Letters to Editor

Speak up for R1 Before Sept 15 hearing

On Sept. 15, the Anacortes Planning Commission will hold a public hearing on amendments to streamline development permitting. The proposed changes will reduce public engagement, affecting every neighborhood in Anacortes and putting added pressure on the about 300-acre R1 Low Density Residential Zone between the city and forestlands. Residents should comment now and attend the Sept. 15 hearing to speak up for transparency and neighborhood input in Anacortes’ development decisions. The R1 Zone is not…

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Anacortes Sewer Plan: The Hidden Costs of Growth

Despite my best efforts, I can find no one in town who wants to see their monthly utility bill double from $200 a month to $400 a month in order to incentivize 3,000 more households to relocate to our community, but that is exactly the direction that the city is taking. City leadership has abandoned two basic principles that have successfully managed growth here for the past 30 years: (1) the best way to address…

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Anacortes Comprehensive Plan: Will housing become even less affordable?

Anacortes’ new Comprehensive Plan appears to encourage the construction of thousands of new housing units. To do so, the City is considering reversing the long‑standing requirement that new developments pay for the utility upgrades they necessitate. If true, who decided this?  Where is it documented? The rationale seems to be that adding 3,000 new units will somehow create affordable housing. How does adding market‑rate units in an unaffordable market suddenly make housing affordable for working residents…

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Public Participation in Growth Decisions: Why Community Input Matters

Dear editor, I am 74, forming most of my views during the Vietnamese war, 3 political assassinations, resignation of President Nixon, horrible environmental degradation, and the Arab Oil crisis. For me, the future needed to use less energy and form rules to decrease ecological destruction, as did most other voters in this State. This was the cauldron that created the Growth Management Act. I fought for and embraced it. The citizens of Anacortes (me) have…

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Affordable Housing Crisis: Experts Say Anacortes’ Comprehensive Plan Misses Key GMA Mandates

As house builder, past president of Skagit Habitat, and strong advocate for affordable housing (Bill) and John a past president of SHH, a City administrator for LaConner for 14 years, we comment below on the many failures of the Housing element of the CP. We sent the City Clerk for your review links to 2 GMB recent decisions, Mercer Island and Kitsap county. It is crystal clear that the the GMA requires much more detail…

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