80-unit mixed-use development too big for Lynwood Center, neighbors say.

A group of south island residents are fighting a proposed 16-acre mixed-use development taking shape in Lynwood Center.

“This is huge, huge density that will utterly change the nature of what is around us,” said Lynwood Center Road resident Sue Di Paola, who plans to file an appeal today contesting the city’s recent approval of the “Blossom Hill” project.

“We’re filing an appeal because we have to. Even if it makes us look ugly and stupid, we have to put all these issues out there.”

Di Paola and other residents say the 80 residential unit Blossom Hill development set for the hillside east of Lynwood Center Road will increase the community’s traffic, pollution, noise and may over-stress the area’s water and sewer services.

Some also fear that the new homes may cause landslides in an area they say crosses an earthquake fault line.

“It’s just not stable there,” said Gayle Ann Seyl, who lives above the development site on Blakely Heights Drive. “There’s a fault there that changes, opens and closes and moves.”

Di Paola and Seyl plan to hire a geotechnical engineer to assess the site’s stability and plan to lobby state legislators for lower growth planning mandates on Bainbridge Island.

Architect Charlie Wenzlau, who designed the Blossom Hill project for owner Bill Nelson, said the project meets all local guidelines and that geotechnical assessments show that the site is stable.

“Our findings were very good,” he said. “The site is suitable for constructing residences (and) thus far, the city supports our findings.”

The city Planning Commission unanimously endorsed the development’s site plan on Jan. 25, and the city planning director approved the plan a week later.

The development includes 13,000 square feet of commercial space across the street from the Lynwood Threatre. Construction is slated to begin this summer, with the first phase completed in late 2008, according to Wenzlau.

The retail offerings and new homes will generate about 940 additional vehicle trips per day, according to a traffic assessment conducted for the development.

This will make traffic in the area go from bad to worse, said Di Paola.

“I call our street ‘Lynwood Highway’ now because of all the growth at Fort Ward,” she said. “We’re going to have even more cars whipping by at 60 miles per hour.”

Wenzlau said Blossom Hill’s density fits guidelines established by the city and Lynwood Center residents long ago.

“The density was set forth with the neighborhood 10 years ago,” he said. “What we’re doing simply carries that forward.”

The 54 acres surrounding the Lynwood Center/Point White Drive intersection will accommodate about 211 new residential units over time, according to city planners.

Most of Blossom Hill’s homes are planned as stand-alone, single-family residences ranging from 1,600 to 2,200 square feet.

The project’s plans include open spaces for use by the surrounding community, the preservation of about 30 percent of significant trees and landscaped features that encourage foot traffic, Wenzlau said.

Di Paola said the development does not include a significant community-use asset, as had been required for the nearby mixed-use development that houses Walt’s grocery store.

Built over seven years ago, the community meeting center is nearing completion, according to owner Morrie Blossom, who attributed the delay to his own health problems.

Wenzlau argues that the Blossom Hill project is under no such obligations.

“It’s not required of our project,” he said.

Wenzlau added that Blossom Hill will include a public-use trail network winding through the development’s 14 acres.

While Blossom Hill may meet city guidelines, some nearby residents say it failed the less-official mandates of the Lynwood Center neighborhood.

“People I talk with are just plain angry with the rate and numbers of units going in on Bainbridge,” wrote Tara Lane resident Carolyn Gangmark in a letter to the city. “People seem resentful that a project which is incongruous with current land use in their community is being proposed upon them. These units with tenants and owners…will degrade our current quality of life.”