Members
of the
Planning and Development Commissioners,
City Administration and Planning Staff
Dear Council Members, Commissioners, Administrators and Staff,
The Coalition hereby asks the City to undertake an immediate, comprehensive transportation study of the Southside. Our neighborhoods need relief from already untenable traffic conditions and deserve protection from the compounding impact of the traffic that new developments will impose. We need policies to control traffic volume and speed, to preserve neighborhood character, and, ultimately, to reduce automobile dependence.
The
Coalition also asks the City to restore the emphasis on neighborhoods and
neighbor-hood involvement to the Bellingham Comprehensive Plan and to return to
the City Council those powers of project approval which have been deferred to
administrators and arbiters not directly responsible to the electorate.
Furthermore, the Coalition asks the City to work with it to prepare a master
plan for
Therefore, until the requested transportation study and master plan are completed, the Coalition urges the City to limit acceptance of development applications for sites on the Southside to projects of less than twenty units that request no zoning variances and that will not rely on the existing Fairhaven Parking District or newly created parking districts.
Your
careful consideration of these requests will be deeply appreciated.
Sincerely yours,
752-1114 Happy Valley Neighborhood Association
Karl
Thomas, President
COALITION
OF SOUTHSIDE NEIGHBO
Detailed Statement of Concern
Transportation
The
Coalition believes that a comprehensive transportation study for
1) Many Southside streets are very narrow, with deep ditches and no sidewalks. This problem is exacerbated by rural postal routes and increased parking demand from infill development. It raises very real hazards to life and limb for bicyclists and pedestrians - abundant in such close proximity to the area's many public schools and the University. Traffic mitigation, safe school routes and adequate modal separations are urgently needed to prevent serious accident.
2) The
closure of
3) The
University has programmed nearly $20mm in their State budget submissions for
roadway revisions that seem aimed at connecting campus with
4) The
Chuckanut
5)
6)
New homes being built on the south end of Samish Hill, and those proposed for
Padden Gorge, will substantially increase peak hour traffic at the already
dangerous I-5, exit 250, interchange, and exacerbate queues at the already
problematic
7) In addition to our immediate concerns, the inescapable arrival of the “Peak Oil” crisis strongly suggests that a comprehensive traffic study take a prospective view, reevaluating our urban dependence on automobiles and exploring the feasibility of alternatives like light-gauge, fixed guide-way infrastructure and car cooperatives.
Planning
The Coalition is also deeply concerned with the direction in which the Comprehensive Plan is being taken. At a time when neighborhood-based planning is being embraced by the planning profession generally, and specifically by our neighbors to both the north and south, specifically, Portland, Seattle and Vancouver, B.C., Bellingham is inexplicably eliminating this process, which has, in the past, involved residents in detailing the prerequisite and special conditions to insure that new development maintains the character of each neighborhood. Our concerns stem from the following circumstances:
1) Amendments to the Bellingham Comprehensive Plan, now being recommended by the City Planning Department, appear to meet neither the letter nor the spirit of the public participation provisions required under the Growth Management Act. This statute clearly states that the City "shall establish and broadly disseminate to the public a public participation program" that identifies "procedures providing for early and continuous public participation in the development and amendment of comprehensive land use plans and development regulations", and which "shall provide for broad dissemination of proposals and alternatives, opportunity for written comments, public meetings after effective notice, provision for open discussion, communication programs, information services, and consideration of and response to public comments."
2) The 2004 "Community Forum on Growth Management," (CFGM) focused on certain options for dealing with growth, but did not include any specific discussion of the existing comprehensive plan elements. Moreover, it did not make any detailed recommendations for updating them. The CFGM focused almost exclusively on the principle of “massing residential density” in “Urban Villages,” but failed to consider mitigating traffic and parking impacts in adjoining areas, or implications for transportation policy, planning or capital requirements. When directly asked the purpose of the CFGM, City Council members publicly asserted that it was not intended to fulfill the GMA requirements for public participation in updating the Comprehensive Plan. The City now asserts that it was.
3) The City Council is broadly authorized, both generally and specifically, to appropriately condition development in the best interests of the community as whole. However, the City has adopted provisions that substantially defer this power to the Administration. The Administration has, in turn, provided both a new Bellingham Municipal Court and a Hearing Examiner empowered to hear any appeals of administrative land use decisions. This is a costly and time-consuming method that turns quasi-judicial and political questions into strictly judicial procedure that is too expensive, long-drawn-out and tedious to be an effective means of neighborhood redress.
4) This Administration appears to be de-prioritizing public involvement in the planning process and cutting corners on compliance with the Growth management Act (GMA). For instance, while quick to cite GMA in support of infill policies, the City's so-called land use reform is stripping neighborhood elements from the Comprehensive plan and promoting sweeping plan amendments without a com-pliant public participation program. GMA also requires transportation facility adequacy to be concurrent with the approval of development. Alarmingly, several major projects now appear destined for approval without adequate planning or infrastructure in place. Neighborhoods do not feel protected.
5) The Fairhaven Parking District, created by the City in 1994 ostensibly to insure that its statutory parking requirements would be met by the provision of off-site parking spaces, is being compromised by the approval of building permits for off-street parking lots that need to be available in perpetuity as a basis for justifying its establishment. The result is a compound loss of parking spaces, since presently required spaces will be eliminated and fewer than the required number of on-site spaces will be provided by the new buildings. Furthermore, the City has not monitored the effectiveness of the Fairhaven Parking District as specified by the enabling ordinance and the Parking District, which serves a quasi-public function, has not been required to give either its members or the public any accounting of its finances or operations.