Trillium Wants Bellingham’s Blessing to Build More Homes on Cordata Parkway

Dian McClurg is a journalism student at Western Washington University. She was an editor for The Western Front this spring and summer. Dian believes in the power of civic journalism and the need for residents to get involved in their neighborhoods.

Residents in the Guide Meridian neighborhood near the Cordata Parkway don’t have a park. They don’t have a historic site to rally around. Jeff Jewell, from the Whatcom Museum of History and Art, said that the museum doesn’t even keep track of Cordata Parkway. But projects are hoppin’ in the industrial land of Guide Meridian and the population in that new part of town could rise dramatically in the next few years.

Charles Vincent and Jessie Ella Wilder owned half a mile of land between Smith Road, in north Bellingham, and I-5 for nearly 30 years.

Wilder’s cattle grazed the land that now lies in 37 acres of gently rolling open space along Cordata Parkway, north of Whatcom Community College.

The Trillium Corporation bought a large portion of that land in the early 1980s.

Bellingham planners decided that those particular acres should be developed for industrial use in 1992 when city limits stretched to include that area. The planning department thought that Trillium’s land, as well as the rest of the Cordata neighborhood, would provide a unique location for an industrial park.

Now Trillium wants to develop the land for residences, and not everyone at city hall or from the Cordata neighborhood approves. Trillium’s proposal states that only 13 of the 37 acres between Horton and Stuart Roads are available for development because of the extensive wetland system that runs throughout the property.

The interested groups all have different concerns in mind with Trillium’s proposal. Trillium wants to develop the land for residences because only residential developers have shown an interest in the site, Trillium project manager Chris Benner said.

The city is concerned with issues such as traffic, the loss of industrial land and how to best protect the wetland system.

Charles Melton has lived with his wife on West Kellogg Road for five years. His home is near the community college and the site where Trillium wants to develop the land for houses. He said he is concerned about traffic.

“It’s going to be a nightmare when they all (future homeowners) want to make a left turn in the morning to head into town,” he said.

North Cordata contains a network of homes, condominiums, apartments and assisted living facilities. Scattered along the quiet parkway are also several medical buildings, business offices, storage units and light industrial buildings. All traffic from these homes and businesses must enter busy Guide Meridian Road either through Kellogg Road or Horton Road, or by going still farther south to the intersections surrounding Bellis Fair Mall.

Kellogg Road is often congested with college traffic. Intersections further south are busy with mall traffic. Horton Road connects directly to the Guide Meridian without a traffic light to ensure that vehicles are safely merging into or exiting the flow of busy transport along that arterial street.

Bellingham City Councilmember Bob Ryan is particularly concerned about adding more residential traffic to Guide Meridian.

“I’m not willing to agree to allowing anymore rezoning from industrial to residential until we come to some agreement about what to do with traffic,” Ryan said.

City planners hope to pass a gas tax this year that would allow them to put money into a pot reserved for widening the Guide Meridian—a project with a nearly $108 million price tag, Bob Ryan said. This project aims to thin the traffic on the Guide Meridian, but Ryan said it could take five years at the earliest to see the widening finished.

“I feel that Trillium needs to step up to the plate and help the city with traffic issues,” Ryan said. “We need some pressure-relief valve off of Meridian.”

Trillium project manager Chris Benner said Trillum has determined that a residential development would not have a significant impact on traffic. He said an industrial development would likely create more traffic than the planned 105 single-family residences.

In addition, state officials plan to install a traffic light on the Cordata and Kellogg intersection this year, Benner said. A traffic light for the Guide Meridian and Horton intersection is in the works, he added.

No wetland restrictions existed when Trillium first purchased this property. Now, strict regulations have pared 24 acres off of their marketable land. The pockets of protected wetland and the uneven topography mean that development has to occur in small packages best suited for residential planning, Trillium project manager Chris Benner said.

“We want to use the wetlands as an amenity for residents,” he said. “Industrial developers would see them as a component that eats into their usable area.”

The question is: Which type of development has more of a negative impact on the sensitive aquatic system?

Bellingham city planner Chris Spens said that, in general, an industrial development has a higher impact on wetlands and streams than the same square feet of residential development.

Joan Cabreza, an environmental scientist for the Environmental Protection Agency, said that the amount of impact would depend on the type of industry. The direct impact from either type of development is the same, she said. Industries that produce a truly toxic byproduct would take their waste somewhere else and not dump it on their own property, she said. It is the indirect impacts that are important, she said.

Indirect impacts include the light, noise and storm-water drainage that come from a development and disturb the wetlands, Cabreza said. If both types of development would have the same amount of indirect impacts, then human trespassing would tip the scale toward residences, she said.

“Kids and dogs can really be destructive,” she said.

Trillium project manager Chris Benner said that Trillium is, of course, concerned about wetland health, but wetland regulations are the same whether the development is industrial or residential.

“We sell off the industrial land as well as the residential,” he said. “At that point, it’s out of our hands and the regulations are in control either way.”

Doug Starcher, chairperson of the Bellingham Planning Commission, said he was concerned about a concentrated residential development near the wetlands. The commission, in fact, suggested denial of Trillium’s proposal to the city council on July 15 but not entirely because of the wetlands. They were also concerned about traffic and a loss of industrial land. See sidebar Trillium’s Request Denied.

Starcher said, in fact, that Trillium would probably be the right company to develop the 13 acres into residences.

“Based on what I’ve seen and heard of their developments, Trillium has often done more than they were required to,” Starcher said. “They seem to me to be the likely choice to ask to do more than the minimum because it’s the right thing to do.”

Trillium’s Chris Benner said that if the council approved the new land use, Trillium would use their signature low-impact development techniques to put in the infrastructure needed to build homes on the property. The company would install the lights, the low-impact storm-water drainage and the sewer system. Then, Benner said, they would sell the developed land to a builder to put in the homes.

Contrary to the planning commission, the city’s planning department recommended approval of Trillium’s proposal. The city was concerned, however, with the loss of industrial land on Cordata, said city planner Pat Carman. Therefore, the department required Trillium to make 13 acres of their property north of Horton Road, which was available for either residential or industrial development, into an industrial-development-only site.

“The department staff felt that if we were going to have a loss of industrial land that had services, then we would want to have that amount of developable land available on the other side,” Carman said.

West Kellogg Road resident Charles Melton said he believes the only reason Trillium brought their proposal forward is because they have a developer who wants to build houses on the site.

“My main heartburn is that the plan they’ve got could just as easily work for industrial developing,” Melton said.

However, the city planners’ assessment determined that, generally, residential development can be more readily designed to work around sites with extensive environmental constraints.

Trillium project manager Chris Benner said that the property has been on the market for 15 years, but Trillium has not received one offer from an industrial developer.

Bob Libolt, Trillium vice president of development, told the city council that Trillium would like the flexibility to respond to the market.

“Cordata has developed a certain amount of industrial sites,” he said. “We don’t think this property is going to be industrially developed and we may lose the opportunity to do anything with it after awhile.”

Doug Starcher, chairperson of the Bellingham Planning Commission, agreed with Libolt. He said that right now the market has more demand for residential land.

The commission, though, was still concerned that Trillium’s proposal was not consistent with the Cordata Business Park plan. The commission’s analysis stated that when the area became part of Bellingham, the city expected that the primary benefit to the community would be mixed-use development and the promise of high-wage jobs that would come with it.

Residential development would simply add to the already present pool of potential employees.