Smart Growth
"As important as it is, the Comprehensive Plan does
not actually regulate development with the force of law... For the
Comprehensive Plan to take full effect, policies must be translated into
law, and that is the sole responsibility of the City Council."
What is smart growth or quality growth or beneficial growth? When is it wiser to not grow, or is growth always inevitable?
These are challenging questions, and disagreements among individuals are likely. Prosperity and economics should work hand-in-hand with quality of life. I believe that the best answer may be the most straightforward: Growth is beneficial when it advances or is in harmony with the expressed public values and goals of a community. Fortunately, planning professionals have given us ordinary citizens a place to start. More importantly, the values and development goals for Bellingham find official expression in our Comprehensive Plan. We have a place to start, and some goals in mind. Now we need to work together to get there.
Bellingham's Comprehensive Plan divides our planning goals into nine major categories. Broadly speaking, these goals are:
- The recognition and preservation of community character and sense of place, while at the same time providing for growth and infill. Increased access to and along the waterfront.
- An infrastructure that facilitates multiple modes of transportation, including cars, mass transit, bicycling, and pedestrian friendly areas, as well as a sound connection to the highway ferry system.
- A commitment to economic vitality, diversity in employment, sustainable economies, and family-wage jobs.
- Housing that is both affordable and enhances neighborhood character, along with incentives for increased residential density where appropriate (such as downtown).
- The highest possible quality of schools for our children, and the promotion of our educational and cultural resources into the economic and social life of the city
- Protection and service of the entire community through police, fire, public safety and social services, including reduction in harmful effects of traffic, noise pollution and water quality.
- A thriving downtown and waterfront, as business, cultural, and pedestrian-friendly center of civic life, in part through mixed-use development. Preservation of existing water-related industries.
- Growth that preserves and protects our natural environment, particularly our lakes and streams.
- A developed system of parks, open spaces, and public greenways, to serve new and existing neighborhoods and our youth in particular.
Whatcom County data shows Bellingham's urban growth areas are oversized to accommodate the amount of people the city wants. Would you support reducing the city's urban growth areas? Why or why not?
To preserve our quality of life and the beloved rural and natural character of Whatcom County, I believe we need to limit expansion of our urban boundaries wherever possible. As several recent surveys have shown, the clear majority of Bellingham and Whatcom residents feel the same way. That is why we need to be very careful when we define our Urban Growth Areas.
Following the Growth Management Act, UGAs are based upon the predicted need for more land to accommodate employment and population growth over a 20-year period. This is both a policy question ("what do we want for our future?") and a technical analysis ("what do we expect will happen?"), carried out by the County government in consultation with the cities. The City of Bellingham is planning for about 24,000 new residents over the next 20 years, although the City is willing to accommodate higher numbers if doing so will actually reduce rural sprawl. According to the County's land capacity analysis, this means Bellingham does not need to enlarge its existing UGAs, and in fact current UGAs outside of city limits are too large.
In my view this presents an opportunity to remove the UGA status from the Lake Whatcom and Lake Padden watersheds. UGAs are by definition areas destined for future urban levels of development, yet City policy opposes watershed development and best environmental science tells us that if more than 10% of a watershed is developed, water quality degrades. We have seen this already in Lake Whatcom. If elected to the Council, I would support removal of these two areas from our UGAs because it represents our best decision for financial and environmental reasons. It will save our city the cost of ever expanding government services for those areas, and will preserve our watersheds.
I think one of the important things to realize is that the vision and goals that Bellingham has laid out for itself are shared across the country. We can turn to the experiences and expertise of planning professionals from other forward-looking communities to help guide our efforts. For starters, I offer the following as an example.
Principles of Smart Growth
Create Range of Housing Opportunities and Choices
Providing quality housing for people of all income levels is an integral component in any smart growth strategy.
Create Walkable Neighborhoods
Walkable communities are desirable places to live, work, learn, worship and play, and therefore a key component of smart growth.
Encourage Community and Stakeholder Collaboration
Growth can create great places to live, work and play - if it responds to a community s own sense of how and where it wants to grow.
Foster Distinctive, Attractive Communities with a Strong Sense of Place
Smart growth encourages communities to craft a vision and set standards for development and construction that respond to community values of architectural beauty and distinctiveness, as well as expanded choices in housing and transportation.
Make Development Decisions Predictable, Fair and Cost Effective
For a community to be successful in implementing smart growth, it must be embraced by the private sector.
Mix Land Uses
Smart growth supports the integration of mixed land uses into communities as a critical component of achieving better places to live.
Preserve Open Space, Farmland, Natural Beauty and Critical Environmental Areas
Open space preservation supports smart growth goals by bolstering local economies, preserving critical environmental areas, improving our communities quality of life, and guiding new growth into existing communities.
Provide a Variety of Transportation Choices
Providing people with more choices in housing, shopping, communities, and transportation is a key aim of smart growth.
Strengthen and Direct Development Towards Existing Communities
Smart growth directs development towards existing communities already served by infrastructure, seeking to utilize the resources that existing neighborhoods offer, and conserve open space and irreplaceable natural resources on the urban fringe.
Take Advantage of Compact Building Design
Smart growth provides a means for communities to incorporate more compact building design as an alternative to conventional, land consumptive development.
(source: http://www.smartgrowth.org/about/principles)