The riot that took place in Bellingham on the evening of 12 October should be a wake-up call for the city.  This riot was not the first in that area and was facilitated in large part by a concentration of students from WWU with other young renters and visitors in rentals close to the university campus, the availability of social media for instant communication, the unrestricted availability of alcohol and the lack of supervision in any sense of the word. This situation is a culmination of decades of neglect and laissez-faire code enforcement with the de facto creation of a student ghetto that surrounds the university and chokes out any livability for families whose presence in apartments and in interspersed single family homes might have had an attenuating effect on the young renters.

Let us turn our attention then to the University Ridge development proposal. There has been considerable opposition to the ill-advised development to house almost 600 students in a privately owned dormitory complex (proposed by Ambling University Development) in the Puget Neighborhood. The process began earlier this year with a public meeting involving residents of the Puget and Samish Neighborhoods. Project approval now rests with the Hearing Examiner after many comments from the public, most of which appear to have been ignored or brushed aside in the staff reports and the SEPA declaration from the Planning Department.  [You can peruse documents (SEPA/Staff reports) and citizen comments regarding University Ridge on the city's website here.) This ghettoization is a result of a severely broken planning process, but that is an issue for another day. 

With the most recent riot in mind, consider then the deliberate creation of four dormitory buildings on five acres (surrounded on three sides by single family homes) where hundreds of students, some of drinking age and many not, will live and party, essentially without meaningful supervision. Note that it took the police department with all their equipment, the support of the Whatcom County Sheriff and the WWU Police several hours to bring this dangerous situation to an end. What then is the plan for preventing such a riot at University Ridge when the developer-promised “24 hour management staff” breaks up a party of drunken students who then become angered? With the availability of a much vaunted (by the developer) outside recreation area where large groups can congregate, these confrontations could easily degenerate into a riot fueled by the proximity of hundreds of students and their visitors. Terrified on-site staff would have time only to hit an emergency call button and flee the complex. To expect more from these staff members is not in the realm of reality.

What are the consequences of such an incident at University Ridge? What happens when police presence essentially traps nearly 600 people and their visiting friends in a limited area during a riot? Remember that there is only one entry/exit to this complex. What happens as the inebriated attempt to flee over fences and walls and through the adjacent woods, wetlands and backyards? My emails to the Chief of Police and the Fire Chief asking for an evaluation with respect to University Ridge regarding the problems of police and fire protection were never answered. Alarmed at the prospect of the creation of this dormitory complex, other residents of the area wrote to the Bellingham police and fire departments. They, too, received no response.

There has been no apparent consideration of how Ambling’s “management team” will deal with a riot when the complex will be staffed with service level workers while the Ambling hierarchy sits in their comfortable homes and offices in Georgia, far from the fray. How will this company even be able to afford insurance for such a catastrophe? Are they even thinking of such a problem? How will Ambling respond to parents whose innocent children are placed at risk for the sake of making money that will essentially flee the state?

This project is a disaster waiting to happen.  

The silence from Lottie St. is deafening.