Site preparation will soon begin for April’s Grove, OPAL’s neighborhood of 45 new rental residences on North Beach Road. Located across from Children’s House and the Funhouse Commons, April’s Grove will consist of studios to three-bedroom townhomes. Each dwelling will be home for individuals and families who live or work on Orcas Island and need stable, affordable rental housing.

The work will begin in the middle of October with removing selected trees, grading and stormwater planning.

“OPAL did an extensive tree survey with local forest ecologist Carson Sprenger of Rain Shadow Consulting,” said Lisa Byers, OPAL’s executive director. “We identified all of the large trees and ranked them by their ability to live many more decades even if other trees around them are removed. Each tree to be saved will be set inside a ‘no touch’ protection root safety zone. Among our goals was to preserve as many large, healthy trees as possible and to maintain the tree canopy over North Beach Road.”

According to Rain Shadow Consulting’s website, they specialize in the protection and enhancement of ecological communities. The process of creating the tree survey took several months. After making tree selections and working with Sprenger to determine the health of those trees, OPAL created “preserve and protect” areas to make sure that the trees have enough space for root protection, lower story native plants, ground covers and forest floor loam to preserve and protect their health both during and after construction.

“After creating these areas on the site plan, building sites were arranged and rearranged in order to accommodate as many ‘preserve and protect’ areas as possible,” explained Jeanne Beck, OPAL stewardship and project manager.

OPAL will store some of the felled trees on site with the intention of using them in the building process for benches, porch posts and railings.

April’s Grove will cost $12.6 million to build, and nearly 90 percent of the permanent funding is in place. That leaves just under $1.5 million left to raise from individuals and other sources. In order to keep moving forward, and to satisfy timing requirements of some funders, OPAL has secured a bridge loan in order to start construction, which will begin in earnest in early 2019.

Incorporated in 1989, OPAL serves 105 ownership and 30 rental Orcas Island households. For more information, go to www.opalclt.org or call 360-376-3191.