Edgemoor Neighborhood
Association
Monthly Business Meeting
May
7, 2009
Minutes
The
Monthly Business Meeting of the Edgemoor Neighborhood Association was called to
order by Brad Rose, ENA President, at approximately 7:05 p.m. Lauri Grove
recorded the minutes.
The minutes from the April meeting were
approved as submitted.
Reports of Officers
President’s Report: The Center for Local Self Reliance
(CLSR) began hosting design charettes or
brainstorming sessions to get community input into the development of the
former caretaker’s house and gardens at Fairhaven Park. The end goal is to come
up with a site plan to present to the city.
Brad, as well as others Edgemoor residents, were in attendance and offered
that there seem to be a slightly splintered group. One favoring total self
reliance and another more realistic group that allowed for the fact that some
may have to rely on cars and such. Many
good ideas surfaced throughout the charette. The
discussions included what to do about deer in the garden, a possible commercial
kitchen, canning, classes, selling products, food preservation and other
skills… There would be many opportunities for people to get involved. For more
informative details about the charettes and CLSR go
to their website at www.caretakershouse.org. Brad reminded us of our commitment to the
project and as co-sponsors we would be called upon to volunteer man-hours. A suggestion was made to get the word out and
get a volunteer list started. Brad would continue to keep us informed with
meeting dates and details.
MNAC Report:
Larry Horowitz attended the April meeting. In summation, there was a Water Watchers presentation given by
Bill Evans (Chief Operator of the Bellingham water treatment plant) and Sgt.
Colin Emmett (Bellingham Police Dept.).
They handed out a brochure and discussed security for our city water
resources that could potentially be targeted by terrorists and would-be criminals. Since water facilities are often in areas
difficult to secure there was a call for residents to be observant and report
any suspicious activity around water utilities. More information should be on
the city’s website in the near future,
The Sunnyland
MNAC representative, Patrick McKee, introduced an amendment to the Infill
Housing Ordinance that would eliminate the possibility of building Infill Toolkit housing forms (currently
allowed as part of the Type VI process) in established single family
zones. MNAC voted in favor of
recommending McKee’s draft ordinance.
McKee agreed to put together a letter and present MNAC’s recommendation
to the Bellingham Planning Commission at its public hearing on the Infill
Toolkit.
Mary Mullen presented information about
the Center for Local Self Reliance and offered upcoming dates for public
meetings and design charettes.
Treasurer’s Report: Diane reported she renewed the P.O.
Box for $58.00 and filed the 990-N for 2008 with the IRS. The closing balance
was $3847.43
Diane brought up an e-mail she received
requesting the opportunity to advertize on the ENA website which sparked a
discussion about advertizing. For the
most part it was agreed that there was no profit to ENA, but the possibility
was left open to anyone interested in researching and determining the best way
to handle ads. No one volunteered. However, John Erickson passed around an
Alabama Hill newsletter with an interesting real estate section listing the
current housing market for that neighborhood.
John offered that might be something ENA could consider adding to our
website. Lylene
suggested doing it through a link that could be continuously updated.
Committee Reports
No new news.
Representative Reports
AOBN: John Erickson offered the meeting was
‘fun’. In summary, student painters attended
to talked about their services, there was a brief discussion about the Infill
Toolkit, and neighborhood updates. Next
week a representative from Banner Bank will talk about what is going on with
the banking industry.
John introduced a discussion about
growth management in the city and county.
He talked about the City of Bellingham Employment Lands Report that can be
found on the city’s website. This report provides a 3 dimensional graph and
current overview of Bellingham’s industry and employment areas. It also talks
about future growth. Questions were
brought up about how much retail we can really accommodate. Would the push to develop the waterfront take
business away from downtown? It was
mentioned that after Bellis Fair Mall opened it took
about 20 years for downtown to recover.
Would all of the planned urban villages actually be successful? The Barkley area was not developing as a true
urban village. Was the county and city
working together to accommodate growth?
Were there mixed signals – people say they want to save farmland, but
they don’t want to live in dense areas.
Good points and questions.
CSN: Brad reported that nothing new was
happening. The draft ordinance prepared
by Larry Horowitz proposing a modification to the city’s existing vesting
ordinance did not meet with unanimous approval by the five CSN
neighborhoods. He also offered that CSN
would most likely have another candidate forum in the fall.
RDNOW: Joe Yaver updated the group on the latest wetlands
category determination and the status of the EIS for the Fairhaven Highlands
development. He also added that the FDIC issued a
Cease and Desist order against Horizon Bank that ordered the bank to reduce its
bad assets and bring in more capital. There was a discussion about what effect
that order could have on the development.
Responsible Development has a very good website at www.rdnow.org that illustrates the impact of the
proposed Fairhaven Highlands Project, contains updated news reports, and a
calendar of events.
Business:
Chuckanut Village Marsh:
There have been a couple successful meeting to discuss how to reclaim part of
the eroding beach, stop the intrusion of cars, and supply parking for kayak
use. Brad reported there was some internal chatter between staff concerning the
unavailability of funds to purchase parking areas since the south side
Greenways funds are on hold. If the
Fairhaven Highlands project gets approved it could add considerable impact to
the traffic in the area as well as damage to the marsh the city claims it is
trying to save.
Closing
Meeting was adjourned at 8:53
The
next meeting scheduled will be the Edgemoor Board
Meeting to be held from 7-9 p.m. on June 4th at
Fairhaven Pavilion. All residents are encouraged to attend.
Respectfully
Submitted,
Lauri
Grove
Minutes are subject to approval.