Downzoning the Lake Whatcom Watershed

Tom Pratum is a Lake Whatcom resident who is very concerned about the future of the lake.

Since the temporary moratorium on the acceptance of new subdivision applications in the Lake Whatcom watershed was passed by the County Council on December 11, there has been much discussion and county staff time devoted to the generation of watershed protection measures.

The stated purpose of the moratorium is to allow the county time to adopt policies which would mitigate the stormwater impacts of new development. The temporary moratorium is scheduled to expire in mid-June, unless extended prior to that time.

In order to mitigate the impacts of future development, measures are being considered which involve both structural items such as stormwater treatment, and non-structural items such as proper watershed planning. One of the primary tools in watershed protection is the use of zoning to control land use.

A recent survey found that 90 percent of jurisdictions containing surface water supply reservoirs used zoning in their watersheds for this purpose, with 68 percent restricting development to lots of one acre or more in size.¹

Recognizing that, in addition to having an unknown level of success, structural watershed protection measures would be expensive. County Councilmember Dan McShane floated the idea of downzoning virtually the entire watershed to one home per five acres at the County Council Natural Resources Committee meeting on April 30. At such a density, it seems likely that stormwater impacts would be mitigated on-site, obviating the need for expensive treatment.

McShane’s proposal excluded Sudden Valley, but in other areas proposed converting UR3 zoning (three homes per acre) to R2A zoning (one home per two acres), and all other rural and residential zoning designations (RR1 – one home per acre, RR2 – two homes per acre, and R2A – one home per two acres) to R5A (one home per five acres).

In order to evaluate this proposal, the current land use of the residential areas of the watershed was analyzed from the database obtained from the office of the Whatcom County Assessor. Every attempt was made to include all areas of the watershed that were not zoned for forestry (zoning designations CF or RF).²

The analysis included zoning scenarios ranging from re-zoning to RR2 to re-zoning to R10A (one home per 10 acres). In order to simplify the presentation, only the results from the Councilmember McShane’s proposal are shown on the map below. Note that this proposal only affects the Whatcom County portion of the watershed - there are likely to be over 1300 additional residences within the city limits (Silver Beach area).³

In the areas considered, there are currently 4027 homes, with a potential build-out at current zoning of 9700 homes – a 141 percent increase. This can be considered the worst-case scenario. As a best-case scenario (from a zoning standpoint), we can look at what would happen if no further subdivision occurred in the watershed.

In such a situation, 6442 homes would eventually be built in the areas considered – still a substantial increase (60 percent). This number shows the limitation of zoning in controlling the land use in the watershed – existing lots would be unaffected by zoning and would still be available for development regardless of the zoning adopted.

In Councilmember McShane’s proposal, the build-out would cease at 7452 homes, thus reducing the ultimate number of residences in the watershed by approximately 2200. It should be noted that these reductions would come in large part from two areas: Geneva and North Shore. These two areas would have their ultimate build-out reduced by a combined 1,794 homes under this proposal.⁴

The North Shore area in particular has large tracts which could be divided under current zoning. These tracts are in large part situated on Squalicum Mountain and are underlaid by shallow soils and a thick layer (several thousand feet) of Chuckanut sandstone.

Such an area would be a poor candidate for development in any case as shallow soils do not bode well for conventional stormwater treatment, and Chuckanut sandstone provides meager groundwater resources. However, these facts have not stopped major subdivision proposals from being submitted – e.g Northshore Estates (a.k.a. Winchester Estates).

The number of individual properties affected by the downzone proposal is surprisingly small. There are currently 451 subdivide-able parcels in the areas considered - some of which have pending subdivision applications. This proposal would reduce that number to 166. Thus, 285 parcels would not be divisible as a result of this proposal.

Because parts of the watershed are already zoned R5A and would not have their zoning changed, the actual number of subdivide-able parcels which would be downzoned is 383. The number of individual property owners affected is likely to be far smaller due to the fact that, in many areas, several adjacent parcels are owned by the same entity.⁵

It appears that this proposal does about as much as a downzoning proposal can do – it reduces the ultimate density of large parts of the watershed thereby helping to preserve its function as a drinking water. It’s regrettable that it neglects Sudden Valley, but with its large number of platted lots, a simple downzone would have little effect there in any case.⁶

We can hope that the adoption of a proposal such as this - or hopefully an even stronger one - along with other land use planning measures such as watershed land acquisition (see sidebar), will help preserve the lake for future generations.

¹ “Managing Lakes for Pure Drinking Water,” Ann Kitchell, Urban Lake Management, Center for Watershed Protection, 2001.

² The analysis employed here also excluded property owned by, or zoned for public, commercial, or religious purposes. This, for example, excluded the large tract owned by The Firs adjacent to Sudden Valley which could have several hundred homes built on it at current zoning. In Sudden Valley only UR3 and URM12 zoned areas were considered in the analysis.

³ According to the Water Source Protection Plan, produced by the City of Bellingham, Whatcom County, and Water District 10 in 2000, the region of the watershed which is in the city contained 817 homes in 1998 and is projected to contain 1364 homes at build-out.

⁴ It should be pointed out that, since this analysis neglects currently vested plat applications, it overestimates the effect of downzoning somewhat. This is particularly true in Geneva where a vested plat application on the Denke property would add 241 homes to the area regardless of the zoning adopted. In this analysis it is assumed that this property could be downzoned to 31 homes at R5A.

⁵ As an example, in the Squalicum Mountain area of North Shore, Trillium owns six contiguous parcels totaling 160 acres (see “Will These Watershed Properties be Subdivided?” Whatcom Watch, December 2001).

⁶ It should be noted that there are only 11 parcels in the Sudden Valley area considered which could be divided under current zoning.