This road project will make it easier for many Whatcom residents to get to the hospital
Bellingham officials are moving ahead with a project to connect two north-side neighborhoods, easing traffic congestion and creating an alternate route to St. Joseph hospital for many Whatcom County residents.
But they’re having to use eminent domain to obtain a strip of land wide enough to build a road through private property between James Street Road and Birchwood Avenue north of the hospital.
“There’s a lot of public benefit for us,” Councilwoman Pinky Vargas said at council meeting June 22, 2020.
“Sometimes we have to nudge the public a little bit in order to move things forward, particularly if they are affecting a great deal of the public and the city,” Vargas said.
City council members voted unanimously to start the legal process that forces the property owner to sell the land at fair market value.
That site lies northeast of Bug Lake, where Birchwood curves at a 90-degree angle and becomes Squalicum Parkway.
At stake is $9.7 million in state Department of Transportation funding for the project, according to a report from Public Works Director Eric Johnston.
Johnston said that the city and one property owner couldn’t agree on a price for the land.
“The property owner and his representatives are continuing to work with the city,” Johnston told the council during a presentation on the project.
“We are continuing to see some progress,” he said. “They are taking some steps to move forward where we can find an amicable solution. But we need to move forward.”
Once the land is acquired, bids can be accepted for the project, Johnston said.
Otherwise, those state funds could be lost, Johnston said.
State funding the Orchard Drive extension project was put on hold when Initiative 976, which reduces car tab fees, passed in November 2019.
Councilwoman Lisa Anderson said the property owner should see the land’s value increase substantially once the road is built, and she said the city will be paying for infrastructure that the property owner otherwise would have had to provide if the land were ever developed.
“They’ll benefit in the long run (from) us being able to put this street in,” Anderson said.
Plans call for a new road that extends west from the intersection of James Street Road and East Orchard Drive, then goes under Interstate 5 and connects with Birchwood Avenue and Squalicum Parkway, forming a Y-shaped intersection.
It’s part of a trio of projects in that area between Cornwall Park and the Sunset Square shopping center.
A hiking and biking trail was built two years ago.
A project to restore Squalicum Creek is set to begin soon, project engineer Craig Mueller told The Bellingham Herald.
Bug Lake, a gravel pit created when Interstate 5 was built, will be returned to its natural state as a forested wetland and the creek will once again be a free-flowing stream, improving habitat for several species of salmon.
Divers will see lane closures this summer as work continues on a culvert under Squalicum Parkway to allow for fish passage, Mueller said.
This story was originally published July 1, 2020 at 10:51 AM.
