Neighborhoods and the dysfunctional Bellingham planning process
Neighborhoods and the dysfunctional Bellingham planning process
Neighborhood organizations and the dysfunctional Bellingham planning process has finally made the Herald. It has been a year in the making - and the roots are in the five-year remake of city planning
Neighborhood organizations and the dysfunctional Bellingham planning process has finally made the Herald. It has been a year in the making - and the roots are in the five-year remake of city planning codes by former mayor Mark Asmundson and former planning director George Vega and with council approval.
The basic cause of the problem is the unconstitutional and outside-the-law creation of exclusive neighborhood associations that get to speak for all residents - even those not members of the association. The new city codes illegally strip people of their rights to participate in city planning that affects their property or interests.
The last neighborhood plan to be updated was Happy Valley in 2000. I was a major player in that 4-year struggle and I could write a book. We did not struggle amongst ourselves as we neighbors were united in our vision and worked together fairly well. We struggled against the Bellingham Planning Department. And we won. We got the plan that preserved our neighborhood as a livable place.
Our association reached out to all residents but we did not pretend to speak for them. That is the difference between then and now. We were a group of many home owners, renters and business owners who associated together freely but did not claim to speak for others in our neighborhood who were not members. Every person was free to participate in the planning process as fully as was our association. Our association visions gained full neighborhood acceptance because we worked with all to create a plan that worked for all.
After our success, the city canceled all neighborhood updates and started a process to change the rules - I think to prevent any neighborhood from again being united and beating city hall. Neighborhoods were stripped of many processes and they were made city wide. A sanctioned system of creating exclusive associations that could be manipulated was put in place. The associations were given play money to spend for city planning-staff time to work with them on their plan. Most importantly, those not in the association were disenfranchised of their constitutional rights as citizens.
Suddenly last November, 18 of our 22 neighborhoods applied for their plans to be updated. To those who think there is not 'manipulation' - do you really think all those applications were by coincidence? After over 5 years of no updates? In Fairhaven - the subject of today's Herald article - it was several months after that update process began that the city thought to suggest to the association that they inform others in the neighborhood of what was happening. Follow that? Half the neighborhood did not know a thing for months. And then the city told the 'official' association that it, not the city, had the responsibility to notify others. Gentle reader, the notification of citizens about city processes is the responsibility of the city.
These associations are fine. But the city must not require anyone to join in order to participate. We in Happy Valley did just fine without exclusive power. The exclusive power vested in one group causes turmoil and anger inside each neighborhood - which allows city planning to manipulate the entire process and get the plan that the city planning staff wants. And the city avoids what happened with Happy Valley - where we were united and beat the city and got the plan we wanted.
What did Happy Valley get? We stopped Western Washington University from expanding into 17 of our city blocks and creating a "grand formal entrance" up 21st Street to the campus - an unneeded trinket of their planning. We reduced lot sizes from 7,500 to 5,000 sq feet in much of the neighborhood, helping infill. Happy Valley has increased in density more than any neighborhood in the city - while still staying very livable. City planning was against us on these.
We zoned every block north of Knox for high-density apartments for the college students. Since then we have not objected to a single project north of Knox as developers are encouraged to build quality environments for students. We grandfathered in all apartments in our single-family zones so that if they burned down they could rebuild. We wanted them to improve their buildings and have the security their business needed. We told our commercial area - the Sehome Village - that they we had no interest in dictating to them what their design guidelines or codes were. City planning was against us on these.
We had to sue the city for violating the Growth Management laws - and we won. Over 100 residents contributed over $10,000, we hired an attorney, and won. The city worked secretly with WWU to try and torpedo our efforts to prevent Western from illegally overrunning Happy Valley.
By the way, that above link is just one nugget of many that the Herald never reported. There are reports in NwCitizen from 1996 through 2001 over the planning process. This site was used to help us Happy Valley residents get the word out as the Herald did not report the truth of our planning process.
Bottom Line - the current city planning process is illegal and is the cause of the problems in the neighborhoods. The goal of the revised planning process is to allow the city planning department to railroad through their visions of what the city should become.
One last anecdote. The inside cover of the Bellingham Comp Plan Report (I cannot find my copy just now and may have the title wrong) - there is listed, with thanks, in large type the names of some residents. Many others are thanked in the back pages in small type. Number 7 on the large type list is my name. Gentle reader, I spoke to only one meeting and it was to blast the process as bogus. You see, the city said that the meetings we attended were to educate us residents for a future comprehensive planning process - and when the year of meetings was over, the city said that had been the process and we had a new comp plan. The Herald went along with this charade - this shell game. Our Comp Plan was illegally constructed contrary to state law. But no one has looked at the record nor challenged it. And today we read headlines of the feuding in neighborhoods. It does not need to be that way. - John Servais
The basic cause of the problem is the unconstitutional and outside-the-law creation of exclusive neighborhood associations that get to speak for all residents - even those not members of the association. The new city codes illegally strip people of their rights to participate in city planning that affects their property or interests.
The last neighborhood plan to be updated was Happy Valley in 2000. I was a major player in that 4-year struggle and I could write a book. We did not struggle amongst ourselves as we neighbors were united in our vision and worked together fairly well. We struggled against the Bellingham Planning Department. And we won. We got the plan that preserved our neighborhood as a livable place.
Our association reached out to all residents but we did not pretend to speak for them. That is the difference between then and now. We were a group of many home owners, renters and business owners who associated together freely but did not claim to speak for others in our neighborhood who were not members. Every person was free to participate in the planning process as fully as was our association. Our association visions gained full neighborhood acceptance because we worked with all to create a plan that worked for all.
After our success, the city canceled all neighborhood updates and started a process to change the rules - I think to prevent any neighborhood from again being united and beating city hall. Neighborhoods were stripped of many processes and they were made city wide. A sanctioned system of creating exclusive associations that could be manipulated was put in place. The associations were given play money to spend for city planning-staff time to work with them on their plan. Most importantly, those not in the association were disenfranchised of their constitutional rights as citizens.
Suddenly last November, 18 of our 22 neighborhoods applied for their plans to be updated. To those who think there is not 'manipulation' - do you really think all those applications were by coincidence? After over 5 years of no updates? In Fairhaven - the subject of today's Herald article - it was several months after that update process began that the city thought to suggest to the association that they inform others in the neighborhood of what was happening. Follow that? Half the neighborhood did not know a thing for months. And then the city told the 'official' association that it, not the city, had the responsibility to notify others. Gentle reader, the notification of citizens about city processes is the responsibility of the city.
These associations are fine. But the city must not require anyone to join in order to participate. We in Happy Valley did just fine without exclusive power. The exclusive power vested in one group causes turmoil and anger inside each neighborhood - which allows city planning to manipulate the entire process and get the plan that the city planning staff wants. And the city avoids what happened with Happy Valley - where we were united and beat the city and got the plan we wanted.
What did Happy Valley get? We stopped Western Washington University from expanding into 17 of our city blocks and creating a "grand formal entrance" up 21st Street to the campus - an unneeded trinket of their planning. We reduced lot sizes from 7,500 to 5,000 sq feet in much of the neighborhood, helping infill. Happy Valley has increased in density more than any neighborhood in the city - while still staying very livable. City planning was against us on these.
We zoned every block north of Knox for high-density apartments for the college students. Since then we have not objected to a single project north of Knox as developers are encouraged to build quality environments for students. We grandfathered in all apartments in our single-family zones so that if they burned down they could rebuild. We wanted them to improve their buildings and have the security their business needed. We told our commercial area - the Sehome Village - that they we had no interest in dictating to them what their design guidelines or codes were. City planning was against us on these.
We had to sue the city for violating the Growth Management laws - and we won. Over 100 residents contributed over $10,000, we hired an attorney, and won. The city worked secretly with WWU to try and torpedo our efforts to prevent Western from illegally overrunning Happy Valley.
By the way, that above link is just one nugget of many that the Herald never reported. There are reports in NwCitizen from 1996 through 2001 over the planning process. This site was used to help us Happy Valley residents get the word out as the Herald did not report the truth of our planning process.
Bottom Line - the current city planning process is illegal and is the cause of the problems in the neighborhoods. The goal of the revised planning process is to allow the city planning department to railroad through their visions of what the city should become.
One last anecdote. The inside cover of the Bellingham Comp Plan Report (I cannot find my copy just now and may have the title wrong) - there is listed, with thanks, in large type the names of some residents. Many others are thanked in the back pages in small type. Number 7 on the large type list is my name. Gentle reader, I spoke to only one meeting and it was to blast the process as bogus. You see, the city said that the meetings we attended were to educate us residents for a future comprehensive planning process - and when the year of meetings was over, the city said that had been the process and we had a new comp plan. The Herald went along with this charade - this shell game. Our Comp Plan was illegally constructed contrary to state law. But no one has looked at the record nor challenged it. And today we read headlines of the feuding in neighborhoods. It does not need to be that way. - John Servais
