As downtown grows up, will it grow green?
Published 7:00 am Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Residents call for more park space as Winslow Tomorrow takes shape. This is the third in a series of articles on the Winslow Tomorrow planning initiative.
On five overgrown acres directly north of Harbor Square, green deploys itself in various hues across the landscape.
At the property’s scraggly, mostly impenetrable center, Scotch broom and blackberries – dubbed, as some have the neighboring development, as “invasive” – appear content with the surrounding greenery.
So too does Neil Johannsen, standing nearby and knee-deep in the grass of the quiet parcel just off of Winslow Way.
“It’s fabulous,” Johannsen said, surveying the expanse. “I believe this land was preserved like this so it could one day serve this exact purpose.”
That purpose, he said, is to become Winslow’s “Central Park.”
Johannsen’s goal, along with that of neighbor David Ward and a growing number of residents and officials, is to make sure the green grass keeps pace with the gray concrete that will accompany new growth in Winslow.
So as co-chairs of the East Winslow-Ferry Gateway Community Council, they nominated the property – which isn’t for sale – to be considered for purchase by the city.
“We just want to see that this vision for open space downtown is realized,” Ward said.
But it’s unclear to many whether an abundance of green space downtown, like an abundance of another kind of green – money to fund the coming Winslow Tomorrow projects – is a realistic expectation as the long-term planning effort nears the implementation phase.
After two packed public meetings last week and the creation of multiple citizen websites designed to track Winslow Tomorrow, the list of concerns is growing – building height and appearance, parking, tree preservation, affordable housing and the uncertainty of the island’s water supply are among them.
But two others, open space in Winslow and, to an even larger extent, the ways in which Winslow Tomorrow projects will be funded, have jumped to the forefront.
Compounding those concerns is the fact that information about the project has been limited, according to officials who admit that between the early stages of planning, when the community was actively involved in the process, and now, information has not been as readily available to islanders as they would have liked.
Neither has it been available to some City Council members, who say they share the frustration of their constituents when it comes to finding answers about Winslow Tomorrow.
“The vision developed through the Winslow Tomorrow process was very strong,” said Councilman Nezam Tooloee. “But the implementation of that plan has been very problematic.
“The more people see, the more they lose confidence. I can’t speak for everyone, but it seems to me that the more the council sees, the more the council is losing confidence.”
Regarding the overall planning effort, Tooloee is disappointed by work that he says has occurred disjointedly, with several projects taking shape separately, rather than in concert with one another.
Regarding open space downtown, he agrees with Johannsen and Ward.
“It goes to the heart of the matter,” he said. “We have a finite number of parcels in Winslow that could become parks. We can’t wait until development occurs. By then it will be too late.”
Planners admit that a lack of open space in downtown is a concern, particularly as density increases.
Winslow Tomorrow-associated code changes call for the creation of open space via a bonus program that allows developers to build taller buildings in exchange for contributions to an open space fund.
Along with that, Waterfront Park is scheduled for a major revamp and the city’s 2025 Growth Advisory Committee – also tasked with allocating island growth – will present an island-wide open space plan next month.
Park planning
For now, Winslow Tomorrow only calls for an additional two to three acres of parkland in the downtown.
Fearing that isn’t enough, the Bainbridge Island Metropolitan Park and Recreation District last week created an advisory group that will draft its own park plan for Winslow.
Made up of community members and park district board members, the group will measure the current parkland there and identify parcels of undeveloped land that might work well as open space. Doing so, said board member Dave Shorett, should take less than a month. Following that, the park district would move quickly to get its plan incorporated into the city’s plan.
“Preliminarily the board is of the view that it’s likely the current population downtown is already under-served,” Shorett said. “To add 3,500 people (the projected growth in Winslow) to that small a geographic area… that’s a lot of people.”
In pursuit of Johannsen and Ward’s Central Park idea, City Councilman Bill Knobloch has begun talking with the owners of the property near Harbor Square – descendants of the Cave family, who were among the island’s early settlers – about their future plans for the land. Though talks have thus far been informal, the city already has sketched out some possible uses for it.
The recently published Ferry Gateway plan suggested multiple options. One would preserve the entire parcel as open space. The other would include condos on the western two-thirds of the land, while joining the remaining eastern third with an existing acre of public space at Harbor Square.
“It’s absolutely an opportunity that we cannot allow to disappear,” Knobloch said, of the securing the property as open space. “It’s still in the early stages, but the dialogue has started. This is a piece of land the community needs to keep on the radar screen.”
Meanwhile, as the community strengthened its own dialogue about Winslow Tomorrow at a town meeting last week, talk continually shifted to funding for its many associated projects.
Lin Kamer-Walker, who runs a business from her Lovell Avenue home and has been studying Winslow Tomorrow financing, said researching the project has been difficult, in part because the hundreds of pages of public documents she’s read through rarely address funding.
“The thing I can’t get around is this: Did anyone even say ‘how much money do you think the community can afford?’” she said. “This is not a boom time. People want to know how this is going to affect them in terms of their pocketbook.”
Even as a member of the Winslow Tomorrow parking committee, during the first phase of the project, Kamer-Walker remembers puzzling, along with several others, over funding for the then-nascent vision.
Now, three years later, with Winslow Tomorrow’s first tangible changes to the landscape – the Council last month approved $936,602 for early work on utility improvements along Winslow Way – many questions about funding remain unanswered.
This year’s city budget includes $550,000 for salaries, benefits and consultant fees related to Winslow Tomorrow, and $4 million for associated capital costs.
Thus far, the city has spent $1.224 million on Winslow Tomorrow since it began in 2004, according to city Finance Director Elray Konkel. Of that, $473,000 was spent on salaries and benefits for staff; $652,000 was spent on consultants and other services; $44,000 was spent on supplies.
But those numbers are much lower than some of the figures floating through the community.
Part of the problem, said Winslow Tomorrow Project Manager Kathy Cook, is that confusion lingers over which projects fall under the Winslow Tomorrow heading (see box).
“I think that’s something that everyone’s still struggling with,” she said. “That’s where all the different numbers are coming from.”
Cook declined to offer a total cost projection for Winslow Tomorrow, saying that many of the projects are still early in development.
She did stress that private money should pay for many of the physical changes downtown that ultimately will be attributed to Winslow Tomorrow. That, she said, is why the city is so focused on the proposed code changes and design guidelines, which aim to stimulate development in a way that will retain the Winslow’s current character.
That sounds good, Kamer-Walker said, but with profits in most cases being the ultimate goal of developers, she wonders who will end up footing the bill for things like sewer hookups.
“If I’m a businessperson, my goal is to cut as sweet a deal for myself as I can,” she said. “You want to make money, not give it away. I just can’t believe there are that many philanthropic businesspeople on the island. It goes against the grain of being in business.”
Knobloch offered a simple assessment: “You cannot put public money into private enterprise.”
The Capital Facilities Plan – required of cities as part of the state’s Growth Management Act – identifies potential funding sources for capital projects on the island over a six-year window.
Possibilities include $31 million in voter-approved bonds and $15.5 million in bonds that would require approval by the City Council.
Konkel said that of that, nearly $27 million in combined bond money could be set aside for roads and parking.
“It’s fair to say that at least some of that would go to Winslow Tomorrow,” he said.
Kamer-Walker said she hopes the community will in as many cases as possible have its say over how public money is spent. She also hopes that the financial component of Winslow Tomorrow will gain clarity in the months and years to come.
“Until then,” she said, “it’s all just conjecture. But it will come down to this: someone is going to have to pay.”
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Tomorrow never knows
Confusion abounds over which of the city’s many ongoing projects fall under the Winslow Tomorrow heading. The key, said Project Manager Kathy Cook, is to consider all of the separate plans within the context of the overall goal of directing the bulk of island growth downtown – as recommended by the state’s Growth Management Act – while maintaining the aesthetic qualities defined as important by the community during the early stages of Winslow Tomorrow.
What’s in:
Waterfront Park. Though still in development, plans call for new restrooms – funding for which was just approved – that are less elaborate than earlier versions. Also included in early drafts are better trails and connections to the water. The city is discussing plans to remove all or portions of the park’s bulkheads.
Street Improvements. After the approveal of nearly $1 million in funds for early development, utility improvements along Winslow Way will be among the first tangible changes associated with Winslow Tomorrow.
Parking garage. The city has earmarked funds to study building a parking garage somewhere in downtown Winslow. Most discussions place it somewhere between City Hall and the Playhouse.
Code changes and design guidelines. These will define the course of private development downtown.
What’s out:
Ferry Gateway planning. Focus last year shifted to planning in the neighborhoods near the ferry terminal, scheduled for its own revamp. While those plans are inextricably linked to what’s happening downtown, Cook said they are separate from Winslow Tomorrow.
