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South Whidbey Record

Volunteers working on Langley’s growth plan have hit the ground running.

Make that walking.

The chairmen and chairwomen of the city’s 11 comp plan committees met Monday at the first meeting of the “integration committee” for the project. The transportation committee — the committee that’s done the most work so far on the effort to update Langley’s growth plan — says it’s almost ready to update the city council on ways to keep Langley as pedestrian friendly as possible while the city’s population grows.

Langley is updating its comprehensive plan this year, the document that will guide development in the city for the next two decades.

What’s remarkable, though, is the number of people who have stepped up to help.

Comp plan group chairman Robert Gilman said the planning group has 95 members — or about 10 percent of the population of Langley — working on the city’s growth plan.

“It’s great to see everyone come together and get moving,” Gilman said.

“Most members are Langley residents or business owners, but there are some people from the surrounding areas interested as well,” he said.

Most of the committees’ members are in the initial stages of familiarizing themselves with the city’s growth issues and the regulations that deal with the area of the comp plan that they will focus on. Besides transportation, the comp plan includes topics such as housing, city services and the environment.

Some committees are a step ahead.

Ed Anderson, chair of the demographics committee, said his group is preparing a survey of general demographics questions and is also encouraging the public to weigh in on what statistics may be important.

He also said the group is exploring alternative sources for information beyond the traditional sources available from the county or city.

The next step will be making sense of the numbers.

“Once we got that, we’ll crunch some numbers,” Anderson said.

Hal Seligson, chair of the Planning Advisory Board, said although there may be nearly 100 members in the various committees of the comp plan group, they are for the most part citizens with the time and interest to be involved.

“They likely share a certain general point of view. There are over 1,000 citizens of Langley not sitting on any committees and they may see things differently,” he said.

“The work of the demographic committee is crucial. It will need to find and share a great deal of information with the others,” Seligson said.

Neil Colburn said surveys of the populace played a crucial role in the development of the existing comprehensive plan.

The energy committee, led by Linda Irvine, reported it will work closely with Mariah VanZerr, the city’s energy intern.

VanZerr is spending her summer analyzing Langley’s energy use, and the committee expects to benefit greatly from VanZerr’s work.

Irvine said the group is exploring incentive programs for conserving energy and is also studying ways to encourage local businesses to become more energy efficient.

Bob Waterman of the transportation committee made a presentation about pedestrian issues in Langley that will also go before the city council in the near future.

The transportation committee will also be the first to implement its work into the update of the comprehensive plan.

The transportation committee is the most advanced because it was formed before other comp plan committees, Gilman said.

The key message of the transportation committee’s presentation was to keep Langley as pedestrian friendly as possible while the town’s population expands.

“If you start in the Star Store parking lot, you can walk almost everywhere in Langley within 20 minutes,” Anderson said. “We have to find a way to get people to walk five minutes instead of taking the car.”

The committee concluded that existing sidewalks and trails should be extended and improved.

Waterman said the committee would like to see the walkway on Second Street extended all the way to the city limits.

“It’s a matter of safety,” he said.

Third Street, which has become one of the more important connector roads in town, doesn’t have any sidewalk at all, Anderson added.

Another vision the committee shared was connecting Seawall Park with the marina area by trail.

City officials warned that ownership issues may get in the way, however.

The group also wants to promote a “shared-use” concept. Cars and foot traffic would share small streets as equals.

The committee proposed a master plan for “walkability,” outlining priorities for improvements and a network of trails and walkways throughout the city. And they also suggested forming a citizens’ group to support walkability issues and help with upkeep of walkways and trails.

The committees continue to meet and post further information on langleycommunityforum.org.

Michaela Marx Wheatley can be reached at 221-5300 or mmarxwheatley@southwhidbeyrecord.com.