Four years and $2.3 million in the rearview mirror. And still not one square foot of “affordable” housing out of the Cherry Street Project.
The Jefferson County Republican Party commemorated the project’s fourth anniversary, “and the benefits of one-party rule by Democrats,” with a little ceremony, a cake and a video on Saturday May 8, 2021. They gathered on the grounds of the decaying 1950s building barged here at great expense and trouble from Victoria, B.C. in May 2017.
I was there to cover the event for the PT Free Press.
I learned the place is not completely uninhabited. I saw the rats. A neighbor a couple years ago told me of the “really big rats, lots of them,” but on May 8, 2021, I saw them myself. The racoons, too. In the middle of the day they scurried about, disturbed by the presence of a couple dozen human beings milling around and taking pictures.
The homeless camp in the trees appears to have been abandoned. But a forest of poison hemlock has moved in. Stalks well over six feet tall cover about a quarter acre of land. On any other Port Townsend property, such a prolific display of uncontrolled noxious weeds would draw an army of inspectors, unpleasant, threatening letters and a bombardment of citations.
But the rules under which everyone else struggles never seem to apply to the Cherry Street Project. Not when it was in the hands of the bumbling and untrustworthy Homeward Bound Community Land Trust (Kate Dean, Chair of the Jefferson County Board of County Commissioners, has been a member of HB”s Board since the start of this tale). Nor now that the City of Port Townsend has reclaimed ownership of the asbestos and lead-contaminated hulk after Homeward Bound took taxpayers for a ride. They spent hundreds of thousands and defaulted on their super-generous loan from the city. Taxpayers are now on the hook for the more than $1.4 million charge the city carries on its books.
Taxpayers don’t even get a t-shirt. They just get to pay down the loan for twenty years with nothing to show but receipts and the inescapable cost of eventually crunching and clearing the building and reclaiming the land.
We’ve reported that the total cost of this thing so far tops $2.3 million. (See our articles below.) The last estimate predicted at least another million would be needed before the first “affordable” basement apartment could be occupied–by human beings.
Happy birthday to you, Cherry Street Project. But not everyone wants to acknowledge the anniversary. Not one city councilor responded to invitations to attend the celebration and talk about their contributions to this stunning achievement in addressing PT’s affordable housing crisis.
But almost four years earlier to the day, on May 10, 2017, city councilors and other local leaders gathered in the beer garden of the Pourhouse to watch the old Carmel House roll off its barge and begin its journey to its resting place on wooden blocks on a hillside overlooking the golf course. There it became “The Cherry Street Project.” There it sat for over two years on those wooden blocks. There it sits still, worse for wear as it falls apart, bit by bit.
The doors and some windows have been open for four years. Construction debris is still scattered around the property. The stucco is falling off. The rain spouts on the back are down. The weather protection for the plywood has mostly peeled away. As we reported previously, a city inspection found holes in floors and walls big enough for people to fall through. 
The Jeffco Republicans were having fun. They had a bakery paint a digital icing photo of the glorious Carmel House on a cake.
Sure, they were rubbing the uniformly Democrat/liberal/progressive/inept city councilors’ noses in it. But they do have point. 
This is what you get with decades of incestuous one-party rule. Nobody in the Democrat monoculture asked a hard question at the beginning. Questions such as, “How much will this cost and may we see a budget from a licensed general contractor before we write the first check?” Or, “Hey, maybe before we bring this thing here, ya think maybe we should get, like, an inspection to see if there’s any problems in the building?” Or, “If this is such a great building, why doesn’t Victoria want it?” Or, “How can we be sure Homeward Bound will get this done and not just dump it back into taxpayers’ laps after they’ve wasted a lot of time and money?”
Nobody asked any questions. It was jump on board the bandwagon and meet you at the Pourhouse.
City councilors responsible for getting taxpayers into this mess don’t publicly talk about the Cherry Street Project. My query for an update last month was ignored. The last time this boondoggle was discussed publicly at one of their meetings was in September 2020 when they instructed the City Manager to hand it over to Bayside Housing, free and clear of all debt, along with more than $300,000 in cash. They don’t even talk about the City Manager turning down a $1 million cash offer to bail the city out of this fiasco. (We reported on that offer from the Marzans of Port Townsend last October).
I can’t tell you what is going on behind the scenes now. I am still waiting for a response to my latest public records request. Getting the files and emails and memos has been the only way to get any accurate information on this deal.
What’s in those files proves that what the public is being told is not true and far, far from the whole story.
As far as I can tell, that transfer to Bayside has not happened and the Cherry Street Project starts its fifth year with its deterioration accelerating.
Other than making fun of Democrats’ gross incompetence and political inbreeding as symbolized by the Cherry Street Project, Republicans point out the truly unfortunate ramifications of this failure. “Since the city did this,” says Craig Durgan, chair of the Jeffco Republicans, “the city has done nothing else about affordable housing. All the dollars are tied up in this.”
He had more to say in a video about “Port Townsend’s one and only affordable housing project.” It’s fun to watch, and maddening at the same time. “For $2 million the city could have built a really nice place,” he argues. “Instead, people are having to camp at the Fairgrounds.” It’s pretty well done and something new from Jefferson County Republicans. As Durgan has argued in articles contributed to this site, much of the area’s affordable housing crisis has been caused by regulations enacted by the same crowd that that gave us the Cherry Street Project as an answer to problems they created.
You can see the video at this link: Cherry Street – YouTube
Here are previous articles on The Cherry Street Project. Just click on the title and you’ll get the article in full:
Latest Cherry Street Giveaway Hits Taxpayers Harder | Port Townsend FreePress
Cherry Street Project Handover “Not a Done Deal” | Port Townsend FreePress
Cherry Street Handover: Red Flags About Bayside Housing | Port Townsend FreePress
Cherry Street Project Welcomes First Tenants | Port Townsend FreePress
What’s Happening With the Cherry Street Project? | Port Townsend FreePress
The Tragedy of the Cherry Street Project | Port Townsend FreePress
CHERRY STREET “AFFORDABLE” HOUSING TO COST MORE THAN $2 MILLION | Port Townsend FreePress
Jim Scarantino was the editor and founder of Port Townsend Free Press. He is happy in his new role as just a contributor writing on topics of concern to him. He spent the first 25 years of his professional life as a trial attorney, then launched an online investigative news website that broke several national stories. He is also the author of three crime novels. He resides in Jefferson County. See our “About” page for more information.
Jim, Jim, Jim, Look at the positive side. The beautifull balcony with crafted hand frames. Then there’s the artistic fence and window coverings to make it secure against theives. There’s also the beautiful Carmel sign to make people think they’re still in California. I would think people would be stampeding City Hall to rent a room. Of course with my knowledge and attitude I should run for City Hall and raise the IQ level of the current people in charge. Just a thought.
Well done, Jim – thank you for the continuing coverage. I was wondering how much worse it has gotten under the boot of leftist failure. Gotta hand it to them….. the poison hemlock was a clever touch.
Nicely covered.,
We look at it almost daily and wonder where the $ went
Llike the comercial said, “Down the drain with Pepsodent”. It could of been repairing the wagon trail streets in Port Townsend. Of course after they were paved right, the city would be digging and leaving repairs that were just as bad. I guess it would be a lose/Lose situation.
I shared the FB video – will probably be deemed inappropriate and taken down!
Rita, if you lay any odds on that statemtment I doubt if you’ll get any takers. Then again there are a lot of people who like to gamble against big odds
Then again you could sweeten the pot and offer them a place at the Fair Gounds to park their camper, traileror motor home. You never know how gullable people are.
Jim, or Anyone Who Can Answer
Recently, Susan and Gary Keister were observed entering and touring the blue hastings bldg downtown. (It was the week just after the bldg was saved from auction by a “possible new finance source”.) Are you seeing any evidence of Bayside/Keister/Hastings planning on turning that bldg into the same kind of thing he has going on at Hadlock?
And what about the building across the street from it, which we were told was about to fall down and people were evacuated from it, and now it has been sitting for what… Two years? With no repairs? That too is a part market rate, parts subsidized building. Is it about to fall down, or isn’t it? As far as anyone in our family has been able to discern, there has been no reporting on that building for over a year after the initial evacuations when the building was deemed unsafe.
So the truth is, there seem to be several projects on going, related to low income housing, and all of them are sitting stagnant right now.
Thank you for excellent continuing coverage of this crime-in-progress, Jim. The lack of accountability for obvious government malfeasance is nothing new, but it gets no easier to bear. Silence in the face of legitimate questions is tacit admission of guilt.