Port commissioner says he's ready to work with Bellingham

JOHN STARK - THE BELLINGHAM HERALD

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BELLINGHAM - Port Commissioner Scott Walker says he didn't mean to sound confrontational in remarks he made about waterfront issues during a Tuesday, Nov. 18, meeting.

Among other things, Walker suggested during the meeting that port commissioners and Bellingham City Council members form negotiating committees as a possible way to resolve the remaining differences between the port and city on redeveloping 220 acres of central waterfront.

Walker said that suggestion was not meant to cut Mayor Dan Pike or Port Executive Director Jim Darling out of those negotiations. He said he proposed the idea as a way of getting City Council members more involved in the process.

Port, city still struggling on waterfront

"This was an attempt to break the logjam," Walker said.

Also at the port meeting, Walker again called on the city to reaffirm a December 2004 agreement between the port and the city. In port officials' view, that agreement commits the city to work with the port to hammer out a development agreement that would provide developers with a high degree of certainty on what they would be allowed to build on the entire waterfront site.

Walker said such a city reaffirmation was the solution to the present port-city stalemate - not mediation.

But Walker said he didn't mean to say he's opposed to mediation.

"If it comes to a stalemate, then of course we're open to mediation," Walker said.

The sticking point now appears to be how port and city officials interpret the city's obligation to provide developers with regulatory certainty as they move forward with projects.

Walker said the port has never asked the city to give waterfront developers a blank check or waive its regulatory powers.

"The city has the big hammer on that," Walker said. "They can write 1,000 pages of development regulations and we have no problem with that. We recognize their authority to do that and we want them to do that."

The port wants to be able to hand those 1,000 pages to inquiring developers in advance, so that those developers and their investors won't face uncertainty about what the regulations will be or how long it will take to get city approval, Walker said.

So what's the big deal?

Pike remains reluctant to grant a development agreement for the entire site and the six million square feet of new building space it would someday contain. As he sees it, many things will change during the 20 to 30 years it will take to complete development of the site, and the port's environmental impact analysis doesn't contain enough detail to enable the city to issue waterfront regulations in so much detail.

Walker says the city formally approved granting such an agreement for the entire site in 2004. Without that agreement, the port never would have agreed to take on Georgia-Pacific Corp.'s 137 contaminated industrial acres for redevelopment, he said.

Mark Asmundson, who was Bellingham mayor in 2004, acknowledged that city officials agreed to a site-wide development plan at the time, but they did not commit themselves to the specifics of such a plan.

"What we wanted to do was create enough certainty that the port could go forward with the investment desired, with enough flexibility to recognize that things would change over time," Asmundson said.

"The agreement back then was an agreement to work on an agreement."

Asmundson said the port and the city should be able to reach an understanding on the matter, and he questioned whether a site-wide development agreement is a prerequisite for progress, as the port contends.

"Bite off pieces, work closely with Western Washington University ... and take it step by step," Asmundson said. "You don't need to have it all."

Asked if port commissioners would suspend the project and sever their partnership with the city over this issue, Walker said that question would have to be discussed by all three port commissioners. But he hopes it won't come to that.

"It is true that there are other options," Walker said, "but our number one option is go to forward with the city."