Joe’s Place Farms owner Joseph Beaudoin stands near land that he is selling to Ginn Development, which plans a subdivision of homes priced less than the county’s median. Amanda Cowan/The Columbian
A plot of land in the Fircrest neighborhood will soon be home to 111 single-family residences making up a housing development dubbed Four Seasons South.
Patrick Ginn of Ginn Development is purchasing the 9.47 acres of land from two owners just east of Interstate 205, including 4.79 acres from urban agriculture fixture Joe’s Place Farms and 4.68 acres from the Nuttman family.
Collectively, the land is assessed at $1.65 million.
According to the project’s application submitted to the city of Vancouver, fitting that much housing on that size plot will be snug — each residential lot will be less than 40 feet wide, and most will be closer to 20 feet wide. Front- and backyard setbacks may be staggered to avoid repetition, and the development will feature three open-space tracts.
This tightly packed housing is a focus of Ginn Development, which is currently constructing 400 residences in the Four Seasons — just to the north of Four Seasons South, naturally — aimed at first-time homebuyers. Prices of Ginn’s homes hover between $250,000 and $300,000, well below the county’s median home cost of $361,000.
“The theme of the price point is still the same,” said company owner Patrick Ginn. “We’re trying to do it with detached homes to give people more options.”
Each standalone home will be two stories with three bedrooms and at least two baths between 1,300 and 1,700 square feet, plus a two-car garage. They’ll be about 5 feet away from their neighbors.
The tight fit “is doable. We’ve done it before, so we know the product well,” Ginn said.
He said he’s heard comments from people who are “appalled by the lot sizes and the home sizes” at this price. But his company is trying to fill a desperate need for more homes in Vancouver and Clark County at a moderate price point.
Driving up the cost is an overall strong real estate market, as well as high labor expenses — both “good and bad news,” Ginn said.
The demand for housing, he pointed out, is not going away. So the best way to moderate the prices is to increase the supply of affordable and workforce homes.
“(If) I want a house built 2013 or newer and under $300,000, there’s only one or two options (in Vancouver),” Ginn said. “Clark County as a whole is not much better … in both cases, there’s not going to be more than a handful.”
He said the company plans to break ground on Four Seasons South around July 2019.
Fruits of less labor
Joseph Beaudoin of Joe’s Place Farms told The Columbian Monday that the sale is part of a strategic effort to cull down some of the more labor-intensive chunks of his land.
“We are looking at an extreme shortage of labor in the future. It looks like labor is going to be what puts all of us out of business,” Beaudoin said. “We know with the situation right now, and sending all of our labor out of the country, we have virtually no Americans who are willing to work on the farms.”
And with most of his workers between 60 and 70 years old, he’s expecting to weather a wave of retirements soon.
The plot he’s selling to Ginn is currently slated to grow apples, peaches and pumpkins, some of Beaudoin’s more high-maintenance crops. He estimates that even without the 4.8 acres, he’ll still be able to grow about 80 percent of his produce.
“I don’t think it’s going to affect a lot, in that we’re trying to adjust to having less labor, and some of the more laborsome details of the farm,” he said.
Joe’s Place Farms is a lone agricultural island in a sea of development. His main location is bordered by a storage facility to the west, a dentist’s office to the northwest, and dense housing to the northeast, east and south. He’s selling from his auxiliary unit a few blocks north, near the corner of Northeast 118th Street and Northeast Four Seasons Lane.
The ever-encroaching housing has made his job a little more difficult, Beaudoin said.
“It is creating a problem that basically every field that we have backs up into houses. We’ve had to take out a couple of orchards because it’s too dangerous to spray them,” Beaudoin said. “With new regulations, we’re going to have to stay farther and farther away from public housing.”
He currently has no plans to sell any more of his land, but he’s not ruling it out.
“Just have to see what the future brings, because labor, regulations and my age — today’s my birthday, 78 today,” Beaudoin said. “It’s getting harder and harder every year.”
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