I’m not a proponent of stopping growth; however, the most important issue in terms of preserving our unique quality of life (you know, the quality of life realtors love to promote so others will relocate here), is funding the cost of maintaining our high levels of service for parks & recreation, roads, schools, and police & fire protection.

As you know, the state’s Growth Management Act (GMA) encourages cities and counties to charge impact fees to ensure that these levels of service (LOS) are maintained. Unfortunately, because elected officials seem to lack the requisite political will, they have failed to adopt impact fees that cover the full cost of accommodating growth. As a result, our quality of life has diminished while our property taxes have increased.

Realtors are in a unique position. Most professional sales people sell a product whose quality can be assured by certain manufacturing processes or service after the sale. On the other hand, realtors who “sell” a desirable quality of life to their customers have no way of ensuring that the quality of life will remain high as the population expands.

There is no doubt that Bellingham and Whatcom County are experiencing growing pains and that growth is adversely affecting our quality of life. Raising impact fees so that growth, especially residential growth, pays its own way is the most effective way of maintaining our quality of life. If impact fees continue to be inadequate, the only alternatives are lower levels of service or higher property taxes. In recent years, we have experienced both, in many cases substantially reduced levels of service (eg, a 25% reduction in the Park & Recreation LOS) and substantially increased property taxes (for example, mine increased more than 50% this year alone).

We do not need to stop growth; however, we need to adequately fund the expansion of our infrastructure to accommodate growth if we hope to preserve the quality of life illustrated by your top ten list.

I hope you agree.

Your assertion that Bellingham’s air quality will not be “greatly diminished” by extra neighbors is hardly assuring. Clearly, the larger Bellingham and Whatcom County grow, the worse its air will become. Do we need to “greatly diminish” our air quality before we stop doing so?

Your statement that “The number of trails and size of parks in Bellingham are proportionately higher than nearly every other city in the US” is interesting. Can you cite a recent study to confirm your claim? In any event, the city recently adopted its new Park, Recreation & Open Space Plan that will reduce its park level of service (acres per 1000 population) by 25% over the next 13 years. Why? Because the city cannot afford to maintain its current level of service and accommodate projected growth.

Fairhaven is great now but, as I stated, if development continues as it has in the past, it will become overbuilt in the very near future. I stick by my claim. The same goes for the stability of home prices. Just ask anyone who owns a home that was worth more than $700,000 or so a year ago about price stability.

I noticed that you didn’t comment about Bellingham’s growing traffic nightmares, especially on Guide Meridian, Bakerview and Sunset. If developers have their way, the bridge from Chuckanut Drive into Fairhaven will go from failure to beyond failure in no time.

As far as a scientific survey of growth is concerned, the city conducts one bi-annually. For the past three surveys, more than two-thirds of Bellingham residents agree that “Bellingham is growing too fast and is losing its character.” (see page 29 of 36 at: http://www.cob.org/documents/features/2006-07-10-public-survey-presentation.pdf)

I guess we’ll just need to agree to disagree.

The number of trails and size of the parks in Bellingham are proportionately higher than nearly every other city in the US. I don’t see the fact that there may be more people in the future that enjoy them as a problem. In fact, it seems that the city of Bellingham is proportionally adding more public space than private space as we speak with the new waterfront redevelopment.

In regard to the over development of Fairhaven, I think that there is just the right mix of residential and commercial development. Right now there are only a handful of vacant condos and commercial spaces, which is enough to accommodate new people and innovating businesses. As for the future, there is room for about three more large buildings. I imagine those three sites will fill in as growth continues over the next 10 years or so.

As far as stability concerns go based on the supply of homes, I think we actually may see the opposite effect that expect. Now that the city of Bellingham has decided not to plan for or allow future growth (aside from King Mt) and further encourage the county to do the same, I think that we may run into some serious affordability issues in the near future. The current supply of homes in Bellingham is very stable. There is not a high number of homes sitting vacant, onsold, or unrented. I believe that the city of Bellingham will be extremely unprepared the next time there is a wave of growth and the result will be higher home prices. If the city of Bellingham continues to restrict the supply of homes and the demand increases the result will be increased prices.

I respect your opinions, but I do disagree.