The essays, analyses and opinions presented as Community Voices express the perspectives of their authors on topics of interest and importance to the community, and are not intended to reflect perspectives on behalf of the Salish Current.
Commentary: An open letter to the Whatcom County Council
Dear Council Members:
It appears that once again that the vote on council member Todd Donovan’s motion to create a six-month moratorium on new Heavy Impact Industrial (HII) uses along Marine Drive in the Alderwood neighborhood has been postponed. The moratorium would not apply anywhere else in the county. This one-pager is for your use when the matter does come up.
First, recall that any new application for an HII use in this zone is immediately vested, which means that all future land use planning must consider the application as an ongoing business. So it seems quite prudent to hold off on any new applications until after the new comprehensive plan is considered and adopted. Do the county and the City of Bellingham want the new comprehensive plan to have a vested HII application pending in an area slated for more housing including affordable housing in what is after all an urban growth area? That’s your call, but I think the answer is not just no, but NO.
Next, you have to discount the opposition that has misrepresented Donovan’s proposed ordinance. I’m talking about Heidelberg Materials and Bell Pole and Lumber in case you’re curious. What the opposition missed is that the Donovan ordinance as well as the existing county code provision on nonconforming uses provides all the flexibility that is needed. Donovan’s ordinance specifically allows building permits on HII lands along Marine Drive for “remodels, maintenance, or repairs of existing structures or expansion of uses legally established prior to the effective date of the ordinance.” If this land were ever rezoned, these two HII businesses could become “nonconforming uses” but that is not really an issue either. The county code already allows businesses to make changes within their existing buildings. It is inaccurate to claim that Donovan’s ordinance would “freeze” them in place exactly as they are.
Third, one of the oldest tricks in the book is to argue that a proposal such as Donovan’s is “premature.” According to the opponents, the Council should wait to consider a moratorium until after the comprehensive plan is completed. This argument was advanced chiefly by the Whatcom Business Alliance. Of course, that completely misses the point of creating some temporary safeguards for the affected neighborhoods now, not after the comprehensive plan is adopted and before a new application becomes vested. “Premature” is lobbying code for “don’t do anything” but my guess is you already know that.
Then of course, there is the Port of Bellingham which owns a small complex of buildings on Marine Drive that is zoned HII and who knows what the Port wants to put there? But the Port showed up to oppose the Donovan ordinance so my guess it was not just to go to another public meeting.
Please remember that late last year (after the ABC Recycling fiasco) you asked the Planning Commission to define appropriate industrial uses and conditions for HII lands that were also within a city’s designated urban growth area. (That is Alderwood, and only Alderwood.) It turns out that both HII and its less-impactful sibling, light industrial impacts (LII), have performance standards/conditions that already exist in the county code. One of the LII performance standards is to prohibit emissions of toxic gases or fumes. If you wanted to condition future HII uses along Marine Drive to protect public health and the environment, one nifty way of doing so would be to import this LII performance standard into the HII provisions either permanently or at least for the period while the comprehensive plan is being written. That way, any new HII could not threaten these already underserved neighborhoods with toxic emissions.
You have options. You can pass the Donovan ordinance, you can amend the HII performance standard to prohibit toxic emissions from new applicants or you could do both—my personal favorite.
Finally, I hear the argument from the Port and others that the county needs to up its game by increasing available HII lands. The argument is that if HII is reduced along Marine Drive it needs to be supplemented elsewhere. I think there is probably agreement on that if done responsibly and away from crowded neighborhoods. For example, land near Cherry Point is already zoned HII. There has been talk about this previously, but I think it makes sense for the county to ask various stakeholders, and the Lummi Nation if it chooses to participate, to collaboratively determine or update what infrastructure or other improvements are necessary to make those lands usable for industrial uses so that the county has this information at hand if and when applicants come knocking on your door.
I hope this is helpful in your deliberations.
— William (Bill) Craven
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