Following Methow Conservancy’s recent announcement that they have gifted Larkspur Flats to Methow Housing Trust (MHT) for the purpose of building affordable housing, Methow Conservancy held a meeting Dec. 9 on plans to develop another site, this time on Sunny M Ranch.
Executive Director Sarah Brooks said the conservancy made it clear from the beginning that they would like to allocate 1-2% (about 12-24 acres) of Sunny M closest to Winthrop for affordable housing. The parcel proposed for development is adjacent to Methow Hatchery and is off Wolf Creek and Twin Lakes Roads.
Brooks said the conservancy would not be the builder but partner with another organization that specializes in construction of affordable housing. For the past 18 months, the conservancy has been working with Navigate, LLC, a housing development consultancy based in Wyoming that specializes in workforce housing in mountain communities in the West.
Following an announcement in October on the gifting of Larkspur Flats, MHT received pushback from residents in the nearby Heckendorn neighborhood who said plans for up to 30 new houses on the six-acre parcel near Meadowlark Natural Area came by surprise. MHT temporarily withdrew its application for annexation by the Town of Winthrop until it addressed neighbors’ concerns.
Brooks said a recording of the public meeting on Dec. 9 about the Sunny M property would not be made available and recordings of two previous public meetings, which had been available on the conservancy’s website for 15 months and 11 months, were taken down the following morning. The presentation slides from the Dec. 9 meeting are available on the conservancy’s website.
“While we did record our December 9th information session, we did so to make sure that key people involved in the project (like our Board and Staff members) who could not be there would be able to hear the presentation,” Brooks wrote in an email.
“The information sessions we offer for the public are super-early opportunities to share our thinking and to hear from the community so that we have an understanding of what the community values [are] as we form a vision for affordable housing on Sunny M,” said Brooks. “These sessions are not public hearings, and as a non-governmental nonprofit organization, we are not subject to public meeting laws.”
“It is easy for one or two statements to be used out of context, which results in misunderstandings,” explained Brooks. “To be frank, we have had a real experience with this. A member of our community isolated one piece of a discussion from a previous information session out of context and shared their interpretation widely, implying that we had made decisions about density on the parcel—which we have not. We do not think the content of the information sessions – where no decisions were made – rise to the level of needing to share recordings, especially if they run the risk of being misused and requiring us to spend further time and energy which could otherwise be spent on conservation and education projects for community benefit.”
According to the slideshow presentation of Dec. 9, the Conservancy is examining two key questions- how basic infrastructure would work and how this development would fit with their overall vision for the entire parcel. The conservancy aims to preserve corridors and habitat for wildlife, protect farmland and trails, and provide affordable housing on the 1200-acre property, which they purchased in June 2023.
Larkspur Flats was obtained in 2018 as part of a larger purchase of 145 acres that included what became the Meadowlark Natural Area. The 138-acre natural area was transferred to the Town of Winthrop and Larkspur Flats, which the conservancy had eyed for affordable housing, was gifted to MHT.
Brooks said gifting Larkspur Flats was a quick way to address what the Winthrop City Council has deemed a housing crisis. Developing property on the Sunny M Ranch would take longer.
MHT Executive Director Danica Ready said her organization has 65 families on its waiting list for affordable housing. When asked whether current housing developments such as Cascade Meadows North, Skylstad Family Haven, Milltown, Larkspur Flats and a portion of Sunny M Ranch, would cover 65 families, Ready referred to Winthrop’s Housing Action Plan, which calls for 436 units of housing needed as of 2023, 726 by 2030, and 1572 by 2040.
“I’m not aware of anywhere near that many units in the pipeline,” said Ready.
If you would like to be notified about future information sessions about the Sunny M property, Brooks advises joining the conservancy’s e-mail list or visiting their Sunny M events webpage: https://methowconservancy.org/sunnym/events.
