Deconstructing Waterfront Development

Wendy Harris is a retired citizen who comments on development, mitigation and environmental impacts.

A revised Waterfront District Sub Area Plan (the “waterfront plan”) drafted by the Linville administration was released to the public on March 14, 2013 (presentation to the city planning commission). It was developed in private meetings with the port over a two year period and reflects a complex redevelopment plan that will take decades to complete. The waterfront is now being developed under the city’s “urban village” standards (more density, taller and bigger buildings, etc.) and requires cleanup and sale of publicly-owned waterfront land as the primary source of funding.

Strong opposition to the Linville proposal was reflected in testimony during public hearings before the city planning commission, the city council and the port commission. Local environmentalists and labor formed a coalition, the Blue Green Waterfront Alliance, to request changes in the waterfront proposal. Many Bellingham city council members voiced disappointment with the plan. Notwithstanding any of this, the Linville plan was enacted into law through a 6-1 vote (Jack Weiss opposed) on December 2, 2013, a mere nine months after it was first publicly introduced.

How did the city administration sell the city council on an unpopular and complex redevelopment plan within a remarkably short period of time? Things like this do not happen by accident. It reflects careful staging of the planning process, leveraging the benefits from discarded waterfront plans and control over public messaging.

Advocacy and Access

I credit the city staff for being effective advocates. The problem is that they were not treated as project advocates. The city council utilized the staff as neutral and unbiased public servants. After working with the port for two years to develop the waterfront plan, under directive from the mayor to “git ’er done,” investing time and career credibility on this project, the city staff was anything but unbiased.

Not only did they have an agenda, they also had access to the city council. During council’s review process, they controlled the information that was provided (and withheld). Every council question answered, every plan provision explained, was an opportunity to advocate under the guise of neutrality. Only the positive aspects of the Linville plan were addressed by staff. Necessary trade-offs, matters of public controversy, and the issue of tribal treaty rights were discussed only in response to a council or public inquiry.

At the same time, the public had extremely limited access to the city council. Only one public hearing before the city council was scheduled at the very beginning of the review process. The public had no voice at the council/staff waterfront work sessions, where the real work was done. Although written comment could be submitted at any time, the city council would ask for the administrative staff’s evaluation and response. Is it any surprise that the staff generally discounted public concerns? With the first and the last word on a matter, staff almost always prevailed. This left the public without an effective voice.

Managing The Planning Process: Timing and Packaging

The city administration controlled the planning process to influence the likely outcome in its favor. It created a false sense of urgency by announcing a one-year deadline for waterfront plan review and enactment. Staff provided the planning commission, the hearings examiner, and the city council with schedules and milestones for moving the process along to meet this deadline. The deadline was a fabrication, created without connection to external time constraints. The artificial deadline moved the review process along at a quick pace towards a final vote, and minimized the time for review, and therefore the opportunity for interference, by the public or the council.

This is not insignificant given the volume of plans, contracts and regulations involved. Officially, the master plan documents include the Waterfront District Sub Area Plan, development regulations, design standards, a planned action ordinance, a development agreement and an interlocal agreement for facilities. However, to understand and evaluate the proposal, other documents needed to be reviewed, including the EIS (environmental impact statement), which is actually five separate documents (one of which is a 2012 EIS addendum); the city’s shoreline regulations, and the city’s Critical Area Ordinance, the Waterfront Futures Group Vision and Framework Plan (2005), and the Bellingham Bay Demonstration Pilot.

And the waterfront plan was structured in a way that required all the different parts of this complex deal to be enacted simultaneously. For example, the transfer of public tidelands through street vacation and real property surplus actions, and amendment to the 2013 Shoreline Master Program to increase shoreline development, were drafted in a way that referenced and incorporated the Waterfront District Sub Area Plan. The effect of this was to reduce the council’s ability to make revisions, or delay certain components of the waterfront plan.

Public Messaging

The city administration exploited public myths to achieve success. Perhaps nothing was more powerful than the myth that the Linville plan was the culmination of a lengthy, extensive public process and reflected public input. The staff frequently raised this point, noting that there had already been “xxx number” of public meetings on the waterfront plan, reflecting meetings held by the Waterfront Futures Group (WFG), the Waterfront Advisory Group (WAG), the city planning commission and other citizen appointed boards such as the Arts Commission and the Historic Preservation Commission. Particular emphasis was placed on incorporating the values of the WFG “Waterfront Vision and Framework Plan, 2005.”

This had two important impacts. It helped to convince the city council that there was little reason for delay in enacting the waterfront proposal. After a 10+ year public process, the plan was as good as it was going to get, and there was no need for more public input. It also discredited members of the public who objected to the Linville plan and asked for more time and more public review. It suggested that requests for delay were a tactic for the disgruntled.

Few seem to understand that the Linville plan is at least somewhat disconnected from the prior public process. The Linville plan resulted from a private, two-year collaboration with the port, during which there was no public involvement. The revisions resulting from this process were significant enough for the port to issue a revised EIS, again without public involvement. Public input was limited to review of the plan after it was completed, and very few meaningful changes were ever made to the Linville plan.

A comparison between the Waterfront Vision and Framework Plan and the Linville plan show some sharp contrasts. The guiding principles of the Visions and Framework Plan included large and small open spaces and parks braided throughout the waterfront, intertwined with continuous shoreline trails; areas of retained public ownership; greater visual access to waterfront areas; respect and restoration of natural process, including habitat connectivity; and relocation of waterfront industries.

What the Linville plan provides is disconnected trails; a few larger parks separated by high density development; designated “view corridors” (i.e., views looking down planned roadways); increased waterfront industry; sale of publicly-owned waterfront land, including tidelands; and a strong emphasis on public access and use at the expense of restoration considerations and wildlife protection. In short, the Linville administration is not entitled to draw upon the good will and due process protection generated from the prior public process.

A final example of successful messaging involves those that support the administration. An unsubstantiated claim was made that public input from the visioning process was unrealistic, and advocated things that were impracticable, idealistic, or even utopian. I did not pay too much attention to these claims at first, because they remained in the background. But as the council’s vote approached, these claims, usually made by those appointed to citizen boards by the administration, become more pronounced. It took me a while to understand that this was an attempt to undercut the public’s environmental vision and desire for public ownership of the waterfront.

This sent a subtle message to the council that those who advocated for these things were threatening the economic viability of the waterfront plan. Because the real issue was insinuated, it attempted to discredit people without review of relevant facts. Among these facts are shoreline regulations, enacted more than 40 years ago, which make implementation of “impractical” and “visionary” environmental values a mandatory part of waterfront planning.

We now have a waterfront plan that pleases few except for a very delighted port. This should be a wake-up call to the citizens of Bellingham. Unless we remain engaged and active, especially during protracted, extensive and/or complicated planning processes, we can expect decisions to be made that fail to reflect the values and the interests of the general public.