Bellingham will purchase credit union land, eliminating key hurdle for tiny home project
The Bellingham City Council during its Monday meeting unanimously approved the purchase of a property on Northwest Avenue to secure it for future affordable housing in the Birchwood Neighborhood.
“Community need for affordable housing is at an all-time high,” Bellingham Mayor Kim Lund siad in a statement to The Bellingham Herald. “We are working all angles of the issue, and planning ahead to have land available for future city-led and partner-led affordable housing projects is a smart investment in a more equitable future for all of us.”
The property, at 3250 Northwest Avenue in Bellingham, is currently the site of a branch store for North Coast Credit Union.
The city purchased the 31,000-square-foot property for $1.26 million with funding from both the housing levy and affordable housing sales tax funds. The purchase deal is expected to close sometime in the next 16 months, according to the city of Bellingham.
“We’re pleased that, in conjunction with the adjacent property the City purchased in April, this will expand the space available for future affordable housing development down the road,” said city of Bellingham Communications and Community Relations Director Melissa Morin in an email to The Herald.
The city also owns a property adjacent to the North Coast Credit Union at 3300 Northwest Avenue, which it purchased earlier this year as a site for a future tiny home village called North Haven.
North Haven will be operated by the nonprofit HomesNOW! Not Later. The nonprofit’s two existing villages — Unity Village and Swift Haven — are expected to be relocated to the new site as they have been operating under temporary permits on city land and must be moved.
The timeline of that move was delayed after North Coast Credit Union appealed the city’s approval to relocate the tiny home villages to the site, claiming the business would be adversely impacted by the decision.
“NCCU dropped that appeal on Sept. 9 as part of the purchase and sale agreement with the city. Now, planning, design and construction for the village will continue. We estimate the new tiny home village will be ready for move-in in spring 2025,” Morin told The Herald.
North Coast Credit Union President and CEO A.C. Griffith previously said the business “supports initiatives to aid unhoused people in our community” but that it was “seeking more time to work with the city of Bellingham on these issues and others so a modified Planned Development Contract can be created.”
With the city’s purchase of the North Coast property, the credit union will close its branch office there before the transaction closes, according to Griffith.
“We’re so happy that we can contribute to better short-term and long-term affordable housing for our community,” Griffith said in a release about the property sale.
All seven employees at the Northwest branch location will be offered positions at other North Coast branches in Bellingham and Ferndale. The credit union also plans to improve its digital tools and launch a new website early next year to accommodate the increased use of online services amid a decline in in-person transactions, according to Griffith.
HomesNOW! Not Later is temporarily using a parking lot and maintenance shed on East Bellis Fair Parkway owned by the Whatcom Council On Aging as a staging area to build new tiny homes for the property on Northwest Avenue.
This story was originally published October 2, 2024 at 5:00 AM.
