Dirt to be pushed for Homestead

HANSVILLE — Twelve years after an application was submitted to Kitsap County for a 205-acre planned unit development in Hansville, dirt may finally be pushed on the land within the next year.

Olympic Property Group, the real estate subsidiary of Pope Resources, has signed a purchase and sale agreement with Poulsbo’s James Laughlin to develop Hansville Homestead. The sale is expected to close in December 2004.

The rural planned unit development consists of 89 residential lots that will range from 18,000-square feet to 90,000-square feet. Approximately 114 acres adjacent to Buck Lake Park will be left as open space. The main entrance to the development will be on Prospect Street, just off Twin Spits Road.

After more than a decade of land use court proceedings and appeals, OPG finally received approval from the county to move forward with the project in January 2003. However, following the decision, the company decided to pass it on to another experienced developer for the next phase.

“We sold it to (Laughlin) because we’ve just got too many things going on to do a great job pursuing all this stuff,” saidOPG President Jon Rose. “We’re just trying to stay focused on our biggest and best projects.”

Byron Harris, Laughlin’s real estate agent, is credited with connecting Laughlin to the project. When Harris found out the property was on the market, he approached OPG, claiming he had the perfect person to carry out the next step. Laughlin, who has been developing property in the area for nearly 20 years, is working on the Caldart Cottages in Poulsbo and also developed the Madison Avenue Condos on Bainbridge Island.

“He’s a forward thinker. He’s very creative. He’s environmentally-friendly,” Harris said. “That’s why he picked this property, because it has so much open space.”

The feasibility study of the property was recently completed and will be followed by an engineering and construction phase, which will include finalizing designs for the infrastructure.

Harris said the parcel is very unique by today’s development standards.

Under the Growth Management Act, new subdivisions are often comprised of very small lots “by at least Kitsap County’s standards that we’ve had in the past,” Harris said, noting that most new lots are only about 5,000- to 6,000-square feet in size.

Because Homestead was a vested preliminary plat that was approved for development under 1983 zoning regulations, the lots can range in size from nearly twice the size of current parcels to more than 2 acres.

The property is expected to be developed in phases, which have yet to be determined, but Harris said lots will most likely be for sale by late summer 2005.

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