08/25/2006: "Guest Editorial"

SJC's Great Planning Disaster
It's time to junk the Eastsound and Lopez Village Urban Growth Areas (UGAs)!
The State Growth Management Hearings Board(GMHB) has repeatedly ruled SJC noncompliant with Washington's Growth Management Act(GMA). It has been seven years since Commissioners Miller, Evans and Nielsen committed SJC to wholesale urbanization, yet the County remains as far away from approval as ever. A county as small as ours will never be honestly able to meet the State requirements for water, sewer, environmental protection, financial viability etc., that UGAs demand. It's time to bring this money-wasting boondoggle to an end.

In 1999 SJC's first comprehensive plan was rejected by the GMHB. That plan had Friday Harbor as the only UGA in the County. Lopez Village and Eastsound were "Areas of More Intensive Rural Development"(AMIRDs). The Board found this first plan noncompliant because (among other reasons) the two AMIRDs were a bit too large. Rather than simply shrinking the two AMIRDs, the BOCC rezoned them as UGAs and since has frequently claimed that the GMHB "required" this.

As if to highlight the shortsightedness of County policy, in July 2006 the Planning Dept. released the results of a survey of SJCs critical areas by a consultant. The study recommends that all of SJC be designated a Critical Aquifer Resource Area due to the high susceptibility of our aquifers to contamination and warns of drainfield effluent already showing up in aquifers on San Juan, Orcas and Lopez. Couple this with the warnings we have gotten from the USGS and the State Dept. Of Ecology(DOE) about salt-water intrusion, and it becomes quite clear that dense urban "development" would be a disaster in SJC.

Sea level rise is another threat that has only surfaced since the UGAs were first designated (it's already risen by at least 20cm.) The geometry of the seawater - freshwater boundary near the shoreline is such that "....a 50cm. rise in the sea level causes [a] 20 meter reduction in the freshwater thickness...." (See Seawater Intrusion in Coastal Aquifers Jacob Bear et al eds.

Urbanization, which the authorities euphemistically term "growth", "development" or even "progress", always takes place at the expense of the vast majority of existing residents. To make "development" schemes like UGAs seem palatable, therefore, they all require a coating of "affordable housing" whitewash. In fact, UGAs make it even more difficult for ordinary working people to live in SJC. By far, the largest single factor working against the "affordability" of houses is the price of land. And the largest single factor governing the price of a plot of land is the number of houses or "dwelling units" you are allowed to build on it. When a local government rezones a plot from a density of two houses per acre, for instance, to eight or even sixteen (if you include guest houses) the price soon goes up by hundreds of percent. The Lopez Village and Eastsound UGAs amount to an invitation to all comers to make as much money as they can in the shortest possible time - at the expense of the people living in and around the proposed UGA now.

The "affordable housing" enthusiasts have also forgotten that the cost of living is much less in a rural environment. No sewer, water or garbage fees to pay, you can let your old cars rust by your house, grow a food garden and have a few chickens etc. This is what makes SJC so important. It's a place where one can live a rural lifestyle in the midst of the "Greater Puget Sound" urban nightmare. That's something worth preserving. Living close to nature isn't a luxury, but a fundamental source of sanity and order. People who can't afford a house in SJC need financial help, not incarceration in a "project" that keeps them from ever having the comfort and security of owning property.

Friday Harbor is a real urban area, but it can only function (barely) because it has sufficient surface water resources at Trout Lake and enough population to provide the necessary "cash cow" to help pay for the required and expensive infrastructure. Lopez Village has no surface water and barely 80 households. Orcas Island could, in theory, supply an Eastsound UGA with surface water, but the sources are too far away and too ecologically sensitive to be used. The State DOE will never allow this.

The whole concept of building cities on islands that have only wells as a water source, very limited transportation links and minuscule financial resources can only lead to an ecological, financial and public health disaster. To people in power urbanization is a religion, and they believe in it because it increases their power. But if SJC were a place where the people governed and the government obeyed, UGAs could never happen.

Steve Ludwig
Lopez