EPRC Meet Canceled: Planners Consider Development & Preservation

Today’s meeting has been canceled. The EPRC will meet the first Thursday in February, Feb. 6 from 3 to 5 p.m. at the Eastsound Fire Hall

— by Margie Doyle —

The Eastsound Planning Review Committee (EPRC) meets every month to consider county and private plans to develop or preserve the character of Eastsound Village. It serves as an advisory opinion to the County’s Departments of Development and Planning, Permitting, Engineering, and Public Works; and to the Planning Commission and the County Council.

EPRC Chair Gulliver Rankin, who also serves on the County’s Stormwater Committee described EPRC’s role to a Town Hall meeting held in November 2013: the EPRC exists “to be an advocate for the community and to collect information.”

Rankin emphasized the advisory committee’s mandate to protect and promote the vision for Eastsound, as expressed by islanders at EPRC meetings and conferences, and in the Eastsound Sub-area Plan, written in 1991 to define growth in the Eastsound  village. (This plan precedes the Growth Management Act (GMA) which regulations San Juan County agreed to comply with). Those who have read the Sub-area Plan describe its vision “to retain the character of Eastsound as a walking village.”

The Eastsound Sub-area Plan
In 2013, much of the monthly meetings, and additional “special meetings” have been taken up with the business of revising the Sub-area Plan so that it may be incorporated into the Unified Development Code (UDC), and thus updated more frequently.

The Sub-area Plan addresses utilities, zoning, uses; present work involves defining retail and service light industrial uses, which Senior County Planner Colin Maycock described as “problematic in the past and not as clear.

“What’s ‘incidental’ presents the problem. The code says you can have retail that’s ‘incidental’ to another use — you get into subjective discussions.” The EPRC’s work with Maycock on the Sub-area Plan can be reviewed online at the county site, www.sanjuanco.com, and also at the Public Library.

Prune Alley Improvements
One of the plans that the EPRC has been developing for over two years, is to provide improvements to Prune Alley, installing curbs and sidewalks. Although hoped-for federal grant funds did not come through last July, EPRC member Fred Klein and architect Bill Trogdon have worked with affected property owners to obtain their cooperation should such plans develop. Now the idea is to make “radial” curbs and sidewalks, such as exist on North Beach road and “A” Street. County Public Works is scheduled to chipseal Prune Alley this spring and improve pedestrian access and street crossings. The county will also fund some design work, now scheduled for completion in 2017.

Rankin announced that one priority for 2014 is the policy for “kiosks” in Eastsound. There is no language in the county code addressing kiosk- or mobile truck-vendors. Currently the only regulations:

• prohibit parking such vehicles in county roads and streets; and
• require a building permit for a structure.

Rankin asked for public input on this discussion.

He also asked for input on the preservation or development of the “Fern Street Parcel” – three lots on North Beach Road between Shinola and Tres Fabu. The center parcel is owned by the county and there is discussion of a walkway, a paved road for San Juan Transit, and parking spaces.

Re-opening Madrona Point
At the December 5 EPRC meeting, Peter Fisher — a former ERPC Chair — presented his and architect John Campbell’s work towards re-opening Madrona Point at the end of Haven Road in Eastsound.

The Point was closed by its owners, the Lummi Nation, in 2007. Fisher gave the background of the Point’s ownership and stewardship — the “long and bitter struggle to prevent it from being developed into condominiums,” and its conversion into Open Space by agreement between the County and Lummi Nation.”

Fisher said, “Now it is an unregulated Common, to the disadvantage of both sides.”

John Campbell distributed a copy of a letter to the Council stating that Madrona Point is one of the county’s most important natural features, and encouraging the County to negotiate with the owners of Madrona Point to provide open access.

Fisher said, “I would love to see the original Lummi vision of a cross cultural understanding/heritage center on the site. What would work best is cooperation, developing a relationship with the Lummis.”

He described the conversation that he now has developed with one of the Lummi Tribal Elders, and his hopes that that relationship will bear fruit in re-opening Madrona Point.

To be a part of these discussions, and to become informed of the processes of development and preservation, come to the EPRC meeting at 3 p.m. on Thursday Jan. 9.