BCHA and ARCH meet neighborhood resistance
By Dick Dorworth
Earlier this year, a one-story grey home was moved onto a lot near Agave Place at the north end of Buttercup Road in the county between Hailey and Ketchum. Agave Place was developed in 2005 as 12 units of deed-restricted housing built in exchange for a developer’s receiving increased density on the adjacent market-rate Village Green subdivision. The home was originally built by Advocates for Real Community Housing (ARCH) in conjunction with Blaine County Housing Authority (BCHA) as part of both groups’ efforts to provide badly needed affordable housing in the Wood River Valley.
“The mission of ARCH Community Housing Trust is to develop safe, permanently affordable housing for persons of low to moderate income and to work with all interested public and private parties toward this objective,” says its website.
“BCHA’s primary goal is to promote various methods for providing housing at affordable sales prices and rental rates to people comprising the ‘working population,’” says its website. “These individuals and families are unable to purchase or rent reasonable quality housing within Blaine County due to market-rate housing price levels.”
Some Buttercup Road neighbors are not pleased with the home.
In an Aug. 5 email to ARCH and the Blaine County Commissioners, Kimberly Rogers wrote, “I am writing this letter to let you know that I am disappointed in the affordable housing unit that was put at the north end of Buttercup Road, and the responses and also the lack thereof to my written disappointment. I believe promises were made to all of us… that have not been fulfilled. Not one of us fought this conversion of open space… being turned into affordable housing unit, because we were told to ‘trust’ the County and the organizations they chose to develop this vacant land in a fashion that was similar to the Agave Place development and do right by the neighbors and neighborhood.
“We did trust, and it turns out we should not have.”
The neighbors were told there would be a landscaping berm that would match the one at Agave. There are new trees planted but there is only a small mound above the ground. The neighbors also worked closely with the developers of Agave Place to ensure the project would integrate into the neighborhood. They claim that not to do so would risk bringing down the property values.
“This is a legitimate apprehension that existing property owners have when affordable housing is proposed in one’s neighborhood, where the surrounding properties have significantly greater value than the affordable housing unit proposed,” Rogers wrote. “I am also worried that since our concerns are not taken into consideration, that word shall get out and future affordable housing will be fought against, to prevent the very thing that has happened here… a substandard house placed within an area of greater value, even though promises to the contrary were made to the area owners.”
In early August, Kiki Tidwell wrote a letter to BCHA requesting that ARCH be relieved of its project management duties because of what she views as a range of inadequacies.
“It may be a nice house for some neighborhoods but it is not what was agreed to in public meetings and agreements,” Tidwell said.
Other Buttercup Road neighbors, including Woody Friedlander, Don Sammis and Larry Lloyd, have also expressed similar concerns and complaints to the agencies. As evidence that her concerns are not being given their due by Blaine County, Tidwell provided The Weekly Sun with the April 26 minutes of the Blaine County Board of Commissioners, which included: “Blaine County Housing Authority (BCHA) Regular Meeting—Schoen.
“The BCC received a letter from a Zinc Spur resident requesting a BCC public hearing to discuss the Agave Place affordable housing unit. The BCHA said everything is being done as outlined in the project proposal; and suggested a BCC hearing would give credence to NIMBY complaints intended to harass the project.”
When asked to comment, Commissioner Jacob Greenberg responded, “Ms. Tidwell has submitted several emails to the County. The County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney, the Land Use Department and the Commissioners have responded. The latest emails included distribution to an attorney, and until I am sure that one has not been retained, all correspondence will go through the Deputy Prosecuting Attorney’s office. He is the Commissioners’ designated legal counsel. What I will say is that the County considers affordable housing to be in the public interest.”
Tidwell told The Weekly Sun that no attorney was retained.
“Tidwell and the others have raised legitimate questions about the home not looking like others in Agave Place, but the county acted within the law,” said County Commissioner Larry Schoen. “I don’t know where this will lead, but I hope the matter can reach an amicable solution for all parties without damaging the county’s credibility or the process of providing more affordable housing in Blaine County.”
The home was sold to what Michelle Griffith, executive director of ARCH, described as “a lovely young, working family,” with strong and longstanding ties to the community.
“It is settled,” she said.