Community farm idea hasn't quite taken root

Some activists who rescued an old Hazel Dell farm from development in 2004 are now pooh-poohing a concept that would devote much of its flat land to community farms and gardens.

They would rather see more land set aside for, perhaps, a community center, to be built 10 or 20 years from now.

Bud Van Cleve, president of the Northeast Hazel Dell Neighborhood Association, said Thursday that he and other neighbors feel drowned out by gardening and farming enthusiasts, whom he referred to, at one point, as “the dirt people.”

“Where was all the garden strength four years ago when we fought to keep that property?” said Van Cleve, who lives several blocks from the longtime farm. “If it’s that important to them, they should have been fighting for it.”

The 79-acre site, until recently owned by Washington State University, is between Northeast 78th and 68th streets in east Hazel Dell, adjoining Hazel Dell Park. The county’s concept sketches also include a path, a shelter, and a building for the Clark County Food Bank, perhaps stocked with locally grown crops.

Another county idea, to reuse a stately building on the site as a historically themed restaurant, hasn’t yet drawn interest from possible tenants.

Van Cleve said he’d be happy to see gardens and farms on the site, but said he didn’t “think it should dominate.”

Sunrise O’Mahoney, who sits with Van Cleve on a 17-member committee discussing ideas for the site, didn’t disagree outright.

“I agree that there’s need for a community center,” said O’Mahoney, of the Vancouver Food Co-op. “There’s the Boys and Girls Club after school at the Hazel Dell elementary, but they sell out. There’s no room for the kids.”

But O’Mahoney didn’t want to sacrifice the prime farmland on the north side of the property.

“I’m really, adamantly, strongly for having farmland preserved,” she said. “It’s an area in an urban setting that has ag land, and the possibilities are endless.”

Mark McCauley, the county’s general services director, said Thursday that one possible compromise might be to expand Hazel Dell Park westward along 68th Street, and put more neighborhood facilities there.

Both Van Cleve and O’Mahoney expressed interest in that notion.

“I have said all along that this will be a very deliberate and considered process,” McCauley said.

The county plans to keep discussing ideas for the site and eventually bring a plan before the public at a series of open houses, not yet scheduled.

Michael Andersen covers Clark County government: 360-735-4508 or michael.andersen@columbian.com.