OPAL

Community Land Trust

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Opal Commons

opal commons neighborhood

Opal Commons has a large shared food garden and common area where neighbors meet for picnics and bonfires. Parking is located around the perimeter, creating an interior space that is lush with plants and a sweeping lawn well suited for gatherings. Four different two-story house-types accommodate families of one to five people and all age groups.

This neighborhood boasts a number of firsts. It is OPAL’s first neighborhood, created at a time when nothing like it existed on Orcas Island. The 18 homes were the first community land trust houses to obtain mortgage financing from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Housing Service. It is also one of the first rural projects funded by Washington State’s Housing Trust Fund.

In 1995 Opal Commons received an honorable mention in the Fannie Mae Foundation’s Maxwell Awards for Excellence. The neighborhood was also featured in Good Neighbors: Affordable Family Housing, 1997, Tom Jones, et al, McGraw-Hill.

“The core group of Opal Commons’ founders had in mind not a neighborhood, but a village, with all the connotations that old word has. That decision, and development of the site as continuous unbroken space, enhances every aspect of living together.”
– Opal Commons homeowner, father, healthcare practitioner

 

Completed 1994

Homes

Total Acres

Common Land
and Community
Garden
Average Lot Size
Smallest House
Largest House
18
6.7
3.9 acres
6,764 sq. ft.
816 sq. ft.
1,312 sq. ft.

 

Opal Commons Construction Costs, 1994

WA State Grant
Federal Grant(s)
Donations/Foundations
Homebuyer Mortgages
Total
Dollars
$300,000
$80,000
$10,000
$1,159,100
$1,549,100
Percentage
19.4%
5.2%
0.6%
74.8%

 

Location:


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Home Ownership Properties

  • Bonnie Brae
  • Lahari Ridge
  • Oberon Wood & Oberon Meadow
  • Opal Commons
  • Orcas Village
  • Scattered Sites
  • Wild Rose Meadow

Rental Properties

  • Lavender Hollow Apartments
  • Reddick Apartments and Offices

Recent News Items

  • Gifts enable OPAL to acquire 30 acres for future affordable housing
  • April’s Grove receives finishing touches
  • April’s Grove residents are moving in
  • OPAL’s Annual Gala moves online June 27 to June 30
  • Lisa Update: Keeping Islanders in Their Homes
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Contact Us

Call: 360.376.3191
Email: opalclt@opalclt.org

286 Enchanted Forest Road
P.O. Box 1133
Eastsound, WA 98245

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