A model home in Seven Wells built on spec by Pacific Lifestyle Homes, similar in size and design to homes that will make up Adams Glen, a 79-house neighborhood currently underway in Hockinson. Prices will start in the low-$400,000 range. Courtesy of Mike Higgins Photo Gallery
A new neighborhood is underway in Hockinson, the future site of 79 homes that will join the latest batch of residences cropping up in the area northeast of Vancouver city limits.
The Adams Glen neighborhood, built by Pacific Lifestyle Homes and New Tradition Homes, will feature lots sized from 4,500 square feet to 7,000 square feet, with homes starting in the low-$400,000 range. They continue a trend apparent to anyone who lives or works in the Hockinson region — new builds, especially those in the mid-to-upper price range on sizeable lots, are rising.
Several factors have made Hockinson the epicenter of suburban growth in Southwest Washington. But when you boil right down to it, that’s just where the buildable land is, said Ryan Makinster, government affairs coordinator for the Building Industry Association of Clark County.
Vancouver’s Urban Growth Area (UGA) limits new building outside of the boundary, which east of Northeast 72nd Drive cuts off development near Northeast 119th Street.
“We’re pushing up against that boundary,” Makinster said. “One of the main reasons we see (homes) going up out there is because it’s available land. That is the biggest issue we have in the county now.”
Faced with a hard border, Clark County developers have two options — build within the city center, which usually means accessory dwellings and vertical, multifamily housing; or build stand-alone homes on larger lots at the fringes. Many developers choose the latter.
“It’s more affordable,” Makinster said. “And some people obviously want a rural lifestyle.”
Steve Bradford, vice president of sales and marketing at Pacific Lifestyle Homes, attributes the booming Hockinson housing market to the attractiveness of a country-adjacent lifestyle. The site for Adams Glen is nearby Hockinson Meadows, another Pacific Lifestyle Homes neighborhood. They also share the area with Granton Park, another suburban development under construction.
“It feels more like the country, but you’re close in, so it’s kind of the best of both worlds,” Bradford said.
The boundary between the rural and suburban in Hockinson is abrupt. It bridges the divide between developed Vancouver and the farmland that dominates northeast Clark County. And Hockinson residents can enjoy the convenience of a city’s nearby amenities while taking advantage of the price tag, pace and space of a bucolic area.
“I think the reason it’s such an active place is it’s one of the last few places with such large parcels to develop,” Bradford said. “That’s been a big draw for our customers.”
The schools, too, are strong. In an independent 2018 ranking of Washington’s 100 best school districts by backgroundchecks.org, Hockinson School District ranked 16th.
Homebuyers tend to flock toward strong school districts, regardless of whether they have children, Bradford added.
“I think if they are in the market and they have school-age kids, school district is a big factor,” he said. “If they’re not, I still think it’s a factor from a resale standpoint.”
It also doesn’t hurt that the area is already wealthy. The median household income is $81,080 compared to the county median income of $69,062, according to data from the American Community Survey, an annual subset of the U.S. Census.
Property values are $356,400, well above Clark County’s median of $294,400. Its poverty rate is also a quarter of greater Clark County’s — 2.4 percent compared to 8.8 percent — and its occupants are, on average, five years older than those of the surrounding region at 43.2 years old. The typical household owns three cars.
A few miles down the road, Pacific Lifestyle Homes’ sister company, Garrette Custom Homes, is developing houses on 5-acre lots, Bradford added. It’s a quasi-rural concept similar to Adams Glen, he said, though more expensive given the larger lot sizes.
“You just keep going east, and it’s farms. It’s right next to the country,” Bradford said.
The region’s future
Of course, the long-term issue with building rural neighborhoods along the edge of the city’s UGA is that those boundaries are drawn with the expectation of change.
Buyers drawn to the country lifestyle who want to stay in their houses for 20 years or more — “age-in-place” homeowners, as Bradford called them — may find that their neighborhood looks very different by that time.
In June, the Building Industry Association approached the Clark County Council to discuss what BIA Government Affairs Director Jamie Howsley called a “deep crisis” in countywide housing affordability.
Howsley told the council that the Vacant Buildable Lands Model, a tool used to analyze growth in urban areas, showed the county doesn’t have enough land set aside to ensure housing stays affordable into the future. Howsley said the county needs to have land that will support at least 45,000 units of housing to keep prices reasonable. As of June, county data showed that number had dropped below 48,000.
Clark County faced a similar issue in 2006. The following year, it expanded its urban growth boundary to bring in enough land to support 60,000 more housing units.
In the meantime, though, Makinster said there are no immediate plans to expand the amount of buildable land, calling talks to reshape Vancouver’s UGA “a bite at the elephant right now.”
“If you want to extend that boundary, you have to make a good argument,” said Makinster, the BIA’s government affairs director. “Hockinson’s expanding because there’s developable land out there. When land’s constrained, people are going to go where land is available.”
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