by Rodd Pemble
Last February, the Whatcom Environmental Council (WEC) filed an appeal of the Bellingham Comprehensive Plan (the Plan) to the Growth Management Hearings Board for failing to comply with the state’s Growth Management Act (GMA).
The Plan falls short by not:
- protecting Lake Whatcom’s watershed and the drinking water quality for over 120,000 people,
- preventing sprawl and encouraging denser development in the city’s core,
- reducing Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) via affordable, transit-oriented development,
- accounting for climate-related hazards by reducing Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions, particularly at its Post Point wastewater treatment plant, and
- properly including public comment in the preparation of the Plan.
We submitted detailed recommendations during the public comment period, and, when those were ignored, we challenged the city’s Plan with our appeal. The appeal raises many issues, but, for one, consider how the Bellingham Plan further erodes Lake Whatcom water quality: it increases the recommended number of new housing units in the Silver Beach neighborhood at the north end of the lake from 98 to 354. That is after years of participation and work by the neighborhood residents, the 2016 Comprehensive Plan adopting 114 new housing units (further reduced to 98 in 2023), and the city’s own recognition that increased density harms water quality. How exactly do four times as many new housing units protect the lake, the only source of drinking water for over 120,000 residents and businesses? The Silver Beach proposal is just one example of how the Plan falls short.
Bellingham’s Comprehensive Plan cannot be updated for 10 years. If our community wants to protect our watershed and the air we breathe, reduce congestion and address housing affordability, now is the time.
Please invite your family, friends, and neighbors, and stop by and learn more about how the city’s Comprehensive Plan falls short and how you can participate and support WEC in this effort.
Please share your concerns with the City Council and the mayor at: Ccmail@cob.org 360-778-8200 and Mayorsoffice@cob.org 360-778-8100.
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Rodd Pemble is a retired teacher and recycling industry professional (28 years at Sanitary Service Company) with experience serving community organizations from Birchwood Neighborhood Association to the Whatcom Mountain Bike Coalition.
