Have an opinion on county’s controversial homeless village? Here’s a chance to air it
People soon will have a chance to voice their concern or support for the controversial Pierce County Village homeless project.
Beginning at 9 a.m. on April 29, public hearings will proceed at the Sprinker Recreation Center. In anticipation of public interest in the project, the county is planning for up to seven days to allow for public comment.
The county’s plan to build a nearly 300-unit micro village to house the chronically homeless near Spanaway Lake has riled folks in the area throughout its planning process. The proposed village has been sited on a more than 85-acre wooded area across the road from Spanaway Lake and adjacent to Joint Base Lewis-McChord land.
The push for the Pierce County Village has been heavily scrutinized as the County Council moved to change zoning rules to allow the high density site to be built in an area where it otherwise would have been prohibited, a process that drew opposition.
In 2023, the Pierce County Council committed $22 million in federal ARPA dollars to the project, which is expected to cost nearly $62 million in total - most of which is expected to come from donors.
The push for the micro-village came largely from County Executive Bruce Dammeier’s office before receiving support from the county council. Dammeier once referred to the project as a “proven transformational solution desperately needed by so many of our chronically homeless,” being based on a similar concepts from around the country.
Tacoma Rescue Mission is set to own and manage the village modeled after the Community First! Village in Austin, Texas. Preliminary plans include on-site security, health care services, hydroponic agriculture, community farms and gardens, a dog park and dwellings for staff and volunteers.
According to Walter Washington of Tacoma Rescue Mission, the site would aim to house older individuals who have been homeless for long periods of time, with a priority on veterans. He said residents would find permanent housing and community at the village and would have to work and agree to community standards. Tacoma Rescue Mission maintains that residents also would have to pay rent.
In an e-letter to the community, county councilmember Amy Cruver said the village would address the biggest challenge to homelessness in Pierce County — permanent housing for the chronically homeless.
“This very different model of permanent housing is designed to provide hope, dignity, and purpose to the chronically homeless through purposeful work, restorative relationships, and onsite treatment,” Cruver wrote in the e-letter. “And we believe housing alone will never fully address the problem, but community will.”
Spanaway Concerned Citizens is a local advocacy group that has been actively opposed to the placement of the village. It is the appellant in the hearing and is challenging the “issuance of a Mitigated Determination of Nonsignificance” for the village, which issued on Nov. 16, 2023.
The group has objections to the location of the village based largely on environmental concerns. The site of the village, where 176th Street meets Spanaway Loop Road, is directly adjacent to a large wetland that stretches to Roy.
Spanaway Concerned Citizens has been holding protests near the site of the village and has hosted tours on the public road that winds through the woods and wetland to the site.
Members of the group expressed concern not only with potential water pollution in the wetland from the sewage-pump system and stormwater drainage proposed in the village plan, but also the potential deforestation of old-growth trees on the land.
Other members expressed concern over whether residents in the village would be responsible stewards of such a sensitive habitat.
Spokesperson for the Spanaway Concerned Citizens, Paul Lubbesmeyer, said he hopes the hearing examiner will ask for an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on the project after hearing the community’s concerns.
Lubbesmeyer believes that an EIS would be a much more “in-depth look” at the potential environmental impacts of the project than what the county has required.
According to Pierce County’s hearing examiner code, for a land-use issue, the examiner can “receive and examine available relevant information, including environmental documents, conduct public hearings, cause preparation of the official record.”
When making a decision following the hearing, the examiner has the power to attach any reasonable conditions found necessary to make a project “compatible with its environment” and to keep the project consistent with applicable codes and laws.
