YAKIMA, Washington – Cottage Hill Place remains a construction site for a permanent supportive housing complex.
“The progress is amazing, we are still a month ahead of schedule, are expected to be finished by the end of December and the project is about 60 percent complete,” said Jennifer Schlenske, executive director of Justice Housing Yakima.
Since the first report in June, a concerned citizen has contacted Action News to raise potential problems with the project, including both contaminated soil and the homeless problem.
“I’m the one who has been advocating to stop this project since 2018 because it’s not conducive to this neighborhood,” said Tim Smith, a concerned citizen. “Moving them from one neighborhood to another isn’t going to work.”
The soil is reportedly contaminated with pesticides and herbicides.
I spoke with the Department of Ecology’s site manager and communications manager who are working with Justice Housing Yakima on this issue.
They received funding to conduct additional soil sampling through JHY, which will be conducted later this month.
“We want to make sure we get the right data. We follow all of our strict procedures and policies to make sure the data is accurate and reliable,” said Emily Tasaka, communications manager for the Department of Energy. “We want to find out if there is a problem and then we can decide how to address it to keep people safe.”
According to Schlenske at the Yakima City Council meeting on August 5, they are not the only ones involved.
“With city inspectors already on site two to three times a week and commercial inspectors at least once a month, you can be assured that we are complying with all regulations,” she said.
Smith, who says the site is on the Department of Energy’s watch list for toxic chemicals, wants that to happen.
“Clean up the site and stop the project until the projects have been tested and all contaminated soil has been removed,” he said.
The current location used to be the site of Baur’s greenhouse wholesale business. The Ministry of Energy has informed us that pesticides and herbicides were probably found there.
