When the start of the new year, and both the Bellingham City Council and the Whatcom County Council now firmly in place with the newly elected members, we at Eye on Whatcom expect to see the UGA debate begin to heat up significantly. The County Council is very soon going to be pressed into some sort of decision regarding the size of Bellingham’s UGA. We would be very surprised if we don't see this decision within the next six to eight weeks.

The point of contention, of course, is the size of the UGA, where the city wants it significantly increased, and the county wants to keep it as small as they can. Apart from the two councils involved, the debate will rage between activist groups and various special interests, and the rhetoric will fly!

Please bear in mind the rules for posting, but give us your thoughts on the pending UGA debate.

Hey Tug,

Yeah, I listened to that live, and it was interesting. I was working at the same time and thought it would be worthwhile to listen again once it was posted on the KGMI site.

It sounds very much like the City and County both have their heels dug in and are not wanting to budge on this. I was disturbed by the amount of work, study and money that went into this thus far which essentially is now null and void. I was further disturbed to hear that attendees from the county were "instructed" to not cooperate and agree to nothing. Now, I may be misquoting that, but that's the idea that Gene and Doug were representing during the interview.

That sort of behavior is completely non-productive. If you and I are in a discussion, I need to always be open to persuasion, at the very least. Otherwise, that is the very definition of "closed mindedness." I can vehemently disagree with you, but I must always be open to persuasion. The key is that you must persuade me, and for that to happen, your arguments must be substantive.

Am I missing something in that?

- djg

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I'd like to read that. Can you post a link?

I'm tired, and ill, so I'm probably not reading as clearly as I ought, but in reading that, particularly in the "be it resolved" section, it sounds very much like the city is caving in. But like I said, I'm not really on top of my game right now.

What's concerns me about this is the possibility that the County by pushing back the way they are, is very likely going to create the sprawl they hope to prevent. When the city runs out of room, people will move to the outer communities (sprawl) and will commute to Bellingham (traffic congestion).

Neighborhoods who are updating their plans are not going to just roll over for the bulldozer to wipe out what is there so we can build high rises, and I would not expect them to do so. There are limited options. We grow up, grow out, or sprawl into neighboring communities and watch congestion on the arterials which is already a mess.

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OOOOOOOOOOOOOH a secret, anon, "real scoop".

I cant wait!

Greetings All,
First time post here so bear with me. I do have Carl Weimer's permission to post with one population clarification. I asked Carl to comment on the KGMI rant by Gene Knutson and Doug Starcher. As I recall their main pitch was that the City did five years worth of work on the UGA issue including a population increase projection study and how dare the County come to a different conclusion without doing any study or research of their own. I put that question to Carl figuring, why not go to the horses mouth, so to speak. Here is his response verbatim:

Stan,
The charge that the City did the analysis and the County didn't is true. The County looked at the analysis that the City did, could find no flaws with it, so instead of wasting taxpayer money to do another analysis that would probably come out with basically the same numbers we used your analysis.
Hopefully we don't get to the point that every time either of us does any type of analysis (traffic counts, water testing, ambulance runs, etc) the other then does the same analysis because we don't trust each other.

The difference was not in the analysis the City did, (we accepted your numbers as accurate), the difference was in the assumptions (the wiggle
room) that were used by your planners to make the numbers come to various conclusions. The ones that you have probably heard about are the assumptions that lead to such a big safety factor, the assumption that the current UGAs would develop at the minimum densities possible, etc. For example if you change the assumption about current UGA build out from the minimum density numbers the City used to a medium number that I proposed, the difference between our proposals nearly disappears. Both numbers, minimum and medium, are from the City's analysis - I just think the medium one is more realistic, and what we should be shooting for in our precious UGAs.

The one other thing that kept striking me listening to Gene and Doug this morning was how they kept saying the County was trying to force 30,000+ people into the neighborhoods. If my memory serves me correctly the City's proposal put 26,000 in existing neighborhoods, while the County's put 29,000. So really the difference between what the County proposed for existing neighborhoods compared to what the City proposed is only 3000, not 30,000. Those are very round numbers from memory, but they at least show the general scale. Carl

Okay, that's his response. Stan

Thanks for posting what Carl said, now what do you think Stan? The issue of the safety factor is the big sticking point. I understand that. There are a number of other concerns.

1. Our plan is un appealable at WWGMHB.

2. If we "re open" our plan we have to use current information on occupancy which according to census numbers seems to be plummeting.

3. When the county finished their land supply (about the same time as we were doing the population projection) Sylvia seemed to be surprised that ALL the future growth could be taken in un incorporated Whatcom County.

4. Fine they used our numbers, good thinking. Now show us the analsys, the one that goes beyond OK "0" or "5" or "18" just pick a number part of the exercise.

Not everyone wants to live in the city nor in the country,fine. Lets just not pretend that people driving to Bellingham for jobs and services from their 1 or 5 acre county homes are somehow not sprawl but planning for growth next to the city is!

I would love to have a chance to have a real roundtable discussion of these and the many other factors. Sadly I dont think there will be time or the will to get the many interested folks together to try. And our "system" doesnt really have that as an option.

D

A little additional info, for about 3 yrs every time the Whatcom County Planning Commission met to discuss the UGA issue, the city changed it's land supply #s. That didn't give us a lot of confidence in their methodology. When they finally settled, the parks controversy started. Yes, the city won in court but I understand those #s will be changed soon to what is REALLY doable, rather than what is not doable. The land supply numbers were suspect from the beginning. The WWGMHB decision does not mean the city's plan was good, or couldn't be changed, only that, that one plan was acceptable, many other plans could also be found acceptable. To show you how bogus the city's plan is read this:
http://www.cascadiaweekly.com/pdfs/issues/200622.pdf (or read all 3 parts)
it has never been reputed.
I went to almost all the UGA meetings and in every one I went to, Vega flat out lied to the people (told them they had no choice) about growth in THEIR community. Of course they had a choice, thank God we all still have some voice in our community!
Skip to today.
Since the county never did buy into the city's (manipulated, in my belief)land supply #s, I believe the county is NOT going to agree to the city's expansion of the UGA. So whatever the city needs to do in my humble opinion, they need to start. Pike is just trying to deal with that reality and yes the people per house is going down (I understand to 0.78/unit in zip 98225)
The model for a "Tacoma to Lynnwood" lookalike is an ever expanding city.
Why should a city that is 39% of the county population take 51% of the growth?
If we want to avoid becoming "Tacoma to Lynnwood" then we should try to make the small towns their own economic center, places where the residents can work, and buy the things they need. The more we make B'ham become the "everything " to county dwellers, the sooner we become what we don't want to be.
The best way to do this that I can find is, the reduce the population projection (which is a self foe filling prophecy anyway) for B'ham to 40%. Reassign it to, and work with, the small towns to limit the rezoning to accommodate that growth inside their downtown core where they have boarded up business now and help start an economic rejuvenation process. I call it STURP (Small Town Urban Renewal Program). When those bankers who finance taller downtown buildings see govt directing growth into our downtown areas (throughout the county) and not to the furthest fringes of the cities, they will be more willing to finance building in the city cores.
We also need hard line boundaries and a commitment to limit growth in the rural areas to complete a plan for NOT becoming like "Tacoma to Lynnwood".

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The future happens by chance or by design.

I'd hoped to go to this meeting, but ended up needing to help my wife with her studies. She's a grad student at the UW studying in the Master of Nursing program.

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