Giving People What They Want & Need
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by Eric Hirst
WHATCOM INDEPENDENT
January 31, 2008
Once again, Jack Petree is trying to scare us (see the January 24 Whatcom Independent). If we don’t go along with developer requests for more land – and yet again, more land – we’re doomed. We’ll all be forced to live in tiny, dark apartments on the 12th floor of a building with no elevator.
The truth and our future are much different. We can protect the rural areas we love and enjoy. These rural areas include farms that feed us, forests that provide wood products, shorelines that protect water quality and quantity, parks that offer recreation, and other open spaces that provide wildlife habitat. At the same time, we can create compact, livable and diverse neighborhoods inside our existing cities. These neighborhoods can include a range of housing and transportation choices.
Although many people prefer to live in single-family detached homes, our demographics are changing and so are our housing preferences. As Baby Boomers get older and as more young people without children move here, the need for other housing types grows. These alternatives include row houses, townhouses, and apartments. Providing a diversity of housing types saves land and creates more compact communities, which makes alternative transportation possible. While sprawling developments require us to drive to almost every destination—to the park, doctor, shopping, or work—compact neighborhoods allow us to walk, bicycle, or ride the bus as cheaper, healthier and more environmentally friendly alternatives.
To some extent, these changes are already occurring. Consider all the condominiums constructed in downtown Bellingham and in Fairhaven during the past few years. By redeveloping other underutilized commercial areas to expand commercial and residential capacity, we can accommodate new residents without disrupting traditional neighborhoods. Because these homes are built in urban areas, a much richer community life is possible and encouraged. Clustering homes in existing communities greatly reduces the cost of the public infrastructure needed to serve these people, including streets, schools, water and sewer systems, parks, and polices and fire protection. Lower costs mean lower taxes for all of us. And smaller homes on smaller lots lowers housing prices, an especially important benefit given the current housing and credit crises.
Unfortunately, the opposite is occurring in much of eastern Whatcom County. The amount of land in the county zoned for one house per 5-acre lot is enormous, more than 300,000 acres. By comparison, only about 85,000 acres is zoned agricultural, which means that four times as much land is zoned for suburban sprawl as for the crops and animals that feed us.
To
encourage more infill and redevelopment within existing urban boundaries and prevent
sprawl, we need to limit expansion of our urban growth areas (UGAs). Fortunately,
the Whatcom County Council agreed to do just that with respect to the
Bellingham UGA. Two years ago the city proposed expanding its UGA boundaries by
almost 2,200 acres. The Whatcom County Planning Commission, in its review of
the city’s land supply analysis, found that no additional land is required to
accommodate the expected population growth to 2022. The County Council largely
agreed with its planning commission and recommended a very small (about 280
acres) addition to the Bellingham UGA. Recently, the Bellingham City Council
voted to accept the County’s decision. Although I think no Bellingham UGA
expansion is needed, 280 acres is a lot better than 2,200 acres.
We need to take additional steps to protect our rural areas. For example, other UGAs, including Ferndale, Blaine and Birch Bay, may be larger than needed and should be reduced. The county’s programs to transfer development rights from sensitive areas (including agricultural lands and the Lake Whatcom watershed) to urban areas need to be coordinated with the cities and strengthened. And we need to be sure that urban levels of services, especially water and sewer, are not being provided in rural areas.
We live in a beautiful part of the world, with snow-capped peaks to the east, the San Juan Islands and North Sound to the west, and scenic farms, forests, rivers, lakes, and open spaces in between. Citizens, working with our public officials, can ensure that these terrific amenities are protected for us, for our children, and for their children.