Don’t let disagreement over details sidetrack waterfront

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Plans to redevelop the Bellingham waterfront have reached an important stage — one we hope isn’t soured by current disagreements between officials.

Officials with the Port of Bellingham and city of Bellingham are working with consultants and citizens to start working out details of a master plan for the area that is supposed to be finished by the end of the year.

That plan will include everything from the location of streets and parks to where commercial, residential and industrial buildings could be located. It is important stuff.

But the details could threaten the cooperative spirit that has gotten our community to this point. After months of public discussion, the port and city have agreed with state officials on parts of the environmental cleanup. They have agreed that the site should be redeveloped for mixed uses and not for a return to the heavy industrial past. They have agreed that the port should pay for the environmental costs and the city the infrastructure.

The level of agreement cannot be overstated. These are tremendously large hurdles that our community has already jumped over. That things are now reaching the detail stage is a good sign that our community’s leaders are performing well.

It would be a shame to see such momentum lost to arguments about whether streets should travel east-west or northeast-southwest. It would be a shame to see to see momentum lost over a battle over which street should be built first, and which last.

Yes, the details are important. But we implore our community leaders not to dig in their heels and become intractable over minutiae when they have already agreed about the biggest parts of this development.

Currently, both sides say they are in agreement about most things, but seem to be held up on how to start redevelopment.

A consultant paid mostly by the port says the work should start along an extension of Commercial Street, with a proposed campus for Western Washington University leading the way. Led by Mayor Dan Pike, some city officials say they would prefer development start right next to the existing downtown, on an extension of Bay Street. They see a potential new library location as an anchor.

The port and its consultant argue development next to the water will help spur the project forward. The mayor says he is concerned that locating the first development too far from downtown will end up hurting downtown business.

The two pieces of property the city and the port’s consultant are talking about are just a couple blocks apart. The development of either a new library building or a WWU presence are both dependent on new funding sources that are not yet approved.

With so little between the positions, and so much unknown, it would be a disaster if these positions were to become a crack that halts the whole project. We urge both sides to come together and find a logical middle ground.

A spirit of cooperation has blessed this redevelopment for several years now. That cooperation is what has brought our community so far down a road that often takes other cities decades to traverse. We need more of such useful leadership now.

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Sunday, Jun. 15, 2008

Don’t let disagreement over details sidetrack waterfront

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