A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

FOR MAKING FAIRHAVEN AN URBAN ECOVILLAGE

by

Ralph W. Thacker, MPA

752-1114

March 30, 2005

The final report from Bellingham’s 2004 Community Forum on Growth Management, recommended the creation of urban villages as a means for curtailing urban sprawl and concentrating infill. However, it did not define what an urban village is. The report iden-tified Fairhaven as the City’s prime example of “successful urban space,” touting it as a model for creating other urban villages. However, the report did not examine the genesis of the elements upon which its cursory, visual assessment was made nor did it address the impacts flowing from the tidal wave of up-scale residential development that is now inundating Fairhaven, threatening to destroy its potential for ever being an urban village.

A rural village is a small, pedestrian-oriented,[1] country settlement where all the residents know each other and frequently intermingle in a central public space. An urban village concentrates all of the basic features of a rural village in a delimited section of a city having public transit service within ten-minute intervals. An ecovillage adds the capacity for long-term sustainability through strategic divisions of labor and harmonious relations with the environment. All three types of villages are organic, fostering close ties to family, community and nature as a basis for personal identity, security and trust.

Fairhaven has never been a village of any type. It was not conceived or developed organically. It was founded as a speculative venture by a man who made some quick sales, married and moved to Los Angeles, selling his remaining holdings to outsiders with real estate and railroad interests.[2] Fairhaven was laid out with no provisions for public spaces and no distinctions between residential and commercial uses, except for six blocks allocated for a saw mill and two for a shipyard. No land was set aside for a park until 1906 and none for a central public area until 1998, when the City purchased the .325 acre site at the corner of Mill Avenue and 10^th Street for the Fairhaven Village Green.

Fairhaven was founded and promoted with almost total disregard for the environment. Its waterfront was devoted to ecologically exploitive industrial uses allowing limited public access. Railroad trestles over Harris Bay were supported first by creosoted pilings then by riprap that constricts tidal flows in Padden Lagoon and hinders salmon migration. The hill on Post Point was leveled to fill adjacent marshland, eliminating the source of sand for natural beach-building. The public was allowed to dump refuse into Harris Bay and over the bluff at the foot of Mill Avenue. Dredging has disturbed eel grass and smelt.

For its first five years, Fairhaven’s population was too small to be a village.[3] Then the number skyrocketed from 150 to over 4,000 in just twelve months, from October 1889 to September 1890, fueled by systematically contrived expectations that Fairhaven was about to become the western terminus of the Great Northern Railroad. Fairhaven was incorporated as a city in May 1890, even before the initial building boom had subsided.[4] By then, its initial area of 116 acres had mushroomed to about 4,400, reaching south to the present-day City Limits, east to 40^th Street and north to New Whatcom.[5]

Fairhaven’s major, historic buildings exceed the proportions typical of village structures because they were built to a city-scale during the initial boom. Few of them ever achieved their economic potential and none of them sustained it. Fairhaven began with little regard for human scale or an aesthetically pleasing streetscape. A village has an abundance of trees, shrubs and flowers. Fairhaven’s pristine forest was clear-cut to facilitate development and turn a profit. Even in recent years, mature trees were summa-rily cut down to provide parking, and replaced with saplings due to a loud public outcry.

Although Fairhaven was once home to the world’s largest salmon cannery and shingle mill, it has never been completely self-reliant, always drawing on outside sources for the necessities of daily life. The demise of major industries, the proliferation of automobile usage, the decline of trolley service, and the impact of two World Wars greatly dimin-ished Fairhaven’s economic vitality. It has partially recovered in the past three decades through depending on the specialty shops which have located in the vicinity of the Village Green. However, Fairhaven’s core today is more of an attraction for visitors than a neighborhood center in which its residents daily interact, find regular recreational experiences and obtain basic needs and services.

Fairhaven’s present area is 193 acres, as defined by the 1980 Fairhaven Neighborhood Plan, which drew its boundaries almost identically with those of the original Harris plat. The difference is due largely to the industrially-oriented land fills made in the tidelands below the bluff that originally defined the shoreline. The population of Fairhaven in 2000 was 557, just over the minimum village requirement. However, few of these residents owned business in Fairhaven or worked in Fairhaven establishments owned by outsiders. Current bus service is not as satisfactory as the trolley service of bygone days.

In the past year, a new building boom has been launched in Fairhaven that is reminiscent of the 1889-90 era. Projects under construction and approved will add 58,500 square feet of commercial space and 241 housing units to the current number of 290. Projects under discussion could add another 67,000 square feet of commercial space and 272 housing units. These additions will increase commercial space in Fairhaven’s core by a factor ranging from 30% to 47% and raise the population of the neighborhood between 84% 178%, given an average expected occupancy of two residents per unit. Research has shown that annual population increases of more than 5% have significant impacts.[6]

The current building boom in Fairhaven, consisting primarily of high-priced condomi-nium units, is taking place under zoning codes and development regulations contained in the 1980 Fairhaven Neighborhood Plan. While these ordinances may permit the height and bulk which characterizes most of the new projects, Fairhaven residents did not envision buildings of such an overwhelm-ing scale when the 1980 Plan was approved. If so, it would have included the 50% increase in park land and open space necessary to maintain the City’s standard of 42 acres per 1,000 residents in view of expected growth.[7]

All of these considerations lead to the question, “What is needed to make Fairhaven an urban ecovillage?” First of all, we must acknowledge the truth that a village of any type cannot be planned or created from the outside. External designers cannot anticipate or resolve all of the issues a village must face in maintaining synergistic relationships among its members and in sustaining a viable, lasting interaction with its ever-changing environment. Newcomers cannot maintain the continuity of historic social values and processes. Fairhaven’s potential for becoming an urban ecovillage lies within itself.

Fairhaven has never been an integrated community. At one time minorities were system-atically excluded. Today it is divided into three segments that seldom interact and often conflict: the existing residents, the major land holders and their tenants, and the owners of waterfront businesses. A fourth group is about to be added: the residents of the new housing units, who, like current residents, will work and do their major shopping elsewhere. Few members of the second and third groups live or shop daily in Fairhaven. Currently, Fairhaven offers no recreational venues to involve members of all four groups.

To lay the foundation for effective planning and for the successful assimilation of new residents, a deliberate, ongoing program must be crafted to engage members from each of the four groups just mentioned in sharing recreational and cultural activities. Preferably, these should be of an active nature, such as folk dancing, music-making, outdoor and/or indoor games, boating, hobbies and crafts, community service projects, promotional events, celebrations and worship. More passive involvements, like attending continuing education classes and joining social and cultural organizations should also be encouraged.

From repeated involvement in such pleasurable interactions, the participants will come to feel more positive about each other and about themselves as well. From these more posi-tive feelings a set of core values will emerge, combining both tangible and intangible aspects, on the basis of which to address the challenges of planning, development and dramatic growth. Unless this process itself evidences community, the goal of achieving community as an end result is virtually unattainable. Without a deeper sense of commu-nity, Fairhaven cannot grow organically. Without organic growth it cannot be a village.

The second prerequisite for creating Fairhaven as an urban ecovillage is that we must accept full responsibility for sustaining the natural systems on which Fairhaven’s exis-tence depends. Exercising environmental stewardship will entail removing existing soil and water contamination and preventing further introduction of toxic substances into the environment. Exercising environmental stewardship will also mean restoring and main-taining wildlife habitats and carefully controlling human access to them. By all means, exercising environmental stewardship will require that Fairhaven residents and busi-nesses initiate and maintain continuous efforts to recycle water and waste of all types.

The third prerequisite for creating Fairhaven as an urban ecovillage is that we must embrace the challenge of preserving our historic ambiance while reshaping our spaces, systems and lifestyles to meet the imperatives of the post carbon era. Our historic ambi-ance offers three essential experiences: the feeling of intimacy and familiarity in and around the Village Green, the sensing of openness and adventure in being near and upon the water, and the finding of seclusion and mystery in the woods along Padden Creek. The bluff originally marking the shoreline facilitates making experience-reinforcing tran-sitions between these venues. These amenities must be protected and enhanced.

The steps necessary to do so include creating new visual and pedestrian linkages between the Village Green and the shoreline, adding new pedestrian trails and bicycle lanes, and completing a network of trails and bike lanes to link Boulevard Park with Marine Park and Fairhaven Park. Another needed step is revisiting the ordinances establishing the Fairhaven Historic District to ensure that meaningful, architectural transitions are made between the style and scale of the buildings surrounding the Village Green and those of the new structures that will be built on its immediate and more remote perimeters.

The fourth prerequisite for creating Fairhaven as an urban ecovillage is that we must find ways to produce within our boundaries all of the material, technological, social and cul-tural necessities for sustaining a high quality of life. This will require major adjustments of our lifestyles, a revitalization of our economic base and a reallocation of our land uses. It may necessitate acquiring or leasing nearby agricultural land in Whatcom County on which to grow the foodstuff required by the residents of Fairhaven or bartering for our food, other essentials and luxury items using goods or services produced in Fairhaven.

Meeting these four prerequisites is a monumental challenge. Failing to do so will cause a monumental disaster. If Fairhaven is to become an urban village, or perhaps even an urban ecovillage, we must exchange the attitudes and value systems with which we have viewed Fairhaven in the past for a much more sensitive and responsible approach. We can do no better than to assume the profound sense of reverence which First Nations Peoples hold for their original territory. They honor it as their homeland, the place on which their lives depend, and the place which depends on them for its life in return.[8]

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[1] People riding in automobiles have minimal occasions for personal encounters. Parked cars interfere with

such interactions and impede access to buildings. Except for drive-throughs, people make no purchases

from cars. Automobiles also generate pollution that significantly diminishes enjoyment of village life.

Moreover, cars cause accidents, they are not a cost-effective means of transportation and they hasten the

depletion of our global fossil fuel reserves.

[2] Fairhaven was platted in 1883 by Daniel J. “Dirty Dan” Harris as an 85-block, 680-lot grid bounded by

Wilson Ave., 14^th St., Douglas Ave. and Harris Bay. He sold 263 lots in 1883, 10 in 1884 and 2 in 1885,

some to investors as far away as San Diego. He sold 404 lots and 49 acres of unplatted land to Nelson

Bennett in April of 1889 and another 25 to Charles X. Larrabee that October. He sold his last lot in 1890.

[3] While 500 persons is the minimum number often given for forming a village, a population of several

times that figure is needed to make a village self-sustaining

[4] Fairhaven was incorporated with Whatcom in 1904 to form the City of Bellingham.

[5] The line of demarcation was about two blocks south of what had once been the boundary of the town of

Sehome.

[6] Burdge, Rabel J., A Community Guide to Social Impact Assessment, 3^rd Edition, Middleton, WI: Social

Ecology Press, 1999, Page 63.

[7] The current population of Fairhaven requires 24.2 acres of parkland and open space to meet the City

standard. Although 28 acres are included within the neighborhood’s boundaries and another 17 acres are

available in the adjacent Fairhaven Park, which is actually located in the South Neighborhood, increase-

ing the population to 1,600 as anticipated will require the addition of 22 acres to meet the standard.

[8] The considerations outlined above are based on records in the Whatcom Museum of History and Art, the

Washington State Archives, the personal collection of Gordon E. Tweit, and literature on urban villages.

A second paper will advance specific project ideas for making Fairhaven an urban ecovillage.