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GROWTH 09-26-99
Sunday, October 8, 2000
Move to city cuts down on stress Convenience: On a big lot in the heart of Olympia, a couple find "the best of both worlds." John Dodge, The Olympian Originally published September 26, 1999
"I think it's more environmentally responsible of us to live in the city." -- Dave Hitchens, college professor
OLYMPIA -- A move to the city was a major stress-reducer for Susan McRae and her husband, Rod Tharp.
They eliminated a 25-minute commute to town from their 7-acre spread near Capitol Forest.
Living in town keeps them in closer touch with Tharp's mother, who has Alzheimer's disease and resides in an assisted-living home in Olympia.
"We try to spend a couple of evenings with her every week," Tharp says.
They have more time to enjoy their newest hobby -- sailing on a 31-foot sailboat Tharp built.
"It was a major lifestyle change," McRae says. "We were spending a lot more time sailing and a lot less time on the weekends at home."
Life in the country appealed to McRae and a previous husband when they moved from Seattle to rural Thurston County in 1981.
"I fell in love with it," McRae, 49, recalls. "We loved the solitude and having our own little swimming hole on Waddell Creek."
But a divorce, a remarriage, new hobbies and an ailing mother-in-law changed all that last year.
"Our lives were becoming increasingly stressed," McRae says. "It really hit home a couple of years ago when I realized we hadn't been to the swimming hole for two years. That's when we started looking for homes in town."
Tharp, who owns a construction business, decided instead to build a new home in Olympia on a wooded, two-thirds-acre lot on Miller Avenue. They're living in an apartment in Tumwater until the house is finished later this year.
The lot is large enough to support three or four homes. Anything less dense runs counter to city zoning and the urban density goals of the state Growth Management Act.
But McRae and Tharp have what many other homeowners want: a little bit of country in the city.
"We've got the best of both worlds," McRae says.
The higher urban densities synonymous with the Growth Management Act aren't what homeowners want, says Doug DeForest, executive director of the Olympia Master Builders.
"The Achilles' heel of the Growth Management Act is urban infilling," DeForest says. "It's a joke."
McRae and Tharp say they support the overall goals of the growth management law, which encourages people to live in urban areas to reduce sprawl.
"It's incredibly important," McRae says of the state and local effort to corral growth. "I watched Seattle and King County become clogged with semi-urban areas."
McRae, an employee with the state Department of Licensing, hopes to start commuting to work by bicycle or bus once the couple settle in to their new home.
"I used to bus and bicycle to work in Seattle and I loved it," she says.
Tharp builds homes for a living, which means his livelihood is linked to growth. But he still wants to see growth in South Sound well managed.
"I don't want the city of Olympia to get so big that it becomes one big traffic jam." The Olympian Copyright 2000 back to main GROWTH 09-26-99 index
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