The City of Bellingham will begin the first phase of cleaning up a large homeless encampment behind the Bellingham Walmart next week, promising a “people-centered approach.”
Up to 150 people were living in the woods behind the Bellingham Walmart and Tullwood Apartments until recently, when numbers began to dwindle anticipating a cleanup. Some individuals had lived in the encampment for 15 years, setting up structures and leaving 1,000-2,000 tons of waste, according to court documents.
City of Bellingham Deputy Administrator Janice Keller said in an interview with Cascadia Daily News that the city will focus on helping the people in the encampment and the residents of Tullwood Apartments who have been negatively impacted by the activity at the encampment.
She said the city has contacted about 70 homeless outreach workers, asking them to let people in the encampment know the city’s plan and how it may impact their ability to access the property.
In February, the city sued the owner of the main property at East Stuart Road and Deemer Road, Li-Ching Fang of Taiwan. About six weeks ago, a judge ordered Fang to immediately abate the land and gave the city permission to enter the property to clean. Fang is responsible for any costs associated with the cleanup.
Since then, city staff have developed a “phase one” for the cleanup, which consists of cleaning portions of the encampment and installing fencing.
“The thing we were trying to accomplish with this first step was, how can we help the most amount of people, rather than worrying about the solid waste and litter, how can we improve the lives of the most people?” Assistant City Attorney Michael Good said.
This week, the city gave formal notice to everyone still camped in the area. Sometime the week of Nov. 18, the cleanup and fence construction will begin, Keller said.
The city will clean the right of way alongside land owned by Tullwood Apartments, and a section of land on the property line between Fang’s property and the Tullwood Apartments property. A gate will also be installed at the main entrance to the encampment. This will create a “place to start” for the remainder of the cleanup, Good said.
The plan requires cooperation with Tullwood Apartments’ owner 52nd and Brooklyn LLC, who joined the lawsuit as an intervenor. City staff said the LLC has given “verbal agreement” that at the same time as the city’s cleanup, the company will clean and fence the woods behind Tullwood Apartments. Adam Doupe, attorney for 52nd and Brooklyn LLC, said the company is coordinating with the city to conduct the cleanup on the same day.
People in the cleanup zone at the time will be removed from the property, Good said.
The property has extensive environmental damage and litter, and it’s topographically complex: uneven, heavily treed, with a fish-bearing creek and wetlands.
“The extensive damage out there sort of made us take a step back and say, this is likely to be a multi-year effort and will require phases to completely clean up and make [it] ready for its next use,” Keller said.
The timing of phase one aligns with the opening of the Way Station and the new Lighthouse Mission, so people who are interested could be brought to the Way Station for “showers, aid, and connection to case managers,” Mayor Kim Lund said during an interview.
Lund said the city is working to coordinate between city departments and the county’s health department. She said she informed Lummi Chairman Anthony Hillaire of the actions.
City employees, Whatcom County health officials and Bellingham Police Department officers went on a walk-through of the 20-acre property in May and reported about 10 significant encampments on the property, with some two-story structures, according to court documents. Debris and drug paraphernalia were in the surrounding tents and tarps.
Paying for the cleanup
Fang is legally responsible for the cleanup costs; the city estimates it will cost $2 million to remove the solid waste and another $2-4 million for environmental remediation.
For phase one, funds to pay contractors will come from the city’s Street Fund. The cleanup and fencing of the western property line will cost around $60,000, Keller said, and the city’s budget for 2025 includes $1.25 million for contracted cleanup services from the fund. While much of that will go toward cleanup of public properties, some could go to future private property work. Keller said these future projects are factored into the budget at a high level.
Good said Fang is not consistently in contact with the city. To see a reimbursement on the costs, the city would seek a judgment lien on her property. They could then execute on the lien, have the property go to auction, bid what “we think is appropriate” and if no one outbids, it would become the city’s property, Good said. If someone did outbid the city, the proceeds from that sale would go toward paying for the cleanup. But Good said it’s very possible the city does not get $4-6 million from the property sale.
“What we were picturing was the cleanup would cost less than what the property is worth,” Good said. “I don’t think any of us believe that at this point.”
Lund said the city may invite some state elected officials to the encampment to see the “complexity of the site.”
“We might need some new legislative tools to enable us to do this work,” she said.
Lund cited Model Toxic Control Act funds for legacy cleanup along the waterfront as an example of what those legislative tools could look like.
But once phase one of cleanup is complete, city staff say a number of unknowns remain. “What happens when the access point is gone?” Good said. “What does the lack of access do to those encampments? We don’t know.”
“We’re thinking about phases, but we also want to be open to private and nonprofit partnerships that might really make this really difficult situation into a place that fits really well into our growth plans and into our community plans for that area,” Keller said. Lund suggested that if the land becomes city property, they could build affordable housing.
Complexity of encampments on private property
Keller said the challenge with encampments on private property is trying to avoid using public funds to address public concerns about those properties.
While dealing with this encampment, the city is also working with private property owners at Northwest Avenue and Bakerview Road to address a growing encampment there.
“These are private properties,” Keller said. “These are people who own properties, who are in various states of disrepair and litter and monitoring, and it’s not an accurate expectation for the city to quickly go in and fix those problems.”
Charlotte Alden is CDN’s general assignment/enterprise reporter; reach her at charlottealden@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 123.
