York Planning Committee Report

November 20, 2007

Submitted by committee chair, Anne Mackie

Accomplishments this month:

1. The November 5th Planning Committee meeting hosted a presentation by Allen Matsumoto from the Sehome Neighborhood on the proposed Samish Way Urban Village. The Sehome Neighborhood draft plan includes a proposal for a Master Plan to develop criteria for this urban village.

Prior to the meeting, the Planning Committee did a special outreach mailing to 30 property owners and businesses in the York-section of Samish Way, and nearby residences, to encourage their attendance at the meeting. From this mailing, nine residents (or business-related persons) attended the November 5 meeting. They voiced support for the proposed redevelopment concepts of Samish Way.

A letter of support for the proposed urban village will be drafted for review and approval by the York Board at its November 20^th meeting. The letter will be submitted by December 1^st to the Bellingham City Council, Planning Commission, and Director of Planning and Community Development in support of Sehome’s Neighborhood Plan and work toward a Master Plan for the Samish Way Urban Center.

2. Work groups are meeting! Each of the planning work groups have met and are moving forward with their work on subsections of the neighborhood plan. These include:
• Neighborhood Design (Stina Olson),
• Parks, Recreation, Open Space (Helen Jackson),
• Transportation/traffic (David Camp & Tom Scott),
• Housing (Libby Stark)
• Land Use (Tom Scott) newly forming; has not met yet. This group will function as the liaison to the Sehome Neighborhood on the urban village concept; Tom has volunteered to head this up and will serve as the official liaison.

3. Volunteer WWU students have been distributing the planning survey; returns are starting to come in! We have increased our survey returns from 51, last month, to 67. Big improvement. We will continue the survey work for another month.