Letter to Editor | About that public works project on Shaw

||| FROM ELIZABETH HANCE |||

Public Works is planning a future for Shaw Island that it neither asked for nor wants. This future would include heavy industrial activity 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. 

Anytime the zoning is changed on a property in the County I am concerned about the impacted neighbors and the change to the neighborhood. As County residents we rely on the zoning regulations as a significant part of our due diligence when choosing where to live and buy property. Unsuspecting impacted property owners should be a primary consideration when our local government decides to supersede the current zoning regulations and significant effort should be made by our government to be transparent and accountable to the will of the residents. Public Works has not honestly considered the Shaw Island residents concerns from the beginning of this process and appears to be continuing without regard to the island’s majority opinion.

In their application, they 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. 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 with the site it now has for at least the next twenty years.

For all of these reasons, I oppose this application. I ask that the Public Works request for an Essential Public Facility at 1427 Neck Point Road be denied.

Additionally, I would like to know if the council and planners have reviewed the Short Plat restrictions that encumber the parcel for the proposed project. I have attached the plat and a snip of the single family residence language.