Cordata Urban Village Update

Cordata Urban Village Plan, obtained by Kathy Bell.

    
  

           The Bellingham Planning and Community Development Department has sent an official request to the Tin Rock Development Company for more information regarding the proposed development plans for the Cordata Urban Village.

The city staff at the Planning Department has denied President of Tin Rock Blair Murray, the request to move forward with the comprehensive plan that was submitted by the company on Nov. 2, 2010.

The development will be built on the land purchased by Tin Rock Development, east of Cordata Parkway, which runs down the center of the neighborhood. The development will extend north of Stuart Road which runs perpendicular to Coradata parkway in the northern half of the neighborhood.

           According to the Cordata Urban Village file provided by Kathy Bell of the Bellingham Planning and Community Development Department, the city staff requested a full assessment by the Department of Public works for a traffic plan for the Cordata roadways. The new plan must to outline how the roadways will be able to accommodate the hundreds of new residents that will be moving in once the development is completed.

           There are concerns with the number of new residents that will have to share the roadways with the neighborhood's current population of 4,484 people.

           The Planning Department has also requested a complete plan for the acres of wetland the development will be impacting that is in compliance with the cities regulations for wetlands mitigation.

          Bellingham Planning Director Jeff Thomas said that upon request from the city, the developer is given 120 days to come up with the required information.

           “Sometimes it's a waiting game,” Thomas said. 

           Julie Guy, co-founder of the Guide Meridian/ Cordata neighborhood association, said that Murray has been respectful of their suggestions and has made reasonable changes as long as they

haven't cut into the companies profits too much.

           President of the Neighborhood Association, Adrienne Lederer, said that the neighborhood is in agreement with the plan. She said, Murray has been working closely with the Guide Meridian/ Cordata Neighborhood Association for the past two years during the planning process.

          Tin Rock has complied with the associations concerns with the detention ponds which contain runoff from stormwater. Many residents find them very unattractive, Lederer said. She said the Murray has ensured Tin Rock will construct the ponds to be as far out of eyesight as possible.

          Lederer also said that the parking lot of Peace Health Medical Group, located on the eastern side of Cordata Parkway, is full from early morning till late evening, which is also a concern.

           Guy has been pushing for more park space and trails in the neighborhood. She said that the new development will have both. The Cordata Urban Village will be 34.8 acres. Residents of the Guider Meridian/ Cordata neighborhood will have access to 20,000 square feet of open space within the develpment.

          Because of the wetlands off of Cordata, the development will be in the shape of a semi-circle.

Murray has proposed a plan for 356 new housing units, with 665 parking spots. The development will also include a small shopping center.

          The Cordata Urban Village development is one of two residential developments in the planning stages. A third residential development has already begun construction off of June Road, in the eastern part of the Guide Meridian/ Cordata neighborhood.

           The South Spring development  in the northern most part of the neighborhood, has seen some progress, but has not yet been approved by the city. Ted Mishcaikov, the land owner and developer for the project has proposed another 200 residential units. Mischcaikov's company is working towards approval from the city of Bellingham to break ground, which won't be for a few more years, Guy said.

            The development off of June Road called West Cordata Green, has mapped out 62 acres of

housing units. The development has been put on hold due to the recession.

Lederer said that the Guide Meridian/ Cordata neighborhood is young and still has much development in its future.

  Redesigning Bellinghams North End

 

Neighborhood Boundaries in effect after January, 1, 2011.

      

         The Guide Meridian/ Cordata neighborhood will officially become Cordata neighborhood on Jan.,1, 2011. Boundary lines will also be changed on the eastern and southern borders of the neighborhood to make the area proportionate with Bellinghams 23 other neighborhoods.

          In 2009 the reconfiguration was approved by the Bellingham City Council at the request of the neighborhood associations in Bellinghams north end, said Linda Stewart, neighborhood services coordinator. The idea was to make the areas more manageable for the associations, Stewart said. The City Council agreed that the neighborhood was too big and called for restructuring.

         “We weren't putting a gate around our neighborhood,” said Adrienne Lederer, president of the Guide/Meridian Cordata Neighborhood Association. “We were trying to make it easier for planning.”

         The area south of Bakerview Road, which runs perpendicular to Guide Meridian Road on the southern tip of Guide Meridian/ Cordata, as well as the area east of Cordata Parkway, which runs parallel to the west of Guide Meridian Rd, will be absorbed by the Meridian neighborhood.

         Meridian has historically been mostly commercial business. It is the only one of the northern neighborhoods without an official neighborhood association. Stewart said that once the new boundaries take affect there would be more residential housing. It will allow her the opportunity to put together a strong association that will help better represent the needs of the Meridian neighborhoods community members.

         “Its time to help the neighborhood associations,” said Stewart. “It benefits the city because having a strong neighborhood association means better communication, and better relationships with the different groups represented in each neighborhood. It's win, win.”

         Mount Baker neighborhood, which is southwest of Guide Meridian/ Cordata neighborhood, will be divided into two new neighborhoods. The southern half of Mt. Baker neighborhood will become Barkley neighborhood, which will identify with residential zoning. The northern half of Mt. Baker neighborhood will become Irongate, which will identify with industrial zoning.

         In 2008 The Guide Meridian/ Cordata neighborhood association began re-writing their neighborhood plan to reflect the change in boundary lines. Volunteers of the neighborhood association worked with Kathy Bell, of the Bellingham planning and community development department, to ensure every step in the process was approved by the city.

Planning for the Future

         Retired community member, Ralph Wenning, has spent the last two years helping re-write the neighborhood plan to better fit the boundary changes. The original plan was dated in 1980.

         “Since that time almost everything has changed,” Wenning said. “Everything was obsolete. We basically had to redo the plan.”

         Writing the plan itself required feed back from the community. The neighborhood association held public meetings to gauge what the public needed and wanted to be included in the future development of the neighborhood. Traffic and construction were the two biggest concerns.

         Due to the affects of rapid growth, there aren’t enough roadways to service the heavy volumes of traffic, said Wenning. Constructing an adequate amount of bike lanes has been over looked in the area. The plan will include transportation improvements as a key goal.

         The plan will includes ways to “keep the neighborhood as livable as possible, and not go into urban sprawl,” Wenning said.

         The original plan zoned the center of the neighborhood for light industrial. Over the years it developed into residential housing. There are three construction projects put on hold in the neighborhood, which, once completed, will add 1,000 new residents, and more drivers to the roadways.

         Residents were also concerned about the construction impacting local wetlands, which account for large sections of the neighborhoods open space. Wetlands mitigation was added to the plan, to ensure developers would be held accountable for the affect their building has on the environment.

         The plan has been approved by the city, with the help of the City Planning Commission. In 2007, The Guide Meridian/ Cordata neighborhood association helped form a committee to put together the new plan.

         In 2008 it was set for reviewing, but the number of staff on the City Council was too small, and the process was put off until last year, Wenning said.

         Wenning said that, because the plan is moore of a blueprint or guideline, there is not set date indicating when the projects will be completed.

        “This is kind of a dynamic process,” Wenning said. “We’ve got a growing and changing neighborhood.”

Neighborhood Gets First Public Park

    

  W. Horton Entrance to Cordata Park Trail.

     The community campaign for more park space in the Guide Meridian/ Cordata neighborhood will soon come to fruition next month, with the opening of the first recreational trail in Bellinghams north end.

      Until the official introduction of the trail on Nov. 7, there has been little or no public access available to Cordata park. The path will extend 3,000 feet through the park, starting at the south entrance of the trail on W. Horton Road. The north entrance empties onto the sidewalk that runs parallel to Cordata Pkwy.

      Bellingham Parks and Recreation purchased the 20 acres of land that make up the park, in 2007. The purchase came after years of advocacy for more park space.

      The fight was led by a coalition between the Guide Meridian/ Cordata Neighborhood Association, and community members, said Adrienne Lederer, the president of the neighborhood association.

      Lederer said that people were asking the association, “Where are the parks? Where are the trails? There's nothing on the north end.”

     Two decades ago a large section of the neighborhood had been 700 acres of a locally owned cattle farm, said Julie Guy, co-founder of the neighborhood association. When the land was sold, the neighborhood developed the zones dedicated to Industrial and Commercial construction. Park space was over looked.

      Bob Sanders, who writes the neighborhood blog, “The Insider,” believes the city is finally making up for its neglect of the area.

      “It sounds like we're whining,” Sanders said. “And we are, but if you look at a map of Bellingham, there's a southern tilt you will find remarkable.”

      The process of bringing a park to the neighborhood has taken three years to complete. It began with the task of finding enough support to come up with a proposal.

      The Bellingham Parks and Recreation department helped the neighborhood association come up with a master plan for the park. In 2008, The Bellingham City Council approved the plan. In early 2010, Phase 1, construction of the first trail, was to begin.

      In the year leading up to the groundbreaking, Public meetings were held to plan the walkway. “People wanted benches, somewhere to sit during their walk, and as much trail as possible,” said Leslie Bryson, manager of design development for the Bellingham Parks and Recreation.

      Once the plan was finished, the team had to submit a proposed budget. Nine companies bid on the project. According to the contract approved by the city council, the parks and recreation had to choose the bidder with the lowest cost that fulfilled the plans needs.

      Once they had chosen a bidder, Razz Construction Inc., it became clear planning the trail design would be complicated, Bryson said. Much of the space available for park designation is old-growth trees and wetlands.

      The wetlands made extending a section of trail from point A to point B sometimes hard to do, Bryson said. A proposal had to be formed and approved for wetlands mitigation. The contract, regulated by the Army Corporation of Engineers required that, for each acre of wetlands impacted, seven acres of wetland had to be preserved.

      The trail impacted less than one acre. Ledered said that designated areas, mostly within or bordering the park were mapped out for restoration and preservation. The funds required for wetland mitigation were $250,000, which is a small amount from what it could have been, said Bryson.

      Additionally one of the streams that the trail would impact had a salmon habitat. The trail also had to comply with the regulations of the Endangered Species Act.

     It will be at least three to five years before completion of Cordata park is possible, Bryson said. City funding is tight. Construction of the first trail alone cost the city $600,000, and it is estimated that the total funds needed for the project reaches about $4 million. When finished, the park will include a shelter, play fields, lavatory buildings, and a play area for children.

      “One of the interesting aspects of this park is the only way people will be able to drive to the park is if Horton is extended,” Sanders said. entrances to the park currently have no public parking lots. There is still much work to do on the park before any one can consider a park, in the traditional sense, Sanders said.

      “ Its not any fault of not wanting to do it,” said Lederer. In November, the Bellingham community will have the opportunity to vote on the issue of which areas of city planning government funds will be allocated to.

      “The community has been very supportive of having more parks and trails,” said Bryson.

Ideally the next phase, a second trail extending from the first, will be completed by the end of next year, Bryson said.