News - Local News

POSTED: Wednesday, Jul. 01, 2009

Narrow vote moves city toward final waterfront effort

BELLINGHAM - On a 4-3 vote, City Council approved spending $332,500 on final-phase waterfront studies to complete the planning process for 220 waterfront acres by early next year.

The vote, taken late Monday, June 29, appears to keep the city and Port of Bellingham in step as the years-long planning process for waterfront redevelopment enters its final phase. Council members Barbara Ryan, Jack Weiss and Stan Snapp voted no.

The money, already a part of the city's 2009 budget, would be matched by the Port of Bellingham as the planning process moves into its final phase.

The money includes $50,000 as the city's share of a study of potential reuses of 11 old brick buildings on the central waterfront that formerly housed Georgia-Pacific Corp.'s pulp and paper operations. The Port of Bellingham, the owner of the waterfront property, will contribute the same amount.

During a committee discussion Monday afternoon, Ryan and Weiss urged delay. Besides the examination of the suitability of the old buildings for new uses, the $332,500 would pay for completion of a master plan, development regulations, and environmental impact statement for public review and eventual vote by both the City Council and Port of Bellingham commissioners early next year.

Ryan and Weiss wanted to delay any vote on the full package until the completion of the study to determine whether there is any hope of saving some of the brick buildings. Those buildings are in the path of new streets planned to link the bay to downtown, under a street design scheme tentatively approved on a 4-2 vote in April. Port commissioners also have approved that plan.

Weiss also argued that the waterfront plan now emerging appears to rely too much on cars as the main transportation method, while giving lip service to mass transit, pedestrian and bicycle travel.

At the evening council session, city resident George Dyson objected to current waterfront access plans that envision using the existing Central Avenue connection as a prime street link to the site. Main streets don't belong at the edge of the water, he said.

"Central Avenue should be reserved for pedestrian use," Dyson said.

City officials say the Central Avenue link will be temporary, providing traffic access to the site until the railroad tracks can be relocated and a new Cornwall Avenue bridge is in place. Dyson wasn't convinced.

"There's no commitment to how temporary," Dyson said. "Is it going to be five years, 10 years, 20 years?"