HOMES AHOY!

FRIDAY HARBOR - Sailing on a Washington State Ferry among the 170 or so San Juan Islands near the U.S.-Canadian border does for a weary soul what a full-body massage does for aching necks and backs. Its engines hum quietly as forested islands big and small float past and it glides smoothly across the water like a lone skater on a frozen pond. Tranquility, simply put, defined.

Until, that is, you look up to see a barge with two or three houses from the 1930's or 40's heading, like a monster from the deep blue sea, straight for you. Guidebooks don't prepare you for that.

These days, it's a not unusual sight in the waters around Friday Harbor, the only incorporated town in and the seat of San Juan County. Founded in the 1840's as a Hudson Bay Company salmon curing station nowadays tens of thousands of tourists flock there every spring, summer and fall. Not a few are in the market for a second, "getaway" home.

Small as it is - just 2,100 residents - the result is that Friday Harbor's got a big-city problem - an affordable housing crisis. The Runstad Center at the University of Washington reports that only King County had a higher median home sales price than San Juan County's at the end of 2015. At $499,700 it was more than $200,000 above the statewide median.

Which explains why "heritage houses" from places like Oak Bay, View Royal, Victoria and Vancouver, British Columbia are setting sail for Friday Harbor. "Our old houses, considered rubbish to many," reports Kerry Gold of The Toronto Globe & Mail, "have become American treasure."

It's all at the inspiration and under the direction of the non-profit San Juan Community Home Trust. On a 46-acre site a few blocks from downtown it's developing a new community called Sun Rise Forever Affordable Homes. Fourteen condominiums already have been built from the ground up with 13 for sale to families earning 80 percent or less of area median and many for "key infrastructure personnel" - teachers, firefighters, police and paramedics - and one a purchaser earning no more than 120 percent.

When completed, Sun Rise Forever will have up to 120 homes, some 40 of which will be imported heritage houses that otherwise had a date with a wrecking ball. "We feel we are getting houses with a lot more character and we feel good about saving them from demolition," Trust executive director Nancy DeVaux told Carla Wilson of Victoria's Times-Colonist, "They are beautiful" with "a lot of unique little features in these homes."

Recycling the houses begins in the experienced hands of the Nickel Brothers who, for about $75,000 per house transport them by barge to Friday Harbor. Then they are placed on a site with ready-to-connect infrastructure developed using HUD Self-Help Homeownership Opportunity Program funds provided by the regional "self-help" housing nonprofit Community Frameworks. Purchasers will be expected to roll-up their sleeves to help complete any repairs or upgrades required.

Reflecting the commitment both of the Trust and Community Frameworks, the homes - both old and new - will be green with energy- and water-saving features including programmable thermostats, and an innovative "Living Machine" wastewater system. That'll reduce the home's footprint and cut the homeowner's utility bill.

Purchasers will own both the house and underlying parcel outright. They must have been County residents for at least three years and "demonstrate the ability to make a living in the islands." The deed, however, includes a permanent covenant creating a formula to determine the price of the home if re-sold. The seller will be permitted a share of any appreciation, but the restriction will insure that Sun Rise Homes remain permanently affordable. The relocated homes are expected to sell for up to $210,000, less than half the County's median.

Ironically, the Trust's interest in recycling and, thus, preserving houses has given rise to an interest in doing the same in the communities, from which they've been imported. So much so an Oak Bay Councilor recently told The Times-Colonist that he hopes to determine how best to "proactively improve the retention of heritage houses" and to "slow down this destruction of our heritage." Until then, observed The Globe and Mail, "Meanwhile, south of the border, our unwanted old houses are finding some love."

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