Some call for home building to resume

EPHRATA — A number of local political leaders and owners of construction companies are asking Gov. Jay Inslee to alter his “Stay Home, Stay Healthy” closure order and allow construction on private homes to resume.

“We’re pushing hard to make that happen, and it should happen,” said Rep. Tom Dent, R-Moses Lake, recently.

Inslee halted private home construction but allowed essential construction projects — government buildings, schools and low-income housing — to continue during his mandated closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“That just doesn’t make any sense to me,” Dent said. “There are a lot of things we can get back to doing.”

Of the 143,000 first-time claims in Washington for unemployment insurance for the week ending April 11, the Employment Security Department reported that nearly 17,300 of those were by construction workers.

In a separate letter, Grant County commissioners Cindy Carter, Tom Taylor and Richard Stevens wrote that the moratorium on development of single-family residences will worsen the region’s lack of affordable housing.

“There is no doubt these are unprecedented times for our state and nation,” the commissioners wrote. “By enacting restrictions on single-family residence development, this is perpetuating the economic divide, impacting revenue sources for our constituents and local government agencies.”

Katy Wooderson, marketing director for Hayden Homes, which has several big developments in Moses Lake, said the company is very concerned about customers who sold their current home in anticipation of their new home being completed — they now face having no home to go to.

“Our biggest concern is the customers who have already committed to moving into newly purchased homes that don’t have alternative housing available,” Wooderson wrote in a statement to the Columbia Basin Herald. “The priority is to make sure those people can move into their homes.”