Jacob Dimond / jake@yelmonline.com
Representatives from Blue Fern Development were present during a special Yelm City Council study session meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 29, to highlight what is included in its proposed development agreement with the City of Yelm.
Public comment will take place during the next official Yelm City Council meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 13. According to Mayor Joe DePinto, the council is likely to vote on Blue Fern’s proposed development agreement during the same meeting.
Yelm City Administrator Todd Stancil, ahead of a presentation from the team at Blue Fern Development, said it’s been “a long time coming” to get to this point with the development agreement.
“It’s been a lot of work and we’re excited to finally be here to discuss the development agreement,” Stancil said. “The development agreement is a significant step in moving the project forward, but it’s not the final step. There’s a lot more steps involved that have to happen that we’ll continue to work on outside of the development agreement.”
He added the development agreement allows both parties to move forward with planning and conceptual designs. Stancil reiterated that both Yelm and Blue Fern will continue to iron out “the rest of it.”
Ben Paulus, Blue Fern Development Chief Executive Officer, Michelle Brantley, Chief Executive Officer, Duana Koloušková, Chief Legal Officer, and other representatives of Blue Fern Development attended the meeting.
Paulus first highlighted the project history, including that Blue Fern Development and the City of Yelm met on Aug. 12, 2025. Both parties executed a purchase and sale agreement for the then-city owned 640-acre parcel near Tahoma Terra on Nov. 13, 2025.
Blue Fern Development submitted its development agreement application in April of 2026.
According to Paulus, Blue Fern Development is planning on executing the project in five phases, including 500 to 600 residential units in each phase.
“The goal has been to phase that as we bring the boulevard through to make the construction process efficient, while also delivering viable pods or chunks of communities in each phase but have the attached amenities that are important for the city and the residents that are going to be living there,” Paulus said.
Phase 1 is proposed to include roughly 600 residential units, two acres developed into an emergency services area, and a regional sanitary sewer lift station.
Phase 2 would develop 650 additional residential units, two acres of land would be developed for a water tower and easement and four acres of land would be developed for commercial or mixed uses.
Notably, 10 acres of land would be dedicated for a central public park in Phase 2.
Phase 3 would see an additional 650 units developed and six additional acres of commercial or mixed use space added.
Phase 4 would see an additional 400 residential units created, and affordable housing parcels “shall be assigned” if it hasn’t already been designated.
Lastly, Phase 5 will see an additional 700 residential units added.
“This is going to take a little while. This isn’t all happening at once,” Paulus said. “I think we’ve done a really good job with the city, balancing what things happen to make sure we aren’t building any islands out there, that everything is serviced as it needs to be, and also that we have viable communities where people want to live.”
Koloušková spoke on what the development agreement is itself, and noted the document serves as an umbrella for the entire project.
“This is what we’re going to refer to for the next however many years it takes to build through the project,” Koloušková said. “This is the umbrella, similar to if you think about your comprehensive plan in your development regulations — this really sets the theme for the project.”
Koloušková added that everything planned in the future will tie back into the development agreement, which she said sets the overarching agreements between the City of Yelm and Blue Fern Development.
“We’ve really tied the requirements and the terms to the five different phases that are proposed for the project,” Koloušková said. “Each phase has its own obligations that are tied to it and its own timeline that’s tied to it.”
Paulus noted that a crucial part of the development project for Blue Fern and the City of Yelm is Tahoma Boulevard and its extension. He noted that, with the development of Blue Fern’s 640 acres, would come an extension of Tahoma Boulevard to a future connection point “somewhere” on SR 507.
“It’s an absolutely essential part of our project,” Paulus said. “It’s an absolutely essential part of the city’s future and their goals. It’s a pretty unique thing. It’s also a pretty unique capital expense, in terms of master plans. It’s at 3.4 miles and in a full boulevard size. We’ve been spending a lot of time working on the funding to ensure it gets built as quickly as possible, but more importantly, to make sure if anything ever happened to where Blue Fern wasn’t here, the city wouldn’t have liabilities and the boulevard would get finished. That’s crucial for the project and crucial, candidly, to our commitment to the City of Yelm.”
The development agreement also includes 10 acres of developable area committed to commercial use or mix use – based on the City of Yelm’s zoning codes. This includes 150,000 square feet of commercial or mixed use space. 40% of the commercial or mixed use space will be developed during Phase 2, while the remaining 60% will come during Phase 3.
“I think that’s a really critical number,” Paulus said. “I mean that allows for a lot of commercial, and it allows us to do it over a couple phases to get the types of tenants and the types of product you want in that commercial. I think that’s really important. We’re doing that in Phase 2. By Phase 2, we should have 600-ish rooftops in development.”
On the topic of affordable housing, Paulus said Blue Fern Development is going to provide affordable housing as designated within the Yelm Municipal Code. 5% of units available in each phase will be designated as affordable housing, including a reduced utility connection fee and impact fees.
The development agreement also includes an abundance of open spaces, including the 10-acre central park — which Paulus said isn’t fully designed, but he’s seen some concepts that look cool.
Additionally, Paulus said 20% of the total site is provided as open spaces — both active and passive spaces. Uses of these open spaces would include pocket parks, trails and critical areas. Notably, stormwater ponds do not count toward the 20% open space requirement.
Following the conclusion of Blue Fern Development’s presentation, Cody Colt, Yelm Public Services director, said a lot of “cool, little things” came from working on the development agreement with Blue Fern.
“That was about 12 months of work. Once it’s done, it looks great,” Colt said. “But it took a lot of work to get to those numbers. Some of the things that Ben pointed out, where stormwater ponds don’t count for open space, traditionally, we have let those count for open space. You’re going to get more active open spaces in this area.”
Blue Fern Development took some time to answer any questions that Yelm City Councilors might have had. Councilor David Johnstone said Paulus mentioned it was challenging to spread affordable housing across different phases. He asked what the challenge was?
“In projects past, a lot of times if you just do a building or a plant parcel that is affordable housing, you would go out and get one set of grants. You’d go out and partner with one affordable partner to go build it,” Paulus said. “It’s a very quantifiable thing.”
Councilor Joseph Richardson said he’s excited about the affordable housing and the integration process it will occur in through phasing.
“My thought is, again its future and I know there’s probably not much control over that, is what we sow nowadays is a bunch of people who had affordable housing and now they have half-a-million dollar homes,” Richardson said. “How do we guarantee that this affordable housing, being in that community, stays affordable?”
Paulus said that is one of the greatest conundrums of affordable housing. He asked what the goal of affordable housing is? Is it to have people purchase a home early in their careers and build equity? Or is the goal to always have affordable housing?
“I can’t answer that,” Paulus said. “That’s a City of Yelm policy. I don’t think we’ve addressed that specifically.”
