Downtown Conspiracy 101

Take one part over-representation of financial stakeholders in downtown planning, add a series of proposed projects that remove all hindrances to increased height and density, sprinkle in a few “amenities” to woo the public – be sure to leave all public comment in a box on the shelf – and stir it up with a few threats and misrepresentations. Bake in an oven warmed by a rush to beat the 2008 Council. Voila: Winslow Tomorrow Surprise.

If Saturday’s editorial page is all the Winslow Way gang and their good friends at the Review can come up with to dispute allegations of a “downtown conspiracy” (their words, not ours) then perhaps we’re on to something.

The exact ingredients may vary – only the cooks know the secret recipe – but what is clear is that there are many individual pieces of information and series of events that don’t add up, and the spin and blatant “errors” on last week’s editorial page haven’t explained any of them.


The Secret of the Hidden LID

The feigned shock from property owners and the City Administration (not to mention the editor of our fine paper of record) to the suggestion of an LID (Local Improvement District) to help finance the Streetscape would be comical, were it not so serious a matter for the rest of us.

We have been told that (1) an LID would not be appropriate for the Streetscape because we all benefit from it and that (2) an LID would fail because property owners won’t go for it. Winslow Way property owner Bruce Weiland goes so far as to state, in his op ed piece attacking Bob Fortner and the BRG in last Saturday’s Review, that “the City, by law, cannot impose an LID; it must be approved by 60% of the parcels being taxed”. That statement is wrong on so many levels, that one has to wonder why Weiland, a lawyer, would not do his homework before publicly admonishing a fellow citizen’s understanding of the law.

An LID can indeed be imposed by a municipality, though it can be blocked if it’s opposed by property owners representing 60% of the of the dollar amount assessed (not % of parcels). In other words only 41% of the affected financial interests need be in favor of the LID. Thus, in this case, the City could impose an LID and leave it up to the property owners to determine how essential this project really is. Unless of course we want to capitulate to the threat of LID protests in the same manner the City has been seen as capitulating to the threat of lawsuits.

In response to the argument that an LID is not fair because the Streetscape benefits us all, we need only look to Seattle where LID’s have been considered for both the Alaskan Way Tunnel and the Lake Union Streetcar. LID’s are standard operating procedure for financing a broad range of capital improvements that confer a special benefit to adjacent landowners even as they may provide a benefit to the entire community.

So, if LID’s are so ubiquitous, why the claims of impossibility from the City administration and why the disinfomation campaign in the Review? The answer may lie in a plan to reserve that funding mechanism to fund the proposed parking garage.

Streetscape project Manager Chris Wierzbicki told a friend of the PostScript in August, that an LID would not be appropriate for sidewalks and street trees, but would be appropriate for, say, a parking garage. Lo and behold, the funding recommendations for the Haggar-Scribner/ City parking structure, to be presented to Council tonight, include a special assessment for benefited properties. Recall that Tom Haggar, his wife Priscilla Zimmerman and Don Audleman (of Capstone Partners, technical consultant on the $127,000 parking garage feasibility study – yes that’s taxpayer money) are all members of the Streetscape Advisory Committee, and that Dr. Haggar also sits on the committee that created the Streetscape funding strategy.

It will certainly be interesting to see how this apparent hypocrisy is finessed at tonight’s meeting.


The Case of the Missing Fire Flow

Within the Water Resources Element of our Comprehensive Plan is a discussion of “fire flow”, and other water storage requirements, for the downtown water system. According to that discussion, the Winslow Water System will not be able to provide adequate service (including fire flow) for projected growth without replacement of “undersized distribution pipelines in the system”. Specific recommendations are given for Winslow Way upgrades, and Winslow Way Streetscape documents cite those Comp Plan recommendations as the basis for current plans.

Why does “fire flow” matter? Inadequate fire flow means no redevelopment of the affected properties and the word on the street is that what has kept heights down on Winslow Way for so long has been fire safety issues – fire department ladder height, the need to underground power lines and inadequate fire flow. The fire department now has the truck it needs, and in 2009, the Streetscape project will take care of the last two requirements. And so the argument goes that even the basic utility work on Winslow Way will create a special benefit to property owners and should be subject to an LID.

City staff has refuted this claim, stating that the same diameter pipes would be needed for current zoning as would be needed for proposed 5-story building heights. Putting aside proposed upzoning (a potential red herring), is the relevant issue current zoning capacity, or the actual ability to build to that capacity? Is it the City’s responsibility to use our tax dollars to provide a property owner with the additional infrastructure needed to maximize the use of his property? Or are such upgrades valuable improvements to his property?

This is how the Water and Sewer Report, produced by City consultants for the Streetscape project, describe the situation:

“The proposed improvements are the minimum required to meet projected growth along Winslow Way as discussed in the Comprehensive Plan. It is important to note the improvements are not being dictated by future multi-story build-out along Winslow Way but are needed regardless of redevelopment to meet projected domestic and fire demands.”(emphasis added)

Clearly, the infrastructure need is for future development along Winslow Way – whatever sized structures are used to accommodate the projected growth. Thus, we are talking about an improvement that is a prerequisite to redevelopment. It’s incontestable that such an improvement confers a measurable, and, in this case, substantial benefit to Winslow Way property owners.


Something untoward seems to be going on downtown. Has the administration played a role in deceiving Council and the public about the viability of LID financing for the Streetscape project in order to reserve that option for the financing of the Haggar-Scribner parking garage? Has the administration played a role in misleading the community about the relationship between the Streetscape project, the proposed parking garage and the ability of Winslow Way property owners to build taller and bigger buildings, whether under current or proposed zoning?

Without credible answers to such important questions, increasing numbers of reasonable citizens will find themselves wondering whether there might not indeed be a "conspiracy" directing the redevelopment of our downtown.

Urban Renewal, Bainbridge Style

Breaking news: Winslow Way is dead and someone forgot to tell us.

And to think most of us thought we had a pretty good thing going on down there. Apparently, it’s in truly dire straights, because an internationally renowned consulting firm has been hired to manage it’s “redevelopment” while the City administration is angling for grant money aimed at revitalizing “economically challenged communities”.

Heery International was retained, to the tune of $1 million, not only to help the City create a shiny new main street, but also to convince the public of a pressing need to borrow $21 million dollars to rip out the entire street and risk bankrupting our local merchants. We’re not talking about broken pipes here. We’re talking about replacing every single element of the street. And we’re talking about each and every one of us paying for it, though some will pay much more than others and it won’t be the Winslow Way property owners.


The Parking Space Pyramid Scheme

At least we’ll finally have “enough” parking. Well, not exactly. Ironically, amidst declarations as recently as this week that “on-street parking along Winslow Way is vital to the economic viability of downtown Bainbridge Island,” 12 key on-street parking spaces have been slated for removal in the Streetscape plan. After years of decrying the (not universally accepted) dearth of downtown parking spaces, the City had already responded to it’s own call to action by reducing by half the number of required on-site parking spaces and now will shift 12 centrally located on-street spaces westward toward Grow. Because the spaces are still along Winslow Way, the result is generously described as resulting in “no net loss.”

Why this latest loss of parking? Putting aside any connection with the desire of certain downtown property owners to convince us that we need a $12 million dollar parking garage off Madrone, it appears to be the result of the City’s hunger for wider sidewalks and other “amenities”.

At some point it was decided that we must have wider sidewalks (9 feet) at all costs, and so, as moving buildings back is not an option, we are left with a narrower street. A narrower street means no more deliveries in the middle of the road, and that means creating delivery zones for trucks ranging up to and beyond 50 ft in length in our tiny downtown shopping district.

The current proposal is to permanently dedicate 2 extra-large spaces for UPS style deliveries, and for small business owners to ask that large truck deliveries only occur in the morning (Note to Mom and Pop: good luck telling a huge distributor to re-schedule it’s route). And when the big trucks do deliver, up to three at a time will park by each straddling 5-8 standard diagonal parking spaces in designated temporary loading zones on Winslow Way.




Thus, between dedicated loading zones, two new accessible spaces and other unspecified “design elements and code requirements... consistent with the goals and desires of Winslow Tomorrow”, 12 spaces will be lost between Ericksen and Madison.


Visions of Carmel Dance in Their Heads

Our city planners and consultants have oft described the Winslow Tomorrow Streetscape plan as “trying to put 50 pounds worth of stuff into a 10-pound bag”. They proudly embrace this challenge of trying to fit a big city’s worth of “amenities” into a small-town shopping district. Perhaps we would do better to heed the warning inherent in that concept. Is putting 50 pounds worth of something into a 10-pound bag a wise proposition? Is it not by definition unrealistic and awkward? Might we be happy with our 10 pounds of “stuff”. Even if we would like all the bells and whistles proposed, do we want to pay for them?

The City is proposing to pay for the project with Councilmanic Bonds. This is debt that the City may authorize without a vote from the general public – some describe it as the City’s credit card. Like a credit card, reserve Councilmanic Bond capacity serves as an invaluable emergency funding source and helps maintain a good bond rating. As such, it is considered prudent to leave a fairly substantial portion of that capacity in reserve. A City’s Councilmanic Bond debt is limited by statute to 1.5% of the value of taxable property in the jurisdiction, in our case that is approximately $84 million. To date we have used approximately $21 million of that capacity. Assuming we aim to leave a modest 35% in reserve, using $21 million for the Streetscape would leave just $13 million for all other proposed or desired projects. While some jurisdictions look to Councilmanic bonds for exceptional circumstances and essential capital projects, it seems that our City is looking to them increasing as just another tool for financing everything from capital projects to open space to Winslow Tomorrow soft costs.


Stickin’ it to the (Common) Man

So how will those bonds be repaid? The City points to possible grant money, the largest by far being a State Community Economic Revitalization Board (CERB) grant which, according to the Streetscape consultants, is available for up to $5 million. Just two small problems: (a) CERB grants are intended to provide “funding assistance to economically challenged communities for public facilities to foster the creation and/or retention of jobs by industry, and (b) grants for water, sewer and/or roads appear to have ranged between $100,000 and $500,000 from 1999-2006 – and generally toward the lower end of that spectrum. It appears quite unlikely that the proposed grants will make a meaningful dent in the $21 million debt.

Surprisingly, there is no plan to create a Local Improvement District (LID) to recover costs from Winslow Way property owners. LID’s are imposed on properties directly benefiting from an improvement – including street paving, streetlight installation, sewer installation and the undergrounding of overhead utility wires. For some reason, the properties fronting Winslow Way will not be paying their proportional share of the project costs.

Here’s where the rest of us come in. Depending upon how much outside funding can be found, every Island household not on City water and sewer could be assessed as much as $8.30 per month for 20 years, or nearly $2,000. Those unfortunate enough to be on City water and sewer could face an increase in their utility bills of up to $39.20 per month for twenty years (that’s a total of more than $9,000 per household).

The questions the community needs to be asking now, and which deserve honest answers, are how much of what is being proposed is truly essential and are the consultants and administration really exploring the least costly alternatives? It doesn’t take an expert to see that Winslow Way is not crying out for “economic revitalization”, and given the City’s current financial situation and other pressing community needs what is currently being proposed is not a realistic option. We need a simple public works directed sewer project, not a state of the art urban design project, and we should expect those most directly benefiting from the project to pay their proportional share.



For the complete recommendations presented to Council for discussion tomorrow night, go here.

For a look at who sits on the Streetscape Advisory Committee, including several Winslow Way property owners, go here.

For a brief discussion of the City’s financial situation, check out Althea Paulson’s new blog and her links to several useful documents including the infamous BRG Memo