||| FROM JENNIFER WOODBRIDGE |||
Dear County Council, County Manager, and Community Planner:
Public Works is planning a future for Shaw Island that most Shaw residents have neither asked for nor want. Public Works’ plan includes heavy industrial activity entirely inconsistent with the spirit and intent of the Shaw Subarea Plan. Thirty years ago, 80% of the Shaw community voted “to protect the quiet, rural environment that results from limited commercial activity and a limited transportation network.” Contrary to this Statement of Purpose in the Shaw Subarea Plan, Public Works has filed an application for an A to Z industrial zone on Neck Point Road on Shaw Island.
In their application, Public Works say that their proposal “allows for more uses beyond the industrial needs of Public Works. In the event the County sells the property in the future and another entity choses [their misspelling] to develop it, it could be subject to a wide range of uses.”
This wide range of uses could include a concrete batch plant, like the one at Beaverton Valley on San Juan Island, a wrecking yard, a recycling center, or any kind of heavy industrial use. Instead of developing an 11-acre parcel at considerable further expense that Public Works admits exceeds its needs, the county should meet the infrequent need for maintenance and repair of Shaw’s few roads by continuing to use the existing site with a little ingenuity and a dose of public good will.
Putting this plan aside, the Public Works Department would save the county well over a million dollars that is needed elsewhere while preserving Shaw’s residential character. As Public Works also admitted, it can manage on Shaw with the site it now has for at least the next twenty years.
For these reasons, I strongly oppose this application. I ask that the Public Works’ request for an Essential Public Facility at 1427 Neck Point Road be denied.
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It was hard to understand how the County justified buying the Neck Point road property, for what I believe was a million dollars. And now Public Works is going to start pumping more money into upgrading and improving it and making it an industrial zone in a rural area. I hope the current Council can correct this mistake, sell the property and improve the site that’s already owned and been used by Public Works for many years..