EPRC Moves Ahead with Prune Alley “Streetscape” Improvement Plans

At the Jan. 5 regular meeting of the Eastsound Planning Review Committee (EPRC), Committee members, with the assistance of Shannon Wilbur, County Engineer and veteran architect Bill Trogden, of the Eastsound Design Review Subcommittee, fleshed out some plans for advancing the Eastsound “Streetscape” design.

One of the purposes of the Streetscape Plan is to identify all on street parking in the village core, basically the area defined by Main Street and the Prune Alley-North Beach Road roads.

Plans are drafted with an eye towards Prune Alley improvements such as:

• expanding sidewalks, curbs and parking onto Prune Alley and the cross streets that connect Prune Alley with North Beach Road
• incorporating radius curbs (designed like those found at the intersection of “A” Street and North Beach Road)
• providing disability access, mandated by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

The County plans to chip-seal Prune Alley in 2014, and it is hoped some of these improvements can be done at the same time.

EPRC member and architect Fred Klein obtained plans made by Greg Bronn in 2005, and the committee reviewed them to firm up suggestions. Klein said, “I’m hoping we can get the county to take a portion of the funds allocated for chipseal to put in radius curbs or landscape bubbles that are so prominent in our scheme to keep the scale of North Beach road pretty pleasant — with the combination of  parallel, diagonal and elimination of some parking.”

Committee members agreed to work on a plan to move ahead, with Klein and Trogden to talk to Prune Alley property owners on the options present in the Streetscape Plan.

Klein said, “This is a way to get individuals in the community invested in an overall plan that’s going to work. If we can deal with intersections at this stage of the game and end up with chipsealing, at least people will get an impact of the idea of the improvements [that can be made.]

“The best plan will come from melding streetscape guidelines with individual property owners,” Klein said.