Can North Central Washington afford to keep its people?

NORTH CENTRAL WASHINGTON — Nearly six in 10 respondents to Our Valley, Our Future’s latest regional survey said the cost of living has caused them to consider relocating, a finding the organization is now carrying to local governments and economic development leaders as they confront questions about housing, wages and the region’s ability to retain its workforce.

OVOF Executive Director Rachel Evey first presented the finding to the Chelan City Council Aug. 25, telling council members that about 40% of respondents had considered relocating but would not, while roughly 20% said they were planning to relocate.

“That is a really big concern when it looks at our school enrollments, participation in the local economy, businesses,” Evey said. “So that’s something I know is top of mind for everyone.”

The presentation raised another question: Was a tourism-dependent community such as Chelan experiencing the affordability pressure differently from the rest of the region?

Ward Media asked OVOF for Chelan-specific results, and the answer was almost no difference at all.

Among Chelan respondents, 17.14% said they were planning to relocate, 40% said they had thought about relocating but would not and 42.86% said they had not considered it.

Across all survey respondents, OVOF reported 18.09% were planning to relocate, 39.7% had thought about relocating but would not and 42.84% had not considered doing so.

Chelan, in other words, provided a remarkably close local parallel to a concern appearing across Chelan and Douglas counties.

Two weeks after the Chelan presentation, Evey brought the same findings to another group with a direct stake in whether people can afford to remain in the region: the Chelan Douglas Regional Port Authority.

Again, she described essentially the same split — roughly 40% who had not considered relocating, 40% who had considered it but would stay and 20% who said they planned to relocate. She connected the findings to family-wage jobs, economic development and housing costs, telling commissioners those issues remain priorities for OVOF because a strong economy requires a reliable workforce.

This time, the discussion drilled directly into what was driving the concern.

Asked whether housing costs were a primary factor behind residents becoming less optimistic about the region’s future, Evey agreed.

“Housing is such a crucial part of a family’s identity, building assets,” Evey said, pointing to the increase in housing prices over the past two decades and particularly the past five years.

“If you can’t purchase a house here, you’re not building assets,” Evey said. “Are you able to raise a family, et cetera, et cetera? So it’s kind of a domino effect.”

The findings require an important qualification. Considering relocation does not necessarily mean respondents intend to leave Chelan or Douglas counties altogether.

The survey asked whether respondents had considered “moving to a more affordable region” because income and wage levels had not kept pace with the growing cost of living. It did not ask where those considering or planning a move intended to go, so the available data does not show how many were contemplating leaving North Central Washington altogether.

The findings and Evey’s presentations do, however, make clearer what lies behind “cost of living” in OVOF’s work: the relationship between local earnings and what it costs to establish and maintain a life in the region, with housing emerging as a central pressure.

That creates a dilemma for the Regional Port Authority, whose economic development mission includes attracting employers and family-wage jobs.

During the Sept. 8 discussion, commissioners questioned whether successful job creation could fully benefit the region if workers cannot find housing they can afford. One commissioner said the Port has succeeded in bringing family-wage jobs into the area, but housing could increasingly impede its economic development goals.

The problem, Evey said, has been years in the making.

“Our community ... are playing catch-up because in 2009, building new housing just literally stopped,” Evey said. “And now we’re playing catch-up to make sure that we have more housing stock on the market.”

OVOF plans a housing report in 2027 following release of the new action plan, with workforce housing expected to be examined as a category for the first time.

Evey said employers including Campbell’s Resort in Chelan and Stemilt are exploring whether companies needing reliable workforces could provide condos, apartments, townhouses or other housing on their properties while keeping it affordable.

Simply adding housing units does not necessarily resolve the affordability question, she said, particularly as new apartments may add supply without being affordable to local workers.

The relocation finding is part of a broader change OVOF found as it returned to residents for its third major community visioning effort in a decade.

The organization received 701 survey responses as part of a wider outreach process that also included listening sessions, stakeholder interviews and community events. OVOF used additional outreach to reach groups underrepresented in the survey, including younger residents.

Some things have remained remarkably stable. Residents continue to value the region’s natural environment, outdoor recreation and neighborliness.

“We’re not having an identity crisis,” Evey told Port commissioners. “We’re really confident in who we are.”

What has changed is how residents view the change happening around them.

During OVOF’s 2021 visioning process, residents frequently described change in terms of the pandemic, including tourists and new residents arriving from urban areas. Five years later, continued growth is increasingly viewed as the “new normal.”

Managing that growth emerged as the region’s top challenge, while respondents were less optimistic about its future than participants in OVOF’s visioning efforts five and 10 years ago.

“It wasn’t just like a flash in the pan, but this is something that people have recognized is going to be the new normal,” Evey told the Chelan council. “Instead of responding to the growth, how to manage the growth, I would say, is the simplest way to put it.”

Residents do not necessarily agree on how to manage it. Evey has cited competing desires to preserve or develop Chelan Butte and regional calls for more downtown housing alongside opposition to downtown apartments.

One point of greater agreement was regional collaboration, particularly around community development and land use.

“They don’t want the future to happen to them,” Evey told the Chelan council. “They want to be a part of guiding the future and what that looks like, especially when it comes to growth in the region, whether that is housing, whether that is industry, whether that is tourism, whether it’s outdoor recreation development.”

OVOF is now using six action teams to review residents’ ideas alongside local and national trends and quantitative data. A second community survey is planned for October, with the final 2027-2031 action plan expected in early 2027.

On housing, Evey said the scale and complexity of the problem mean the region will need more than one approach.

“It’s not a silver bullet,” she said. “It’s silver buckshot.”

Andrew Simpson: 509-433-7626 or andrew@ward.media