In a unanimous vote, Twisp Town Council approved an application by Catholic Charities to construct three buildings and 78 units of apartments in the orchard behind Hank’s.
Councilmember Wyatt Lundquist recused himself because his property borders the project and he attends a Catholic church.
48 units are designated for low income housing and 24 for market-rate rentals. The low income housing will be built in Phase 1 of the project. Under the contract terms for the federal grant for affordable housing, Catholic Charities has two years from Dec. 2024 to complete the project and expects construction to take 16 months.
Matt Kilbourne, VP of Asset Management and Development for Catholic Charities of Eastern Washington, said the organization will apply for a property tax exemption for the affordable units. The town would only receive sales taxes from the new residences.
Should they decide to build 24 units of market rate apartments in Phase 2, Catholic Charities would pay property taxes for that building.
Parking was reduced to 1.4 spaces per affordable housing unit, down from Catholic Charities’ proposal at the last Planning Commission Meeting of 1.6 spaces per unit. Twisp Town Planner Thom Vetter said there would be enough space in the development to increase that amount to 2 spaces per unit if there is demand. Catholic Charities would be required to build additional parking spaces, up to 2 spaces per unit, to meet demand. Market rate units would have two spaces per unit.
The main ingress and egress would be on Twisp Carlton Road. Okanogan County Engineer Josh Thomson told County Commissioners this would lead to backups on Highway 20 from residents making a left turn into the development. Vetter said the town is looking into putting a traffic circle between Glover Street and Twisp Carlton Road, but this would not happen before the project is built.
Councilmember Katrina Auburn asked about arsenic found in the soil. Full evaluations cannot be completed until the snow melts. Vetter said the onus is on Catholic Charities to prove the soil meets Department of Ecology standards. Councilmember Will Menzies said the public needs to be informed of the findings and Vetter said he would provide the findings to the Council in a staff report during a public meeting. Catholic Charities plans to put a playground in the development.
Councilmember Aaron Studen noted the Department of Ecology follows the EPA, which sets standards based on the use of the property. Soil under a playground would have a higher standard than under a parking lot.
Vetter confirmed to councilmembers that snow removal will not impede pedestrian routes, fire lanes or the parking lot. Vetter said there is plenty of other space on the property to store snow removal.
Councilmember Tim Matsui said this project guarantees 30 years of affordability, the minimum required under the financing terms for the affordable units.
Mayor Hans Smith said public comments closed after the planning commission’s decision. The public cannot contact councilmembers regarding this project and councilmembers have to disclose if they communicated with anyone or anyone communicated with them about this project ex parte.
In an email, Smith explained the difficulty of stopping a project if it meets the criteria in the comprehensive plan and town code.
“The concept of whether something is “good” or not is very subjective – and the policy guidance and need for findings of fact do not support decisions being based solely on evaluations of “goodness”. Such a decision would likely be easily overturned on appeal if the project otherwise aligns with the town code.”
“I do think that the existing evaluation criteria provided by the code is fairly thorough and robust – but everyone interprets those criteria differently, which is why we have 5 voting members on each board go through and evaluate and defend the final majority position. If ultimately the public doesn’t like the decisions being rendered by the elected officials, they can vote them out…[sic]”
