Roots, Neighbors, and Native Plants: Housing Lopez's Commitment to the Land
When we broke ground on Village North, we made a promise, not just to the families who needed affordable homes, but to the land itself.
Adjacent to our new neighborhood sits a wetland. Weedy in places, disrupted by development over the years, but still very much alive. When San Juan County required us to mitigate any impact to that wetland as a condition of our building permit, we got to work.
Photo credit: Shelterbelt LLC
In March 2025, we partnered with Noah Booker of Shelterbelt LLC, a Bellingham-based revegetation and restoration specialist. Shelterbelt planted 950 native trees and shrubs in the disturbed wetland area adjacent to Village North. They planted paper birch, western crabapple and black twinberry, species that belong here, that support native songbirds and pollinators, and that over time will naturally crowd out the invasive reed canarygrass and Canada thistle that had taken hold.
If you’ve walked by and noticed the little blue tubes, those are plant protectors. They shield young saplings from cottontail rabbits and act as tiny greenhouses while the plants establish roots. The mulch rings around each one help retain moisture and reduce weed competition. In a few years, when the plants are strong enough to stand on their own, the tubes will be removed and reused at another restoration site.
Ongoing Dedication
Over the past year, Shelterbelt’s crew has returned multiple times — spring, summer, and fall — for weeding, tube repair, and deer repellent application. Every winter, any plants that didn’t survive are replaced, backed by a 100% plant survival warranty.
This five-year commitment runs through 2029, with monitoring reports submitted to San Juan County at each milestone to ensure the mitigation is meeting its goals.
This is what responsible development looks like. It’s slower. It costs more. It requires showing up, season after season, with mud on your boots. But we believe it’s the only way to do this work.
As we look ahead to Phase 2 of Village North, we want our community to know who we are. We are not just housing developers. We are neighbors and stewards of this island we all love. The wetland behind Village North is healthier today than it was before we started. That matters to us, and we suspect it matters to you too.
We’ll have more to share about Phase 2 in the coming months. In the meantime, if you’d like to take a walk by the mitigation site, we’d love for you to see it for yourself.
