Opal Commons

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%

 

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