Winter 2000 Environmental Audit - Happy Valley: SOLD!

Winter 2000 - Environmental Audit

Happy Valley - SOLD!
by Tiffany Campbell

Call it "progress" and cite ecoomic gain, or call it urban sprawl and mourn the loss of trails, open space and uncongested streets, there is no dispute--Bellingham is growing.

Bellingham's population has increased from 52,179 in 1990 to an estimated 64,000 in 1999, making the last 10 years' growth rate approximately 23 percent, almost double the rate of the previous decade. More people equal more development - not just homes, but more stores, more traffic and more pressure on natural resources.

Western is growing right along with the city. With enrollment at more than 11,000 and future enrollment within the next five-to-seven years estimated at 12,500 undergrad, Western is on the verge of a population explosion. At 157 acres, Western has the smallest campus of any public university in the state. The crunch of cramped classrooms, limited enrollment in classes and the chore of finding a decent place to sit and eat at noon are realities. Western has a growth problem.

The committee drafting the Institutional Master Plan (IMP) for Western is expected to decide exactly what in which of the surrounding neighborhoods is going to be displaced. And how is all this growth going to happen?

"How many square feet of land will be taken by academic buildings is we are at, for example, 12,500 students?" is the first question, said Daniel Warner, associate professor in Western's business department and the chairman of the IMP advisory committee. His committee advises Western's Board of Trustees, which make the plan's final decisions. Its practical function is to draft a zoning plan for the university: what land uses are allowed, how big the areas are and where they will be located, Warner said.

Western's Board of Trustees wants to keep the building heights uniform with what is already on campus - three to four stories, Warner said. Although a large-scale academic building would presumable alleviate space issues, a huge skyscraper is out of the question because, he said, the integrity and atompsphere the smaller buildings lend to campus would be compromised. If Western won't grow up, it has to grow out, which leads to the real ramifications the plan.

Warner referred to this outward expansion as "ooze," and said it is the real growth problem. More than only academic space is needed. The ooze is everything that comes with it - with more students comes the need for more dining and recreational facilities, as well as more department offices and warehouse space.

How much ooze, and exactly where it will be seeping is the main question that needs answering.

And the most obvious place to ooze into? South of campus, of course, where the university has its eye and which is already a designated-growth area. This is the Happy Valley neighborhood, 627 acres, defined by Interstate 5 to the east, Old Fairhaven Parkway to the south, Bill McDonald Parkway to the north and an irregular line from 14th to 20th Streets to the west; it is a diverse area of single-family residences and many apartment units amid gardens, open space and the Connelly Creek Nature area.

"The university has for a long time imagined (Happy Valley) as a place for expansion," Warner said. "Until the last 10 years, it was very underdeveloped."

It is not so much that Western wants to expand into Happy Valley that has many residents upset — it is what Western is thinking about building there.

"Happy Valley is willing to accept residence halls ... we'd rather have the students and residents living together," said Bobbi Vollendorff, a teacher at Sehome High School and a Happy Valley resident for more than 20 years. "We don't want a commercial zone ... warehouses, maintenance buildings would detract from the neighborhood."

"We understand Western needs to grow ... We want to look at how we can have an integrated border, not a war zone," said John Servais, a 1971 Western graduate and long-time resident of Happy Valley.

According to the draft of the Happy Valley Neighborhood plan, apartment units have continued to replace single-family housing, particularly in the north end closest to Western. Many of the these apartments house Western students. In the fall of 1998, 627 students lived in the northern part of Happy Valley, about 34 percent of the area's residents. These students, along with a flurry of building and remodeling to meet rising demands for housing, have had major impacts on Happy Valley.

Daily impacts include more traffic, more students, more parking pressure and storm water drainage. Wendy Sherrer, Happy Valley representative to the IMP advisory committee, said the north and northeastern areas of the neighborhood are some of the highest crime areas in the city. While not all of this is a result of more students, they do tend to be more rowdy and receive more noise complaints, Sherrer said.

"I am not against growth," Sherrer said. "I think Western's growth is not all that bad, either ... and that Western could do a better job than private developers if they were going to put housing in there, because they are in it for the long term; they build buildings that are going to last for 30-to-50 years, whereas we're already tearing down buildings the private developers built 15 years ago."

Sherrer is looking for long-term planning without compromising the Happy Valley character of her neighborhood. Happy Valley schools are within walking distance, open spaces are still abundant, affordable housing for single families is available and deer and other wildlife can still be seen year round. While Western is not perceived by all as some greedy entity gobbling up the neighborhood, the prevailing concern is that Western is perhaps taking a few liberties, and its own plans for granted.

"We don't want a wall between Western and the neighborhood ... We don't see Western as an island with a line drawn around it with no interaction," Sherrer said.

Of course, it is not simply the impact of more students in the area that is at stake. If Western acquires large tracts of land in Happy Valley, the plans have not addressed how many single or multiple-family homes would be displaced, or how those displaced members might be compensated.

"It is my impression that there is strong sentiment on the part of the Board of Trustees that there is a need for expansion to the south, not just because it would keep the campus contiguous but because it would be easiest," said Dunham Gooding, the other Happy Valley representative to the IMP.

Other options abound for the growth of Western, and many unanswered questions persist. Why can't Western absorb some of its own growth on campus? Sherrer asks. Instead of making Happy Valley more high density why can't Western accept higher density on its campus?

"The city has also identified that they want a lot of in-filling downtown," Sherrer said. "Why take over a residential neighborhood when you've got empty buildings downtown?"

"It's in the best interest of the community to expand downtown," Gooding said. "It would not displace any residents and it would contribute to the revitalization of our (Bellingham's) core area."

The Happy Valley residents have expressed desires to work with Western to maintain the neighborhood's unusual character. It is not just Western's growth plans that the residents are concerned with; it is Western's land buying practices.

Servais said that Western has been less than honest about acquiring land in Happy Valley.
"Western has acted highly illegally over the past 30 years regarding Happy Valley," Servais said. "If they were a private corporation, they would have been prosecuted."

One of Servais's most serious accusation is that Western has been acquiring plots of land by "checkerboading." This is a practice, Servais said, of buying every second or third lot, letting them sit and run down, so that the surrounding homes' property value decreases and Western can buy those at a cheaper price.

Most of the area north of Knox Street, which Western has identified as its acquisition zone, is a sea of old and new apartment buildings with very few single-family homes. Western cannot legally develop all of the land it has bought (which is in sporadic plots all over the area) because some of the area is not zoned "institutional" by Bellingham. Some of the land is zoned multi-family, including homes and apartment buildings. So, at this point, Western is technically unable to develop the land for university purposes. Philip Sun, director of planning facilities and operations at Western contends that the university acquired most of the land because of the owners coming to it.

"There is no grand scheme," Sun said. "There are plans for the properties, some homes are being demolished, one was relocated. Many of the properties were investigated and found to be uninhabitable."

Specifically, the property at 912 26th St. is scheduled to be demolished in the next two months, and, according to Western’s fiscal transportation manager David Kincaid, the Bellingham Housing Authority inspected many of the homes and found them uninhabitable.

With so many other options for growth, like satellite areas and higher density on the campus, Western’s insistence on Happy Valley is going to prove to be quite a fight — the residents are informed, organized and passionate about their neighborhood. They plan to follow this draft of the IMP all the way to completion.

"They (Happy Valley residents) are actively involved with representatives on our committee," Warner said. "And we recognize that they have an interest in keeping the integrity of their neighborhood, and they understand we have an interest in keeping the integrity of our university."

"Western is including us, and they’re nodding their heads, but are they actually listening and are they going to modify their plan based on our input?" Vollendorff said. "People shouldn't ask for input unless they are going to use some of it. I expect that of Western and the city."

Growth happens. If Western is buying, then perhaps the residents should decide how much of the neighborhood is for sale.

Winter 2000 - Environmental Audit

Happy Valley - SOLD! by Tiffany Campbell

Happy Valley - SOLD!
by Tiffany Campbell