Maybe we have enough of it now | Letters | Sept. 18

Published 10:44 am Friday, September 18, 2009

As newcomers to Bainbridge Island, Tom Golan’s letter (“Mantra: All in the name of density,” Aug. 28) on housing density sure hit home.

We first discovered Bainbridge Island when we were stranded here attending a wedding on Sept. 11, 2001.

We were charmed by the “downtown” district and enchanted by the many homes tucked away down tree-lined streets and gravel roads. Speed limits were 35 mph and there were only two (or one) lane streets.

All of which was a far cry from southern California with shopping malls and strip centers, its treeless residential areas with “landscaped medians,” housing where a quarter of a lot was huge and streets where eight lanes was not a freeway.

Yet in the community we lived in, Orange County, we also struggled with affordable housing for our local police, firemen, teachers and city employees.

However, to assure that these groups got the local housing they wanted we did not put up low-cost housing open to anyone on a first-come first-serve basis. Instead, the city provided subsidies directly to those specific groups or individuals for housing within the city.

Housing was built that fit into the character of the community and there was no distinct “low-cost area” or high-density area.

It took us six years to get here and we arrived in June 2007.

We subscribed to the Bainbridge Review all that time and saw the struggles the city had with development and the resulting high-density structures that don’t seem to fit in downtown Winslow.

I think Tom Golan is right; maybe we have enough affordable housing for now and don’t need another Harbor Square on Ferncliff.

Maybe in the future we can look at better ways to accomplish our goal of providing housing help for our local employees.

Steven Bonkowski

Bainbridge Island