Tuesday, November 2, 2010

  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.”

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