— by Margie Doyle, updated July 18 —
Eastsound Planning Review Committee members, from left, Charles Toxey, Brian Wiese, Yonatan Aldort and co-chair Margaret Payne
The monthly meeting of the Eastsound Planning Review Committee managed to pack in reviews of projects affecting Eastsound from the long-planned Streetscape designs to the new port master plan, a planned playground structure and the first draft of a design for the Fern Street Park/Plaza, with new member Brian Wiese at his introductory meeting.
Rick Hughes’ report on the County Council and public comments will be addressed in a forthcoming article.
Following public comment, where it was emphasized that comments about the Port Master Plan should be addressed to the Port Commissioners at their meetings and at the Special meeting scheduled for July 26, County Public Works engineer Shannon Wilbur presented options for Streetscapes for a section of North Beach Road, beginning with a review of the Street Standards process for Eastsound.
The area in question, is “primarily North Beach Road from Mount Baker Road south to School road,” Wilbur said. She presented several options, emphasizing that all plans are in the draft stage:
Option A
Install a gravel path on the east side of North Beach Road, similar to the path on the west side of the road, from The Funhouse north past Children’s House, Salmonberry School and the Senior Center
Option B
Install a pervious sidewalk such as on Mt. Baker Road. EPRC member Charles Toxey, suggested that such an option would benefit from avoiding the stark look and step-up of that section of pathway; by making the North Beach Road section more level to the ground.
County Public Works Manager Russ Harvey spoke of various sidewalk surfaces, including asphalt, for which there is no local purveyor. It was also noted that maintaining the growth along the Mt. Baker road pervious surface (past St. Francis Church, Orcas Center and the Orcas Medical Clinic) has proved problematical.
Option C
Install a pervious sidewalk with options for street parking. Both parallel and diagonal parking options were suggested. It was noted that the planned rental housing project April’s Grove provides onsite parking.
Other options concerning street designs along North Beach Road from Enchanted Forest to School Road dealt with the parking potential included the idea of moving the current trail on the west side back for parallel parking or reroute the trail back and put in diagonal parking
EPRC Co-chair Paul Kamin urged that a vegetative buffer between North Beach Road and April’s Grove be preserved.”
Co-chair Margaret Payne favored the gravel path and no parking between Enchanted Forest and School Road. “We are so lucky to have a green approach to the village, I wouldn’t change a bit of it beyond a gravel path on the east side. I think it’s a very much-loved aspect of our village.”
Other members of the EPRC advisory board were in agreement with the co-chairs.
Aldort said, “Despite our parking issues, it’s not the area to install parking, speaking as a representative of the public and having grown up here, if we were to install parking here, there would be severe outrage.:
Shannon Wilbur summarized the discussion, repeating what she’d heard:
- No parking in this area
- Include a planting strip in both gravel and pervious options
- Maintenance concerns of pervious concrete
- Any path to be at-grade and not stepping up
She added that all options were ADA compliant with a 5-ft wide path with a ramp at the intersection
Margaret Payne and Yonatan Aldort gave a progress report on the proposed Village Green Playscape Progress Report. Payne said that in anticipation of a grant application due August 3 the project to install a playscape at the northwest corner of the county park has approval of the neighbors, but no design.”We’re trying to work with the esthetics of the stage and make something pleasing for the community, so I’m hoping that we can present a budget and more sketched design and have the luxury of having three of the people involved with the stage involved with the design.”
Yonatan Aldort reported on progress with the budget for the playscape, and Kamin offered to help with the design.
EPRC Co-chair Paul Kamin then addressed EPRC representation on the Eastsound Design Review Committee,saying that committee has some substantive powers and will be needed.
The group is being reconstituted. Kamin asked Clyde Duke about the the composition of the committee. Duke responded that John Campbell is a founding member of the EDRC, but that “The EDRC has been quiet with the county for almost a year and a half.” The EDRC needs a representative from the EPRC and an alternate, Duke said. Charles Toxey then offered to participate as EPRC representative to the EDRC.
The EPRC then unanimously authorized a Letter of Support for the Prune Ally Grant Application, which Kamin said could potentially fund up to 100 percent of the project. The letter will endorse the County Council’s application for grant funding to develop the Eastsound streetscapes.
When the next agenda item, the Discussion on the Port of Orcas Airport Expansion Outreach was introduced, Port Manager Tony Simpson expressed his dismay that he was not notified of the agenda item beforehand and left the meeting.
Kamin said that the Port Master Plan had been placed on the EPRC agenda with his expectation that the committee would urge the Port to hold more public meetings this summer to discuss the plan and its alternatives. With the announcement on July 11 that the Port was indeed planning such a meeting on July 26 (orcasissues.com/port-of-orcas-master-plan-now-includes-special-meeting-and-extended-comment-deadline), he felt the agenda item had already been addressed.
Aldort asked that the EPRC consider “what action we’re taking… EPRC should have an opinion.”
Others on the committee agreed that it was under the EPRC’s purview to weigh in on the discussion. Charles Toxey provided an overview of the general directive from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and its National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems (NPIAS) –to improve safety measures; and what is driving the need to expand and upgrade the airport.
If Orcas airport can document there are over than 10,000 emplanements, the FAA funding would jump from $150,00 to $1,000,000 annually. It was discussed which planes would be involved and Toxey said that by expanding the airport to comply with safety standards for wing separation for the “Caravans” operated by Kenmore Air and others, it would step up to the next class of aircraft size which could include Boeing 727s.
(Editor’s note: the following quote is inaccurate and is clarified in the comments following the article).
Others brought up that delivery services such as FedEx and UPS also fly the larger sized planes, to which the response was that other islands similar to Orcas receive off-island freight by truck and boat service. Toxey countered claims of the need for increased aircraft wing separation and said, “Continued expansion goes against the planning process…the two are on a collision course.”
Paul Kamin said, “That’s endemic to the process. It seems to be skewed towards growing airports. But there is a way to weigh in. We have the right to say we don’t necessarily want bigger and better. We have to do our due diligence.
Kamin’s representation on Port Master Plan Advisory Board was then questioned as to whether he was on that board as an EPRC representative or as a private citizen. Toxey pointed out that Kamin’s service as General Manager of Eastsound Water Users Association “seems like a lot for one person to represent… Eastsound Water is going to be impacted by whatever decision they make.”
Kamin clarified that he was appointed by the EPRC as a representative of that body for the Port Master Plan advisory committee, and reminded people that the advisory meetings are open. However there was some confusion as to when the advisory meetings took place and if they were announced as “Open Houses” which took place in January (orcasissues.com/airport-schedules-open-house/) and June (orcasissues.com/join-in-airport-master-plan-discussions/) this year.
Wiese proposed that the subject be placed on the agenda for a future meeting and it was agreed that it would be on the August 3 meeting agenda.
Model depicting some of the proposals for the use of Fern Street Park as a “Plaza”
As the committee turned to the Fern Street Plaza Proposal, Kamin described the model he had made as a representation of the desires for the Fern Street Park between Prune Alley and North Beach Road as expressed in the Eastsound Vision Survey. He said it was “more of a plaza than a park.”
The lot, across North Beach Road from the Village Green, is flanked by private property. It was purchased with county road funds, and in Kamin’s draft model, it accommodates parking on one side (depicted in the model as the east side, but suggested at the meeting that it be moved to the west side) and vehicle drop off, currently shown at the western (North Beach Road) side. The north and south boundaries of the lot were to remain open in Kamin’s draft, as greenbelts that may be developed by the adjacent property owners. It also shows areas for bicycle racks, Electric Vehicle (EV) charging stations and for a small stage area.
Some in the public expressed dismay at the “hardscape” look of the design, and desires for more shade trees was noted.
Kamin brought up that, despite his own opinion that the lot should be made into a through road, “The results of the survey showed three to one that folks preferred this to be a plaza. … It’s a postage stamp of a lot.”
The EPRC then reviewed permit applications for a carport and breakfast nook remodels, and for short plan alteration without comment.
I just want to clarify, that I was not suggesting that a Boeing 727 sized aircraft would be landing at the Port of Orcas. Rather, I was addressing a mistaken impression an attendee of the meeting. This attendee had, like me, understood for the Port’s Master Plan meeting in June that currently planes landing at the Eastsound airport could be in danger of touching wings as one traveled on the runway and another traveled on the taxiway. That is not the case. I explained that for a plane to touch wings with another plane as one passed the other with the current separation of the runway(~100′), they would have to be planes with 100 foot wingspans- something as large or larger than a 727. Tony Simpson has assured me that no planes that large would be landing at Eastsound airport.
Factually incorrect:
Toxey said that by expanding the airport to comply with safety standards for wing separation for the “Caravans” operated by Kenmore Air and others, it would step up to the next class of aircraft size which could include Boeing 727s.
The 727 is a C-III aircraft and minimum runway length for a 727 to operate would be about 7,000 ft at a greatly reduced takeoff/landing weight.
As I’ve said many times…overall pavement length gets shorter in all of the alternatives.
These kinds of statements are sensational hyperbole.
The FAA doesn’t really want any chance of swapping paint and if you’re a passenger, neither do you.
Examples of Group II aircraft are a Cessna Citation X jet or a Beechcraft King Air 90 prop.
There’s even a better assurance than that: don’t expand.
I can understand, Tony, how you could have read this article where I was misquoted and thought I was exaggerating. I think I was typing my correction as you were typing in your response.
That said, it still sounds as if you’re suggesting there are aircraft Eastsound airport could accommodate today with the current runway length & 100+ feet of separation between runway and taxiway that could ‘swap paint’ as one taxis and one lands or takes off. What are these planes with over 100ft wingspans that could touch as they pass?
Editor’s comment: We at Orcas Issues are invested in accurate, factual presentation, including quotes. Sometimes we make mistakes and that’s the beauty of Community Journalism, thank you to readers like Charles Toxey and Tony Simpson who clarify the discussion. We regret the misquote and inaccuracy implied in the above article and look forward to further discussion on the Airport Master Plan.
Citation X – Landing Distance: 4693 ft
= Red Herring / Hyperbole
Could, Never, Land Here
No, the safety margin is to create space to handle runway/taxiway excurions – i.e. when an aircraft departs the prepared surface, there is buffer to keep them from hitting…it keeps a bad event from being catastrophic. — I guess on some level you’re right. If the airplane is on the runway and the airplane is on the taxiway, they never touch…that’s not an acceptable level of safety to the FAA, nor me as a pilot at an established airport. From a liability standpoint, the airport is on delicate ground if we don’t meet or pursue the safety standard…it would smack of gross negligence.
Before someone asks, yes, “excursions” happen with regular frequency, most commonly due to tire or brake failure. I’ve seen about 10, first-hand, mostly live in my flying career. In my 5 years here, We’ve had 5, and I’ve seen one at Friday Harbor. So, about 1 a year right here. I’d much rather have 165′ between the wingtips of 9 passenger airplanes than 100′ and right now we have 96’…but given all the other constraints, we’ll probably end up with 100’+ and nothing close to 165′.
“The FAA doesn’t really want any chance of swapping paint and if you’re a passenger, neither do you.”
So are you saying that the current airport use by Caravans is unsafe? If so, why does the Port allow those operations?
I fly these flights frequently and never feel unsafe—principally because I don’t recall there ever being more than one active at a time. Nor do I think that Kenmore would fly in unsafe conditions.
In some senses, it’s safer to drive a Sherman tank than a VW Beetle. That doesn’t mean driving the Beetle is unsafe.
So if what Tony Simpson is saying of not meeting safety standard is our current situation which qualifies as gross negligence by his latest comments, Really ! So how long has this been going on ?
The Citation X as well as the Beechcraft King Air 90 were straight from DOWL’s materials that Leah was talking from at the June Master Plan meeting as an example of aircraft that could land at a B-II airport, after she said the Port wanted to be a B-II airport. I asked her specifically what planes in addition to the Caravan would allowed at a B-II airport. She indicated those two planes on her chart – the ones labled “B-II”. So, if the Citation X is not a plane that could land here, please tell DOWL so they can stop referencing it, and remove it from the presentation materials, as well as the touching wings part of her presentation that turned out not to be accurate. There was no reference to excursions in her presentation, but that makes sense, and I appreciate you explaining it.
I and others came out the June Master Plan meeting believing what we were told, that the Citation X and Beechcraft King Air 90 could land here and that the runway/taxiway separation was so close that planes wings could touch as they passed each other. Please don’t accuse me of hyperbole when I repeat what was stated in the Master Plan presentation.
So, ‘swapping paint’ is not a concern. But, planes going off the runway toward the taxiway is, and that is the FAA’s rationale for widening the separation.
I think it would go a long way toward calming residents’ concerns if you could tell us upper limit of planes (sizewise) that can now land here and if there would be any change to what kind of plane could land here if the runway is widened/modified as you propose in alternatives 2,3, and 4.
North Beach Road: What is really needed there is four foot paved shoulders (bike lane) on each side! And that isn’t even in the discussion?! Incredible! That’s the route for students, from the school to the dense North Beach residential area!
How wide is North Beach Road now? How could eight feet in width be added?
“I fly these flights frequently and never feel unsafe—principally because I don’t recall there ever being more than one active at a time. Nor do I think that Kenmore would fly in unsafe conditions.“
That’s precisely correct, Peggy.
There is money involved and this is the true reason for the sudden concern. Let’s be very honest about this and let’s also really resist judging anyone because of it.
We are all cut from the same cloth more or less and to pretend that each of us hasn’t been tempted to conflate oranges and apples as one and the same in pursuit of the “green” is simply not honest or helpful for maintaining respectful relationships.
So we forget judging anyone lesser or greater than thou and simply call things out as we see them, keep it from being personal and do a course correction. The we move on.
That’s what participating and paying attention means. We catch ourselves before making an error of judgment and adjust and fine tune a better outcome.
In the case of the airport expansion, the reasons given for such an inappropriate (based on proportionality) intrusion into Eastsound’s footprint simply fails the test of reason and necessity.
Let’s not expand; let the money go! Keeping what’s left of Eastsound’s natural eco-system and integral sense and feel is simply more important than the money being dangled before us.
We can live for now and perhaps happily ever after with the very proportional, fitting and lovely airport that now exists. It works. We can maintain it with the resources on hand and in the current revenue stream.
Dan I’ve tentatively been willing to donate right of way for sidewalk and bike lane in addition to a continuous left turn (middle) lane at the intersection to help flow if consideration to airport entrance off north beach were acceptable…nobody wants that, so we’ll probably never give up land for “development “ like sidewalks and bike paths. The gravel path is part of the rural character and charm.
I’ve been trying to say…these improvements, even at most extreme, will not result in any direct changes in the aircraft using the runway…
I say it again…the overall pavement length gets SHORTER… if anything, some jets will stop coming
I’m getting tired of writing it because it seems nobody reads
Peg Manning, the County has a 60 foot roadway easement for North Beach Road, between School Road and Mt. Baker Road.
Tony, the North Beach Path already runs through Port property for over 400 feet, along the east side of the old dog park. Are you saying if consideration for airport expansion is not acceptable, that path could be taken away by the Port?