Housing options show little to fear from in-city growth

THE BELLINGHAM HERALD EDITORIAL BOARD

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Across Bellingham, residents worry their neighborhood will be ruined and what they love about where they live will be lost as our city grows. That is a story told again and again here.

Right now, residents of the Sunnyland Neighborhood are struggling with the redevelopment of the old Department of Transportation site on Sunset Drive, next to the Greek Orthodox church.

A developer has suggested building 49 homes on the four-acre site. Members of the Sunnyland Neighbor-hood Association are pushing for 28. Both have suggested a rezone to city officials that would meet their designation.

That kind of disagreement, about 20 houses here, or 20 townhouses or condos there, is what bogs down Bellingham's chance at becoming a different kind of community.

It plays out across the city, in neighborhood after neighborhood, from big proposals such as Fairhaven Highlands in the south to zoning restrictions in the York Neighborhood in the city's center to the Sun-nyland battle in the north.

What is lost in the individual battles is the larger goal.

As a city, Bellingham residents almost universally agree they don't want to live in the sprawl of King County or other growing western U.S. cities. When asked, they make it clear they don't want suburbs to stretch from Bellingham to Ferndale to Lynden, covering our vital agricultural and rural lands with miles upon miles of homes.

It seems that everyone agrees on that goal until it's time to build new homes a block away. When growth theories become reality, fear marches in.

We don't believe Bellingham residents have anything to fear. Urbanization and increasing density within the current city do not have to destroy what people love about Bellingham. If done correctly, they can make every neighborhood better.

In that vein, we were very pleased to see city planning officials unveil 13 new types of housing that could be built city neighborhoods. Perhaps if neighbors better understand the options, they will approach infill-ing with less fear.

Among the housing types described in the city's new plan are those that exist on smaller lots or that go higher into the air. And, smartly, each of the housing types comes with restrictions and descriptions to guarantee that what is built won't destroy what already exists.

The rules for "carriage" housing, for example, in which a new housing unit can be built over a garage of an existing home, require that one of the two units must be occupied by the owner of the property. And they limit the size of the unit so to 500 square feet, which in turn limits the number of people who can live there.

Imagine, if you will, a retired person who wants to keep their home but needs help keeping up with prop-erty taxes and other bills. Allowing them to create and rent-out a small unit on the lot helps them finan-cially and guarantees they will watch over the unit to guarantee quality tenants.

If architectural standards of the neighborhood are enforced, and if the landlord closely monitors the activities of his or her tenant, then there is simply no threat from such a development to the existing neighborhood. The community is able to grapple with growth in a non-threatening way that preserves the neighborhood and limits the need for more development in rural lands.

Another of the newly described housing types allows for buildings up to six stories, with limits on square footage and first-floor space for retail establishments.Imagine such a building in Bellingham's Fountain District, where it could increase the vitality of the neighborhood while again providing for more places for people to live.

There are many positive outcomes in the possibilities being presented in these housing options.

The new housing types are being presented to neighborhoods as they work through neighborhood plans in an attempt to address how each neighborhoods can maintain character while doing its part to take in more people.

We encourage all citizens and neighborhoods to embrace the possibilities, following the lead of such forward-thinking residents as those in the Samish Neighborhood, who are pushing for a better, more people-friendly Samish Way.

Handling increasing population without creating suburban sprawl is possible. We encourage Bellingham residents to embrace that possibility and work to identify the ways to do that in their neighborhood.

Many people fear change. But change can be positive if citizens work hard to make it so.

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POSTED: Saturday, Aug. 30, 2008

Housing options show little to fear from in-city growth

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