Let's Do the Time Warp Again

Happy belated birthday to us!

I was thinking that somebody (preferably David) ought to write a year-end retrospective about all of the de-planning that's gone on in Whatcom County in 2011.

And I thought to myself, when did David start this blog?

The answer is:  October  16, 2011.  So we missed our own birthday.  And I would point out that nobody threw us a party.

What really caught my eye, though, was the very first comment on this very first blog entry.

What has changed in the year-plus since then?

• The County still has an "emergency" windpower moratorium.

• The County Council keeps approving development that chips away at our agricultural base.

• Wetlands and trees destroyed, with nobody there to stop it and just a little fine and stop-work order. . . .hmmm. . . .did SSA use this comment as a how-to manual for its illegal clearing at Cherry Point?  

• Caitac -- well, Caitac got its upzone at the last County Council meeting, but anyone who thinks it's all over now, please raise your hand.  Don't see any hands. 

Since Whatcom County appears to be caught in a time warp,  maybe this will do the job as our year-end retrospective: an excerpt from the comment that "Whatcom Rural Citizen for 30 Years" wrote on October 16, 2010.

I have lived/farmed in rural Whatcom County for 30 years. It is so heartbreaking to watch everyone talk about avoiding sprawl; we have meetings and meetings to come up with zoning laws and long term land-use plans in order to protect the AG lands and our rural character; but then exception after exception is made by the Council and we watch the continued sprawl creep over our rural lands. Some developers know that enforcement is non-existent so they roar in and knowingly break the laws. A fine and a little stop-work order won't put the trees and wetlands back after they destroy them. So a few neighbors complain, the developer gets a little fine and maybe a delay but those wetlands and trees are already gone now and noone at the zoning department saw what was there before. So it works out way better for the developer to trash it first and deal with the problems later.

I remember attending the first public rezone meetings for the Caitac property a long time ago. David Syre of the Trillium Corp. was very involved in it then. So many people turned out and look at Cordata now. City! . . .

Then to top it off, the Council puts an EMERGENCY moratorium on Wind Generators to stop community owned wind energy projects! My goodness, it's a true emergency! A windmill might ruin our County! But rezoning and clustering our County to death with more unneeded houses and shopping areas with a tourist hotel is exactly what we need!

We live in such a special place and I watch this insanity while the sprawl continues. The County government announces it is cutting over 100 jobs because we are low on funds. But remember- Growth is good for our economy! Yeah! Right!

I don't really have an uplifting conclusion for this blog.  So I'll just end it.  Happy New Year!

Sprawl or "Local Circumstances"?

Does Ferndale need even more room to sprawl -- er, grow? The Western Washington Growth Management Hearings Board is in town today to hear the appeal of the County Council's decision to expand Ferndale and Birch Bay’s "Urban Growth Areas" (or UGAs) last August.

Arguments against expansion include the following:

• Population projections don’t show a need for more urban expansion, or, in the words of Futurewise’s brief,

Because the record shows that the expanded Birch Bay and Ferndale UGAs are larger than needed to accommodate their adopted population and employment projections even after making deductions for pending projects, critical areas, two deductions for public uses, infrastructure, market factors, and occupancy and density factors, these UGAs are non-compliang with the Growth Management Act;

• The County didn’t show that Ferndale could provide adequate water, wastewater, and fire protection services in the expanded urban areas;

• The County didn’t identify open space corridors between Ferndale and Bellingham, as required by the Growth Management Act (it’s not a joke to say that we have “Bellingdale” or “Ferningham,” since there’s no separation between the two);

• The UGA expansions will not protect waters of the state, including Drayton Harbor and its Shellfish Protection District;

• The County failed to identify and evaluate agricultural lands of long-term commercial significance affected by the expansions; and

• The County did not provide for early and continuous public participation, as required by state law.

The County’s responses state that:

• “Local circumstances” support the County’s decision to approve oversized UGAs;

• The UGAs are oversized by a “de minimis amount,” so it doesn’t matter that they’re too large;

• The County is not required to protect water quality when it expands UGAs because it was only expanding UGAs, not revising other parts of the Comprehensive Plan;

• The County did “designate” agricultural lands, and the fact that it never did the analysis required for designation doesn’t matter;

• Planning for open space between the cities can happen in the future and didn’t have to happen now; and

• There was adequate public participation because the participation that preceded the 2009 adoption of UGAs (by the previous Council) ought to count, because citizens could speak about whatever they wanted during open public session, and because there was one public hearing preceded by notice (the staff report was available to the public only 4 days before the hearing was held).

Ferndale argues:

• The UGA expansion just “gives back” 476 acres that the County took away from Ferndale in 2009;

• Because the County and Ferndale agreed on the expansion of Ferndale’s borders, the County was not required to justify the expansion;

• The previous decision about the appropriate size of Ferndale’s UGA was just “planning by computer” and didn’t factor in “community assumptions, sense of place, or vision for the future”;

• Local circumstances demand a larger UGA (“Ferndale speaks volumes as to what only Ferndale can know about itself”);

• Even though Ferndale didn’t have capital facilities plans in place when the UGA expansion was approved, it is the process of adopting wastewater and fire plans that will provide for service; and

• There is no absolute requirement to adopt open space between cities in order to prevent strip development, so the County was not required to do so.

Should be an interesting day.