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A group of people with a common purpose can accomplish more than a single individual. The first thing you can do is join the listserv to directly receive information updates. Go down this page -now- and register. Friends of the trees of Bainbridge Island Unite! No more parking downtown! |
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Links Section
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Preserving trees on Bainbridge
Too many trees are being cut on Bainbridge Island.
This is especially true in Winslow.
Many downtown developments totally clearcut the site.
Hundreds of trees disappear when they should be preserved.
The number of new trees planted is much too small.
The trees on Bainbridge need friends who will speak out for them and protect them.
Our trees need a full time watch dog and public advocate. We need to act now to raise the awareness of the community and develop programs to save the trees that bring to us beauty and peace everyday.Join now!Ask your friends to join. Leave us your email in the box at the bottom of the page.
Please attend the Monday, January 12, 6-8, Special City Council meeting at City Hall at which the Downtown Winslow Property
Owners are giving a two-hour presentation of their downtown plan.
This city needs less parking not more!(click the link on the left, the third in the links section and read this excellent article).
All Islanders should become aware of the downtown urban design plans and have input as this could come up for a vote - it is recommended to be funded by an island-wide bond.
It is your downtown where you come to shop, do business, and socialize with your friends and family.
Here are some features of the Downtown Winslow Plan as proposed by Business:
Three new proposed parking garages .
These garages are intended for "employee parking".
One garage would be located on the current city parking lot between BPA and City Hall next to the farmers market. This garage structure has
proposed 2-3 layers of parking (city and employee parking spaces), mixed use (retail on the bottom structure), middle floor possibly affordable
housing, top layer market rate housing (condos). This is pretty much a Town Square redo without the convention space or cultural facilities.
Who is benefited by the building of these garages?What does the generalpublic gain by funding the building of these structures?
Another parking garage is proposed over the site where the playground park behind the Senior Center/Commons Building is located.
This
structure would remove all the madrona and evergreen trees there, as well as remove the slides, swing sets, and picnic area.
It is proposed to be topped with tennis courts. What does the public gain by the giving over of the City and/or Park land to build garages on?
Let's not pave a playground, and put up a parking lot. Why would we consider putting a parking structure that would obstruct the waterfront?
This visually would be similiar to looking at the Sound through the Alaskan Way Viaduct. Why would we want to have a view of waterfront over the tops of cars and through a concrete structure? Why in this region do we have the bad habit of giving the cars the best views: ferry parking lot, ferry loading dock, marina parking, Clearwater Casino, and Poulsbo waterfront parking?
Shouldn't the waterfront be for people's enjoyment rather than for parking cars?
There are not many trees left downtown, why would we even consider cutting one more significant tree out of our downtown core?
If the nearby businesses need more employee parking, rather than cutting down trees and covering a play park with concrete - they should consider building a garage on their own pavement and their own land.
Instead let's look to the T&C parking lot to create a several layered underground parking garage. The top level of the garage could be for customers, middle level could be monthly paid lot (income to T&C), and lower level for eployees. The City could provide some sort of tax benefit to T&C if it provided some designated downtown parking.
The third new garage is proposed at the property just south of Bistro Pleasant Beach. That land could be instead considered for purchase by the City to create a pedestrian pathway down to the marina and waterfront.
Look at the aerial photo of downtown. Locate the empty pavement and if it is truly necessary to build a garage - there is where your garage
should be built.
Could we create an underground parking structure beneath the empty post office parking lot?
Why would public money be spent mostly for the benefit of private downtown business? Is there any consideration of building "free parking" for commuters? If not, why not? Why should employees who work on the Island receive free all day parking and those who have to commute pay the city daily for the priviledge to park downtown or pay for transit?
Those same commuting Islanders already paying either for parking or transit would now be ask to pay subsidize parking for others too?
Why would the City encourage employees to drive downtown and park; rather than rideshare, bus transit, park and ride, walk, or bike ride?
Would money be wiser spent investing in transit? What if the money thatwould have been spent on building a garage was given to those employees and commuters alike that did ride share, bike, walk, or park and ride to
work - a financial incentive, extra money on the paycheck, or money off property taxes?
What about the many empty church parking lots?
Please also consider all the empty church parking lots on the periphery of downtown Winslow (First Baptist Church, Eagle Harbor Congregational
Church, Rolling Bay Presbyterian Church, Bethany Lutheran Church, St.Cecilia Catholic Church, St. Barnabas, Grace Episcopal Church, Seabold
United Methodist Church, Seventh Day Adventist Church).
Could a park and ride program be established in collaboration with these local churches so that all those now weekly empty church parking lots could be filled with employee/transit parking?
Should the core vision for downtown truly be "parking garages"? What should be our core priorities for downtown?
Next, a large grand connecting walkway
A large walkway could connect Winslow Way with the waterfront. This walkway would replace the current tennis courts and the area where the rowing teams shells are kept.
Another proposal is the realignment of Ericksen and Bijune with the creation of a new road. The current Bijune will become a one-way road heading north. A new road
would be created west of the building that currently has the Streamliner Diner, a hair salon, and real estate agency. This new road would provide alignment with Ericksen as well as better truck load access for T&C delivery trucks.
Two Roundabouts on Winslow Way
The creation of a new road that aligns with Ericksen also provides the opportunity to create a roundabout. Roundabouts are proposed at Ericksen
and Winslow Way and another at Madison and Winslow Way.
Creating a new commercial area -
(behind Winslow Mall, Paper Products, Vern's Drugstore).
The City spent a great amount of money improving Bjune, so the City
should rather be encouraging creating more commerical/mixed use space along Bijune. Currently our downtown has its back turned to the
waterfront. With developing new residential/mixed use/commerical space on the current south back side of Winslow Way, the downtown could create
a new dynamic relation to its waterfront.
The downtown property owners stated their first priority is the building of parking garages. They would also like the City to consider creating
an agency such as a Public Development Authority (PDA) to oversee the development and construction of these garages. The downtown property
owners will ask City council to figure out how to fund all these projects. It has been suggested that an island-wide bond pay for garages, new streets, roundabouts, and undergrounding of utilities.
There is a push to accelerate and fast track this process. The Council has put $325 K in its 2004 Budget ($75K to match property owners expenditure and $250 for design work in 2004).
Island citizens need to weigh in and ask the City Council for more input and make sure there is greater citizen awareness and involvement in the
development of these downtown plans.
All together, these projects will cost tens of millions. Islanders need to weigh in and ask the City Council and the Mayor for more input and make sure there is greater
Islander awareness and involvement in the development of these downtown
plans. Islanders need assurance of public participation in the planning,
BEFORE money is spent and designs harden.
Thank you for taking the time to read about this and please come to the
meeting to get informed and ask further questions.
If you cannot attend
the meeting, please send your questions or comment to the City Council members and/or the city clerk: cityclerk@ci.bainbridge-isl.wa.us
We won't have a society if we destroy the environment.
Margaret Mead
On behalf of the trees of downtown Winslow
Our main concern is the endangered situation of the trees in downtown Winslow.
This will come as no surprise to Chair Luria since we have seen in the previous minutes of the Commission's meetings that he has been mentioning several times the disappearance of trees downtown.
Our assessment is the main culprits are the code and the comprehensive plan.
They have to be modified to protect downtown trees and this change has to be as quick as possible otherwise most of the "significant" trees will be gone.
Our first immediate request is for the Planning Commission to ask the Planning Department to provide the community with a State of the downtown trees report, that is a compilation of all the Tree Retention Plans since the year 2000 so we can see how many trees have been lost and where.
This cumulative impact assessment is indispensable to have a global view of what is happening. It is not something difficult or costly to do so I expect that it can be done very quickly (before the end of October).
Our second request is that the whole information procedure be transformed to really engage the public instead of pretending to do it. What we have now that is a few letters to the immediate neighbors and the posting of a very small notice on the site: this is totally inappropriate in terms of community information.
We suggest that the notice posted on the site be much bigger and include in a very prominent way the proposed tree retention plan.
We suggest that the City starts using the internet tools to share the information instead of relying exclusively on time consuming visits to City Hall: that means posting the information on the city website in a userfriendly and userefficiently format plus the creation of a listserv so that people interested can directly receive the information and send their comments.
As far as using the internet is concerned, the Planning Commission should accept questions sent via email and the answers should be posted and archived on the site.
We also suggest that the title of the minutes be more detailed, ie include the main items of the agenda. The date by itself is not that helpful.
About the public works department and the trees.
The public works department should be asked to provide a tally of the significant trees they cut down.
Beside informing the public when they intend to cut a significant tree and instead of going ahead without any warning, the PWD should not cut any significant tree without prior notice to the community.
On Thursday evening, October 8 2003 Philippe Boucher addressed the Planning Commission.
Here are his notes.
They do not correspond to what he actually said word by word but that's what he meant.
We have been shocked by the way the department was considering cutting down the Willow tree on the Hoskinson House plot just because it was on the way of the sidewalk!
The Willow tree has been saved because of the architect but there was no one to prevent the public works department to cut down a beautiful Madrona tree that was in the way of the sidewalk being built on Ericksen.
Despite the promises made to Olaf Ribeiro that this Madrona would be protected. This type of behavior makes us extremely suspicious of the way the public works department considers trees: maybe the only good trees are cut down trees?
Promoting sidewalks should not mean cutting down significant trees.
The department should also provide a report on the trees they plant, where and how they are doing. There is a concern that some of the trees newly planted don't survive very long. If so, we should know about it.
In fact this should be the job of a certified arborist within the City. We have been told there is at least one person who is a certified arborist within the public works department but she is not used in this capacity. We think the City should have such an in-house arborist to take care of our community trees.
When too many trees have been cut down it seems fair to try to find some sort of compensation for such a loss.
Looking at the projected parks and pocket parks for Winslow we have the impression very little has been done in that regard.
The plan for the creation of new neighborhood parks downtown should be updated and funding provided for land acquisitions giving a priority to the downtown neighborhoods that have lost the highest number of trees.
Another issue to consider is the undergrounding of utility lines.
Protecting aerial utility lines has contributed to considerable damages to our community trees. When many significant trees are cut the utility poles and the wires become the main landmarks (along with the parking lots):
Is that the type of landscape we want for Winslow?
We need a precise undergrounding plan that takes into account the loss of significant trees.
New developments should systematically be required to underground the utility lines.
We think those are simple decisions City Officials can take immediately to protect our community trees and the quality of our urban life.
As far as citizens are concerned we think they have to get organized to constantly monitor what is happening and act as public advocates for the trees.
We have started this effort by initiating individual contacts to build a coalition.
We have created a website http://www.orgsites.com/wa/friends-of-the-trees/
and we are planning a first public meeting on saturday October 25 to raise the awareness about those issues and the appropriate solutions and decisions.
