site, he said.
The project needs to have 44 units for the project financing package to pencil out, Safstrom said.
The application would also be subject to a development agreement under the city planning department that would address future plan review approval.
Two commissioners recused themselves from the vote due to conflicts of interest: Alex Lark works for Housing Hope, and Carly McGinn recused herself because she lives near the site. A ninth commission member was absent.
The project was sparked when former Superintendent Gary Cohn and Safstrom began chit-chatting about lessening student homelessness within Everett Schools and decided to do a deal. A 75-year lease with Housing Hope to create the homeless student housing center on the site was set in 2019.
These mockups show the proposed row of houses along Norton Avenue (above graphic) and a sketch for one of the three-story apartment units to be built on the site.
