La Conner Weekly News - Your independent hometown award-winning newspaper

I am a relative newcomer to La Conner and I have been surprised by the pending approval of the 20-unit condominium development proposed off of Center Street. As a developer of medical facilities for over thirty years, I have never seen the approval for a project like this that does not demonstrate that it can handle its own parking. I have also never seen an approval for a project that did not fit in with the current use in the proposed development neighborhood.

Let’s look at the parking issue first.

With 20 units you can expect that the parking load will be a minimum of 30 cars exclusive of any visitors.

That would be one car per unit plus two cars for 10 of the units.

It is very common for there to be two cars per unit in this day and age as many households have two breadwinners.

This ratio could be even higher depending on the mix of buyers for the units.

It is not reasonable to rely on street parking in the residential neighborhood to pick up the needed difference for parking space.

All this does is decrease the livability of the existing residential neighborhood.

This does not take into account the impact visitors parking will have on the development.

This will create additional demand for parking spaces.

What about the building itself? How does a three-story building fit into a residential neighborhood when it dominates the landscape from every direction and has nothing in common with any current structures? Had this project been proposed along Morris or First streets or Maple Avenue there is most likely a scenario by which this project would make sense.

I sympathize with the home owner faced with having this project as their neighbor. This project should never have proceeded as far as it has in the approval process. This is the sort of project that will permanently alter the character of the community. There are better options to locate this project in the community than the Center Street location. Time to step back and reconsider.

Ron Blair

La Conner