Take time to decide on development

The introductory line to the Port’s Tuesday public session on the future of the La Conner Marina was “(we) have property ready for development.”

Those words are frightening to many of us in La Conner who have experienced the Town’s eager approval of outsized, inappropriate, unimaginative and even destructive developments.

We have enough trouble (and virtually, no success) keeping our own administration from facilitating oversized construction projects. And now here comes the Port – after months of study and conversations with their consultants and presumably the Town administration – letting us know what is good for the town and how they can help.

The Port’s position statement recognizes that housing and mixed use, which are central to the project, are not their core enterprises or purposes. However, they justify this major undertaking by asserting that a vital port requires that they provide housing for employees and that they establish a mixed use commercial area that will allow them to generate capital they need for their actual and worthy business purposes of supporting the marina, boating and the boating industry.

The Port came to the meeting prepared with details, drawings and project elements. These include housing outside our current neighborhoods and managed by the Port, a mixed use commercial area separated and at a distance from our Morris and First streets, changes to our zoning, changes to height limits, a lot more traffic, creation of a new road through farmland. And? Clearly, there would be a major impact on the Town of La Conner. Given those likely elements, one session of two hours of public comment is very little time to understand the project or to allow creative minds to consider property uses other than the scheme developed by the consultants and committed to by the Port.

I’m happy the Port is examining how better to support recreational boating and marine related industry. However, I much prefer that the Port stick to their statutory responsibilities and to the purposes for which you were elected; and leave community realignment to general purpose government.

Here’s my suggestion; Better prepare us all for a fully electric future by using the property for sustainable, clean, resilient generation of electricity to the benefit of the marinas, your tenants, the marine industry and maybe even the town..

It’s hard to see that this rushing locomotive can be derailed, slowed, or pulled onto a siding for a second. The Port and their able consultants – and presumably, the Town’s planning apparatus – seem happy, very committed and really quite excited.

Back to the Town and it’s preference for quick project approval and code provisions weighted against community values. Several years ago, The Town decided to speed the approval of all construction projects by reducing the role of the Council and planning commission in project review. Thus leaving major decisions and code interpretations to the (non-resident) planner – and then to the hearing examiner.

One wonders, given recent community opposition to quite a few projects, if the planner and administrator and mayor might be interested in revisiting the code and the approval process so as to ensure a municipal code that avoids the excesses of the past few years and includes a preference for low-cost housing and protection of neighborhoods.

I’m guessing they do not. However, I am hopeful that the council will take to heart what they hear from their friends and neighbors, show their interest in better aligning the approval process and code provisions with the values and preferences of the larger community and direct the administration to do just that.

Bob Raymond is a long time attentive La Conner resident.