For the past decade, Morgan Brown has taken what he calls a “deep dive” into a set of building practices called the Living Building Challenge, heralded as the greenest development standards in the world.
He helped to develop a small compound of homes in Bend, Oregon, that received Living Building Challenge (LBC) certification in 2018. He’s spoken at conferences about what he learned in the process and acted as a consultant to other developers and municipalities committed to sustainable development.
The LBC goal is ambitious and visionary: zero-net energy use, zero-net water use, habitat protection and more — or as Brown puts it, “buildings that help the environment, not harm it.”
Now, Brown, 63, a water engineer and consultant by profession, wants to bring this concept to fruition on Vashon, developing one of the largest Living Building Challenge communities in the country on 14 acres just west of the town core.
Brown owns 9.5 acres and has an option to purchase another 4.5 acres on either side of S.W. 178th Street between 103rd Avenue S.W. and Vashon Highway S.W. Though still preliminary, his proposed design would include several apartments directly behind the IGA, with commercial development on the ground floor, and 110 townhomes in the two fields on either side of the street.
About 20 percent of the townhomes would be income-restricted — the most affordable kind of home ownership — while other units would be aimed at people who make a little below or above King County’s average income, often called “workforce” or “middle housing” by housing advocates. The rest would be sold or rented at market rate.
Brown, the former chair of the Affordable Housing Task Force for the Vashon-Maury Community Council, has been working on the proposal for eight years, talking to people at the highest levels of county government in an effort to determine what might be possible on an island known for its restrictive zoning and in a county known for costly and protracted development practices.
He sees his project as not only a way to prove what’s possible in the blossoming world of sustainable development, but also as an answer to what he calls the “affordability crisis on Vashon,” where a commercially developed, multi-family housing project hasn’t been built in more than 30 years.
“It’s become my life’s project,” he said.
The concept will soon be before the King County Council. Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda, who represents Vashon, is proposing an amendment to the county’s draft Comprehensive Plan allowing for what the county is calling a “regenerative development demonstration project.”
According to the proposed ordinance, the demonstration project would “determine whether innovative permit processing, site development, and building construction techniques can facilitate development that goes beyond sustainability and results in significant community and environmental benefits.”
The review process will be expedited, the ordinance says, if the developer achieves a certain level of affordability (at least 10 percent of the units income-limited and as many 70 percent marketed to people just above and below the area median income).
Mosqueda, in a statement to The Beachcomber, said she proposed the demonstration project ordinance because it “will enable deep green construction methods with an element of affordable housing — including permanently affordable homeownership opportunities—for what would otherwise be standard townhome development on this site.”
“This will not change the density that can be built on this site — the allowed number of units and size of the buildings remain the same — but it will enhance the quality of construction and boost the human and ecological benefits of this housing.”
The demonstration project was first publicly mentioned during a virtual community meeting with Mosqueda last month. A week later, at the invitation of the Vashon-Maury Community Council’s board, Brown shared his plans at the council’s monthly meeting, where a few people asked questions about the size, scale and feasibility of the proposal, as well as its impact on parking and traffic.
With word of the development beginning to circulate, some have already begun raising concerns, urging islanders to write letters to Mosqueda and other councilmembers, who plan to vote on a final version of the county’s comprehensive plan — a 10-year guide to the region’s future growth — by the end of the year.
Richard Bard, a former Water District 19 commissioner, sent a letter to Mosqueda that was co-signed by seven other islanders, expressing dismay over the “dizzying raft of ‘striking amendments’” to the comprehensive plan and concern that Brown’s development would harm Vashon’s rural character.
“If it’s a small scale, we couldn’t really object,” Bard said in an interview. “But the potential exists to blow up the idea of this being a rural town in a rural area as designated by the county. I like how the county defines a ‘rural town.’ I wish the county were now paying more attention to that.”
Terry Sullivan, who worked with Brown on the community council’s Affordable Housing Task Force, said he trusts Brown’s commitment to affordable housing and his integrity as a developer. But he said he also has lots of questions and concerns, including his fear that the project would simply bring more people to Vashon.
“I’m concerned about housing the people who are here rather than bringing new people to the island,” Sullivan said.
But Jason Johnson, head of Vashon HouseHold, said he sees it differently. He said he understands the need to house people who currently live on Vashon—that’s what Vashon HouseHold attempts to do. At the same time, Johnson noted, most people on Vashon moved here from somewhere else and now commute to Seattle or Tacoma as part of a regional economy.
What’s noteworthy about Brown’s proposal, he added, is that it would not simply be housing sold at market rates—it would also include income-restricted units as well as ones sold below market. “I definitely support the idea of increasing housing that is affordable to the island’s workforce.”
Asked if he thought the project would harm Vashon, Johnson said, “What is harmful to Vashon is that we don’t have enough housing. That’s a deep concern of mine. We’re desperately short of housing.”
Brown, loquacious and opinionated, likes to tell the story of how he came upon the idea of building a deeply sustainable development project on the edge of Vashon Town. Eight years ago, shortly after he had moved to the island, he walked out of Island Center Forest and discovered the two large fields off of 103rd S.W, a portion of which was for sale.
He quickly saw two potential scenarios, he said. The parcels could be developed into a few single-family homes with large yards and fences, a “travesty” on some of the last multi-family-zoned properties on the island, he said. Or the parcels could become the site for a leading-edge development on “a scale never done before.”
He shared his vision with friends and family, “and we cobbled together enough money to make the purchase,” he said.
Brown, standing on the edge of his property with his wife, Pia Bloom, acknowledged that his proposal is risky and challenging, but he also said the need is urgent. Combined, the 14 acres represent the lion’s share of the remaining multi-family-zoned properties on Vashon, he said. “I see it as a responsibility to put several units here. This is one of Vashon’s last opportunities.”
Bloom, an attorney with a master’s degree in urban planning, said she fully supports Brown’s concept and has from the get-go. “Hopefully, people will understand this project is a benefit,” she said.
In every conversation, Brown mentions big ideas, tempered by another refrain: “This is all still preliminary,” he said.
Among his big ideas: He says his project will produce more energy than it uses and provide so much water via rainwater catchment and recycled water systems that he will actually return water shares now attached to the properties to Water District 19.
The development will boast “spectacular landscaping” that is bird- and wildlife-friendly, paths leading into Island Center Forest, shuttle service to the ferry and a common house that provides shared amenities to residents. He envisions a community where people could live without cars and older people could receive services.
But Brown wasn’t ready to go public with his proposal — the amendment in the county council’s draft comprehensive plan forced him to unveil his plans over the last few weeks — and he’s scant on some details.
Asked about financing, he says, obliquely, “We have a number of options. I’m quite confident we’ll have the capital.”
He also declined to name his development team, though he did say he is working with Mithun, a highly regarded architectural firm in Seattle; Green Canopy NODE, a sustainable building company, and Sarah Cooke, one of the region’s leading wetlands scientists.
Zoning issues and potential project size have also been confusing. In a seven-page FAQ about the project, Brown said the 2.1 acres behind the IGA zoned “community business” (CB) could accommodate as many as 100 apartments, citing the King County code for CB zoning, which allows a base density of 48 units per acre. His plan, he said, was to not build out as densely as he could and limit the number of apartments to 40 to 60.
But on Vashon, CB-zoned properties have an overlay limiting them to eight units per acre, information no one in the county shared with Brown, he said, until he heard about this from a reporter. Mosqueda’s office, in a statement sent to The Beachcomber on Monday, also said the zoning discrepancy was “recently flagged for us” and that Mosqueda’s office is now proposing zoning at “a limit of 12 units per acre” in Vashon’s CB-zoned areas.
Brown said he will build according to whatever zoning limits are in the code. So if zoned 12 units per acre, he’ll build 25 apartments on the 2.1 acres directly behind the IGA, not the 40 to 60 units he initially envisioned.
“We’ll just do what we can within the zoning,” he said.
Brown noted that housing has been limited over the past several years in large part because of a moratorium on water shares in and around Vashon Town. Water District 19 recently lifted the moratorium but still manages water shares carefully due to infrastructure limitations and the potential impact on the island’s sole-source aquifer.
“The conventional wisdom is that we just don’t have the water for this,” he said.
But Brown, a member and recent chair of the island’s Groundwater Protection Committee, said water does not need to be a barrier on Vashon, where it rains 44 inches a year. He founded and owns Whole Water Systems, a company focused on sustainable water solutions, and points to Desert Rain, the small compound he helped to develop in Bend, Oregon, where it rains fewer than 12 inches a year. That house and three accessory dwelling units achieved certification as a Living Building Challenge project in part by proving it was meeting all of its water needs via captured rainwater.
The water shares attached to his land, he added, are an insurance policy, should the development not be approved. “I know that we can do this,” he added.
Mary Bruno, also a member of the Groundwater Protection Committee, has worked with Brown over the years on water-related issues and said she thinks “he has the chops to do what he’s proposing” — a project she called both big picture and future-looking.
“Whether he can jump through all these hoops, get all the county exemptions he needs to make this happen remains to be seen. But I think it’s worth stepping down that road and seeing where it goes,” she said.
As for Brown, he hopes people will not discount him as a typical developer or his project as an attempt to game the system. “I see myself as wearing a white hat,” he said, “not a black one.”
Leslie Brown is a former editor of The Beachcomber.
