Bellingham and the surrounding countryside were not as Seth Fleetwood left them. The countryside he had been accustomed to was dissolving into homes and mansions splattered out across an invisible grid in a disorganized fashion. Fleetwood never thought he would return to Bellingham to find the rustic scenery of Whatcom County spotted with rampant housing development.
Seeing this eyesore of uncontrolled growth and poor planning gave Fleetwood the political fuel he needed to begin his successful campaign as Whatcom County councilor. Fleetwood holds high hopes of saving what is left of the rural character of the county.
According urban sprawl author Eben Fodor, 160 acres of land are consumed every hour in the U.S. due to urban sprawl.
Bellingham is the 11th largest city in Washington but ranks 52nd in density. A low-density sprawl of homes continues to grow outward, leapfrogging from one home to the next around the city. This contributes to traffic problems and air pollution and destroys Whatcom County residents’ quality of life, Fleetwood said.
In an effort to combat this under-regulated expansion throughout Washington, the state legislature passed the Growth Management Act in 1990.
The Act mandates that the county create a plan for future land use and determine where urban growth boundaries will exist. The county takes a 20-year population projection number from each city in the county to determine how much total growth it will need to accommodate.
In 1997, the County Council adopted a comprehensive plan to comply with the growth act, promising Whatcom residents a future of carefully-planned growth.
Dan Warner, former County Council member, left before the first comprehensive plan was created but still remains active in the political sense as a member of an anti-sprawl group called Futurewise. The Whatcom chapter of Futurewise acts as a watchdog to the council in the decisions they make on the comprehensive plan.
According to Futurewise, the county has been developing at least 1,200 acres of land per year since 1982, and the number is increasing every year.
The 1997 growth plan went unchecked and allowed for under-regulated expansion into the outskirts of the city, Warner said.
The county’s plan only wanted 6 percent of new growth to go into the rural areas. Instead there was a 24 percent increase of new growth, Warner said.
"They drew the urban growth boundaries monstrously large," Fleetwood said. "Then they had this huge rural designation too."
These boundaries and rural designations created potential for low-density sprawl, Fleetwood said. This allowed people to develop on one-house-per-five-acre lots spread throughout the county, changing Whatcom’s rural landscape.
Now the county must plan out the urban boundaries for the county based on a 20-year population projection number.
According to the Office of Financial Management, there is a range of projections based on population trends from 29,000 to 133,000 new residents for the next 20 years.
In hopes of keeping the urban boundaries tighter, Fleetwood said he hopes the county decides on a low projection number.
Bill Quehrn, executive Director of the Building Industry Association of Whatcom County, said a low projection number can be dangerous."A projection number should be used as a planning tool, not a limiting tool," Quehrn said.
Projecting too low doesn’t give cities, developers and planners enough room to plan out an area for possible growth, according to Quehrn. If the county under-projects the future growth of Whatcom County, city planning can get messy. Under projecting requires city planners to make hasty planning decisions when the growth arrives and results in poor locations of city services in the long run, Quehrn said.
Jack Weiss, Bellingham city councilor, said he believes there is a good reason why a lower projection number should be chosen. Weiss believes the current population trends won’t continue because of declining real estate values and the dry credit market, people are having a tough time selling their homes and moving to Whatcom County.
Weiss said the city is in support of a low population-projection number in order to contain the growth.
But if the urban boundaries are not expanded enough, the people who make up the 20 years of new growth will have to find somewhere to live.
As an environmental writer and local growth consultant, Jack Petree has a different view on the projection number. If the urban areas are not willing to adjust to new growth, then new residents will move out to the rural areas.
"It’s not nuclear physics," Petree said.
The Census Bureau predicts Washington to be one of the fastest growing states. To preserve the rural areas from development, the urban areas need to accept a higher population number to provide living spaces for new residents. Based on supply and demand, the new growth residents will demand homes in the city, and if supplied with living spaces, they will live there, Petree said.
Now willing to accept the five-acre lots and still holding onto the hope of preserving a disappearing countryside, Fleetwood said he feels it isn’t practical to simply increase the urban boundaries to welcome 20 years worth of new residents.
Uncertain of what will become of the Whatcom’s countryside, Fleetwood said he knows one thing is for sure.
"We’re going to grow," Fleetwood said. "Everyone and their mom wants to move here."
David Leers is a general studies major. He has been published in The Western Front.
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