Thursday, June 5 from 4 to 7 p.m. at the Eastsound Fire Station
— from County Development and Planning —
A Public Meeting To Consider and Take Comments on Proposed Amendments To The Eastsound Subarea Plan will be held Between 4 and 7 pm on Thursday, June 5 at the Eastsound Fire Station (Fire District #2) 45 Lavender Lane, Eastsound. The Eastsound Planning Review Committee, along with San Juan County Community Development and Planning Department, will host the public meeting to discuss and take comments on the proposed amendments to the Eastsound Subarea Plan.
Copies of the draft subarea plan and regulations will be available on May 28 on the County’s website at https://www.sanjuanco.com/cdp/cdpdhome.aspx
Hard copies are available by request.
Please direct any comments or questions to Colin Maycock, AICP, at colinm@sanjuanco.com or
360-370-7573, PO Box 947, Friday Harbor, WA, 98250.
This is SO IMPORTANT, people of Eastsound – and people who use Eastsound. We need to let them know our wishes. Otherwise, it’ll be more rape of wetlands and more development with NO protection of wetlands – as evidenced by the last 20 years. Dorothy Austin was much maligned for fighting urbanization of Eastsound – she saw the handwriting on the wall and tried to stop it. Now we are experiencing environmental problems and still, the subarea plan is IGNORED – what little protections there are. We must not let the subarea plan get any more watered down than it is. Please, people – give a damn about what is happening to the narrow land bridge called Eastsound. continued below.
Some things coming to bite Eastsound in the rear:
~ rampant stormwater issues
~ polluting entire watersheds – the most important ones on Orcas are in Eastsound
~ where does the pollution go? Our nearshore environments.
~ Fishing Bay needs protection from pollution, development, and boating. This is the one place where salmon could recover eventually.
~ Eastsound Creek needs to be a creek again – not blocked and filled with development. Because of this development (most of it illegal), Eastsound Swale is mostly dead and the rest will die. We need to STOP the carnage and rebuild it now.
~ No more constructed wetlands and piping in Eastsound!
~ forced sewer will keep expanding like the plague it is. Who will it effect? The poorest people, naturally.
Someone, please care and speak out for us. continued below
~ rampant mature tree destruction on a narrow sea-level unstable piece of land one mile wide that is a wind tunnel.
~ don’t let “mitigation” fool you. Planting two young trees in place of one MATURE tree will NEVER mitigate anything. There needs to be a water hookup and tree cutting moratorium in ANY wetland in the Eastsound basin.
LIGHT POLLUTION – Eastsound is full of it. I took a walk around town and there are so many spotlights glaring into the eyes of pedestrians. We can no longer see the night sky and stars in Eastsound Village and residential. I come from a town of 50,000 people where we can still see the night sky! There is no excuse for this. Light sources should be hidden; no high spotlights or motion lights. All light should face downward or onto the building. Some good examples of responsible lighting are:
1) the liquor store – well done with the spotlight! faces IN toward bldg.
2) Craftsmen Corner – despite my issues with his continued EAstsound Swale violations, Mr. Pearson got his lighting right. Tasteful and downward facing, light source hidden.
Stormwater is the biggest issue Eastsound faces. Nothing is being done uphill to stop erosion, tree clearing, building impervious surfaces, etc. I don’t know why septic systems are so maligned up there on the hill, when so many worse abuses are happening up-slope. if a septic system is properly maintained, it is NOT a problem.
continued…
Public Works owns the piece of land south of Lavender Hollow and North of the gym. Please collectively say NO to their spending tons of grant monies to engineer and build yet another constructed wetland there (and put a road through to Orion Lane, by apartments and a school).
Look at the constructed wetland behind the stage on the Green – all the weeds they hauled away in that beautiful soil are back again with a vengeance. Partly it’s because they don’t budget enough for maintenance in perpetuity. Partly it’s be ause there are no trees or barriers to keep out the weeds as they blow in. PW had Orcas Ex haul out 260 10-yard dump trucks of wetland soil – 2600 yards! – soil that had been there forever. That soil was full of Noxious weeds, PW said (then they sold it, and gave it to people in our community, including Joe Cohen, who put in a development IN the Swale -with that soil! So now more of the Swale gets downgraded to a lower status, so even more development can happen. Eastsound Swale was DROWNED by stormwater.
How can a wetland be part of a greater wetland system, and yet be downgraded so that more of its trees can be destroyed? How??
We must use less harmful solutions. If we can save filtering mature trees – that is a start. Please tell the County to STOP letting people mature trees.
Eastsound Basin is a flood zone, tsunami and earthquake zone. Why are we letting the County do this to our island, to our town? Is it all for greed for the few?
Making Eastsound a UGA means that over 50% of our population will need to live in the UGA. Who do you think will make up that demographic? Mostly poor and fixed and moderate income people. Those people will least be able to afford
Eastsound water, sewer, and all the other costs.
continued….
There is some talk of having a Utility distict – water, sewer, broadband, maybe garbage. What does this mean in terms of costs to the taxpayers, and who will bear the brunt of this? the poor and moderate income people of Eastsound.
What about road widening on Prune Alley, all so delivery trucks don’t keep killing our trees? A few months ago a delivery truck hit one of the pear trees at Rays Pharmacy. It is slowly dying. How do you replace a piece of island history? That tree is old (well, now it’s dying a slow untimely death.) How about SMALLER TRUCKS? Why should we widen the road – what parking will really be gained? Who loses? Landowners like Michael Budnik, who have tried to add beauty to our town.
Are we going to choose to be a viable and vital town and a close knit community, working together to save and rebuild what has been destroyed, or are we going to let Eastsound be a golden cash-cow for a few to get rich while developing the heck out of it and destroying it for the rest of us and all non-human life? The developments on Lovers Lane and behind the Landmark Inn are cringe-worthy for myriad reasons. How and why do we allow this? What is Eastsound going to become, and mean to Islanders? To the tourists whose business we hope to attract? It’s up to US.
And isn’t it, after all, about more than simply attracting business and selling the Dream? What dream are we selling? Who do we want to attract here? Speculative land buyers and developers? Eco-tourists? Shop-aholics? We would do well to consider what planning actually is. 20 years out is too narrow of a vision. 7 generations out may be more viable if we are to survive and not take out the rest of life with us.
The end.