This week marks the completion of Vashon’s long-awaited Island Center Homes project, adding 40 much-needed affordable units to the island’s tight housing supply.

The construction is a huge accomplishment, one which found no share of challenges — including pandemic-related material price surges and the usual island road bumps of figuring out water shares and worker transportation and housing.

It’s perhaps poetic that, as general contractor Alex Crowder said, even subcontractors who contributed to the project are among those working desperately to make enough to afford living on Vashon. If nothing else, this fact demonstrates the need for more affordable island projects.

We hope that changes in the now-passed comprehensive plan, also detailed in a page 1 story, will help. Density “bonuses” to incentivize affordable housing development passed in 2017 didn’t work; no affordable housing utilizing those bonuses was built.

The new comprehensive plan update now extends the promise of more density to mixed-income developments, with both lower-priced and “market-rate” units. Time will tell if these bonuses spur the creation of more housing.

It’s helpful to zoom out and remind ourselves why the island is going to so much trouble to sculpt these policies and developments out in the first place.

Region-wide growth and changing economic and demographic realities on Vashon have increased housing prices, shrunken the rental market and made it harder for local businesses to find and keep staff. Ailing ferry service hasn’t helped the situation. In a housing forum last year, Vashon HouseHold pegged the median rent on Vashon at $3,000 — higher than Seattle or Tacoma.

Housing policy is delicate, and a chisel is usually a better tool than a hammer. But we’ll need both in our toolbelt if Vashon is to remain — or become again — a place where people can create art, promote meaningful change, grow up, raise families, and retire and age in place.