||| FROM NATALIE MENACHO |||
Hey Islander!
I hope this little San Juan County love note finds you reveling in the verdant opulence of springtime.
We all moved here for the love of our islands. Gorgeous nature. Tight-knit community. Sweet rural vibes. With gratitude, I think most of us have a pretty nice life here.
Okay. So now imagine OVER 100,000 people living here. Yikes! And this number would not be including visitors. That’s a bonkers thought, right? Would this still be a place you would want to live? Hmmm.
Did you know that currently, our county’s buildout population is 134,000 people? Is this what we’re plaaaaaaning for? Ahhhh!
Okay, so let’s be stewards of not only the land, but also the legislation. Let’s ensure we’re passing along a sustainable and well-cared for county for future generations.
For decades our local government has avoided conversations regarding growth potential. I gotta tell ya, I’m not a big fan of “the market” deciding our islands’ futures. We need these numbers validated. We need to see why over 100,000 people living in SJC is a viable, sustainable, and acceptable possibility. It just doesn’t pencil out for me. I don’t want San Juan County to be the next Nantucket or Martha’s Vineyard. I want open space! I want truth in planning! I want the county to address the unwieldiness of growth. Don’t you?
I urge you to contact the Planning Commission (lyndag@sanjuanco.com ) in support of Docket Request 21-0003. Interested in studying further? Get the details here: http://doebay.net/
More than anything, I encourage you to speak from your heart about the importance of safeguarding our county’s future and keeping growth in check.
Please take action and urge the county for a “Truth in Planning” document and to conduct a proper, verifiable, public buildout analysis. Please urge the county to act in alignment with our Vision Statement. Growth is a slippery slope and it’s nearly impossible to move backward once it’s too late.
As we head into more social and jovial times, I hope you will incorporate this important topic into your conversations. Please take action and contact the planning commission and our County Council.
Thank you so much for reading this and taking ACTION. I wish you well.
**If you are reading theOrcasonian for free, thank your fellow islanders. If you would like to support theOrcasonian CLICK HERE to set your modestly-priced, voluntary subscription. Otherwise, no worries; we’re happy to share with you.**
Holy fearmongering Batman. It turns out if you ignore all context, you TOO can play with the County’s land capacity maps and make them say any number you want them to!
I believe there is a conversation here worth having and we should look hard at what our resources on these islands can realistically sustain, but this type of sensationalism can only serve to hurt having open and honest conversations.
I followed the links provided and read the information, the math and manipulation of the data within is dubious. The calculations are opaque, and the number of assumptions made are vast and stunning. There is not a good faith effort here to truly understand the level of development being planned for, it’s just a bunch of numbers thrown in a spreadsheet. A conclusion was reached, and then worked backwards with data manipulated to support that conclusion.
For instance, the author assumes that fully developed parcels (parcels with no further development capacity according to our planning) will have an additional 1,941 building added to them. Why? Who knows! There’s not an actual argument, context or clear formula for interpreting the data, it’s just a bunch of random assumptions and ta-da! Huge scary number.
This post would have you believe that 143,000 people are moving to our small island community, except that number assumes that somehow 90,000 people will live in the Town of Friday Harbor at 128 people per acre. This is so outside the realm of reality that it’s baffling anyone would take it seriously. It’s also worth noting that the County, who this issue is addressed to, does not do population growth planning for the Town of Friday Harbor.
Of course the potential for growth in our islands would appear exponential if you did not actually look at how any of the parcels are currently being used and completely ignore any and all market factors. Not to mention the obvious context that if even 1/10th that amount of people were added to our population through development (or roughly the current size of our County population) we would already be drastically changing our development code in response to this huge migration of people long before we approached anywhere near what the authors purport.
Again I am all for having this conversation, but let’s start a place of reality and not sensationalism. The citizens spreading this information would do well to pay more attention to the nitty gritty details of the “show your work” portion of these statistics than the eye catching summation. Just because you can put a bunch of numbers and assumptions into an excel workbook does not make it true or real.
“That’s bonkers, right?” Indeed it is.
Well said, Henry Stamper! OF COURSE San Juan County needs to plan for the future, but as Mr. Stamper points out, the discussion needs to be based in the real world, not rooted in fear based paranoia. 20 years ago we were told there would be 30K people in SJC by 2020… and unless 50% of those people are invisible, I’m not seeing them. “Pull up the drawbridge behind ME” is a common attitude for newcomers to the island and 30 years ago I used to feel the same way, so I have some empathy for that position. However, after a few decades you start to realize that the frantic handwaving by chicken little is as regular as the tide and, so far, none of the various nightmare scenarios that we were/are told would lead to the end of life as we know it, has come to pass. Take a deep breath and relax. There are real problems in the world that are worth trying to do something about, but hundreds of thousands of people moving to the San Juans is not one of them.
Well said by the both of you!!! I agree wholeheartedly.
I love the analogy of Martha’s Vineyard and Cape Cod after having lived in Boston for 11 years and abandoned attempts to even try to drive to the Cape because of the horrendous traffic of everyone else on the planet trying to get there. Being Washington natives, my wife and I have witnessed so much growth over the decades, even in my little hometown in Kittitas county. I think what will limit growth on the island here is the availability of water. This is just a guess on my part but has been an issue in other communities experiencing growth. I appreciate the effort of my friends in the San Juan Preservation Trust who are doing a great job of helping retain the rural nature of these lands. We feel blessed having purchased 5 acres near Doe Bay in 1992 and having built a home. Still seems pretty rural on our side of the ‘horseshoe’.
The Big Lie–
Thank you Joe… for all your hard work, and for illuminating the obvious.
This is not conjecture (Henry)… this is science. The oldest saying in real estate is, “If it can sell it will sell”. Joe has a doctorate degree, has served as the accountant on the board of many of the local non-profits here in the San Juans, and has been correcting the county’s numbers for over 40 years. He walks his talk.
Ken, when you state, ““Pull up the drawbridge behind ME” is a common attitude for newcomers to the island and 30 years ago I used to feel the same way…” don’t you really mean that you use to have that attitude until you got on the gravy train and figured out how to make money off of it? Though this attitude may exist in the minds of some, I do not personally know anyone who fits this mold, and neither is this a part of the debate. This is simply a part of the big lie perpetuated by those who make money off of the real-estate industry… but you already knew that.
When you state, “20 years ago we were told there would be 30K people in SJC by 2020… and unless 50% of those people are invisible, I’m not seeing them,” I am. That is, I can drive around the neighborhood and see many “uncounted people” who are living in trailers, tents, outbuildings, and I know of more who live in basements, buses, campers, garages, their cars, and tee pees. This is, sadly, the only way that many can afford to live here full-time thanks in large part by the combination of a local government that does not have the will to do anything about it, and a rapacious real-estate industry that despite having a banner year is still screaming for more. “As much as the market can bear,” is the term that comes to mind. Responsible government is one that pays attention to the symptoms relative to these phenomena, and does something about it before it’s to late… sadly, historically speaking, that would not be San Juan County.
Over-tourism, and over-growth do lead to nightmare scenarios in small, seasonal resort communities like our’s. This is not a secret… but you knew that. Part of the big lie is simply the spin by those who denigrate the authors of the studies that illuminate these issues, and try (like you are doing here) to minimize the cause and effect of that which they speak of. “It will never happen here,” also being a part of the big lie, went out the window years ago… this is something that is happening in many places.
You should be ashamed of yourself Ken. Your spin is part of the big lie, and it lends itself towards the old saying, “that it’s 99% of the realtors out there that give the rest a bad name”.
As far as I understand, after emailing with Joe about it, Docket Request 21-0003 has three purposes:
1) to ask the county to verify that the surprisingly-high numbers for the total legal buildout limit from the county’s Gross Developable Land Inventory (GDLI) are, in fact, correct.
2) to ask the county to assess the impact on fresh water, ferries, traffic, community, environment, habitat, taxes, noise, etc., given that the current legal buildout limit, according to GDLI summary (http://doebay.net/sunshine/GDLICharts.xlsx), is over 8x the county’s current population.
3) to ask the county to demonstrate how the potential additional population and its associated impacts align with the county’s adopted Vision Statement. As I understand it, the Vision Statement (https://www.sanjuanco.com/DocumentCenter/View/15824/2018-06-19_VIS_CC_Adopted_Vision_Clean) defines the guiding principles which the Comp Plan is intended to fulfill.
The Truth in Planning proposal should be adopted. It should have been adopted 20 years ago, but perhaps it took the last 20 years of a hot real estate market to make enough environmental residents realize that their environment was being taken from them.
I missed the deadline for the Planning Commission meeting but will still write them and council. Was a decision made one way or the other? There has never been truth in planning in my 40 years here. We may not have actual “lobbyists” here, but we have deep pockets and a thriving, profiteering industry pushing the narrative – and the market value which is merely a number, not law by any means.
If there is truth in planning, why is the so called “planning” dept in the county now called Dept of Community Development? Planning used to be the first word in the name of that dept; then Planning was relegated to a place behind the word “Development,” and then, dropped altogether out of the name of that department. That speaks volumes. This is how we got over 100 vacation rentals in Eastsound and 1000 on the islands. (Yet Friday Harbor is exempted from the whole vacay rental mess because they are the county seat. This is how we got those buildout numbers and it seems as if the aim of the Development Dept. is to actually achieve them. The Visitors Bureau, Chamber of Commerce, Economic Development, Real Estate Industry, and building industry are all in cahoots to keep tourism as the sole industry, as is the Development Dept. It’s why nothing else gets permitted, no matter how great the ideas. Let us not forget the many County Commissioners/Councilors who have betrayed us along the way.
This place is being, for lack of a better word, pimped-out to the highest bidder. Middle class people are being outbid on houses they are trying to buy. Someone offers double rent so that someone else depending on 3 jobs to pay their reasonable rent is homeless- as nauseum. It’s happening everywhere; only these islands in this archipelago are tiny, finite, jewels and we are throwing them toward the swine of corruption and profiteering. I’m with Michael Johnson in the disgust I feel, as well as deep grief. I have watched this for so many years; the justification to cut down old venerable trees, maim or clearcut forested wetlands and madrona groves to make way for more pillage, er, I mean, “progress.” What we are doing to shoreline ecosystems is criminal. This mindset is parasitic, gobbling up life and destroying crucial ecosystems. There are many people who have tried and tried to save these places – sometimes in great numbers – but our pleas have fallen on deaf ears; there’s no profit in THAT.
I need to correct an assumption made in the last comment; I have had relations with some of the planners on whose shoulders the work falls, from orders from “on high.” By no means is this directed at them – I realize what position they are in.
There are already plans in place to expand the UGA, given the sale of Fred Klein’s almost 30 forested acres to OPAL. OPAL has assumed that this will happen. Imagine the traffic impacts of changing density to 8 units per acre in a parcel this large. The time to be on top of this is decades ago, but now is as good a time as any. This is not “chicken little-ism.” The changes are mainly in the UGA so that anyone in their ivory tower outside of the egregious impact on these lands has no right to even speak of it.
These were, and are, sacred lands to the Tribes from who these lands were stolen. Bones have been found in every major (or minor) development here “in town.” We are violating this sacred ground; Outlook Inn, Haven Road developments, The hole-in-the-ground hotel/boutique, which “gains” a whopping 5 parking spaces net, which won’t even cover the parking of guests and employees. Time for the county to tell us the truth of how these types of permit can even have been allowed. They will tell you the GMA but that is only part of the truth, since counties define their own regulations.
Michael – You are entitled to your opinion, no matter how idiotic, but when you attack me personally, you have crossed the line from discussion to libel and slander. I expected better from you; my mistake.
How predictable. The “I’ll sue you” inference is one of the most used tactics within the tourism-growth industry that’s employed in an effort to force our county leaders into backing their position. And they call you “My constituents”? Not to worry now that our county prosecutor has, like you, gotten on the band wagon, and recently invested in his first vacation rental… things are only looking up for growth-at-all-costs industry.
You’re not the injured party here. A level playing field will only be found when both sides of the issue acknowledge the arguments of the other. We understand that you make a lot of money, and that you feel your property rights supercedes the rights of others, but it’s a matter of scale, and your seeming inability to acknowledge that the pursuit of your industrial dream is killing the dream of others does not begin to allow for reasonable debate. Conservationists, environmentalists, and preservationists views are not idiotic, and they deserve an equal seat at the table. When you minimize their views (as you and others do), you’re leaving out half of the equation. When you’re
telling only a part of the truth, but not the whole truth, and nothing but the truth… you’re telling a lie.
How can you tell when a SJC realtor is telling a lie? When you see their lips moving. Go ahead and sue me.
I work for FEMA and was deployed to the island of Saipan (Northern Mariana islands) a year ago. The island is roughly 46 sq miles and the population is 47,565 . Orcas Island is roughly 57 sq miles, 10 sq miles larger, and has a population of 5,387. I can easily imagine the population of Orcas growing by another 44,000 people and I have seen what that looks like. If that island in the middle of nowhere has grown to that amount of people, I would think that we should be very concerned about Orcas becoming overcrowded too. Much easier to get here!
References:
Saipan – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saipan
Orcas – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orcas_Island