Waiting for family flood

Lakewood School District preparing for arrival of navy families

By Susanna Ray

Herald Writer

LAKEWOOD — New housing developments can cause overcrowding in schools if districts aren’t prepared for them.

So a delay in the permit process for a new Navy housing development here could help alleviate school crowding, at least for this year, officials say.

The Navy had hoped to have families in their new homes by the end of October, but some minor problems with sewer permits from the county means the homes will probably be available around Christmas, and families can start moving in at the beginning of the new year.

The new development is called Carroll’s Creek Landing. It’s about three miles from the Navy Support Complex, and it’s intended to help alleviate the housing shortage for enlisted sailors and their families, more than 500 of which are on a waiting list.

While the project is important to Navy families, it could cause crowding at local schools — at least until the Lakewood School District’s new elementary school opens in the fall of 2003. There have been problems getting development permits for that project, too.

"We’re both kind of lagging in our schedules a bit," said Fred Owyen, the district’s director of operations.

But the schools have extra portables available for classrooms, and the Navy families will only be moving in at a rate of up to 50 families a month, Owyen said.

"We think we can make it through this school year with what we’ve got," he said. "It’s going to be very tight next year."

The Navy expects to have all 288 units filled by July, said Marc Brouqua, housing director for Naval Station Everett — and "the vast majority of them do have children."

The school district is starting this week on construction of a new wing of classrooms for the middle school and enlargement of the lunchroom, Owyen said. That should accommodate more than 200 students, which will help.

Based on past experience with the other Navy housing development, just a mile away, district officials are expecting an extra 350 kids for the 2002-03 school year in kindergarten through eighth grade.

"Until we see them enrolling and getting off the bus, we won’t really know for sure," Owyen said.

Similar to the Country Manor development nearby, Carroll’s Creek is a partnership between the federal government and a private developer.

The first partnership worked out so well that the second one has been expanded from 10 years to 30 years and a third one is working its way through the funding request process with the Navy and Congress.

Under the agreements, the government pays about a quarter of the cost to build the homes. After a certain amount of time, the developer starts selling them, giving Navy families the first opportunity to buy and giving the government a portion of the proceeds.

The Navy here doesn’t have traditional military housing, such as at Whidbey Island Naval Air Station, because there wasn’t enough land available around the base on Everett’s waterfront.

Housing has been a problem since the naval station opened in 1994 because costs have risen so much since the Navy first began considering building a base here in the 1980s.

About 5,000 sailors work at the naval station or one of the seven warships based there, Brouqua said, and about half of them have families.

You can call Herald Writer Susanna Ray at 425-339-3439

or send e-mail to ray@heraldnet.com.

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