Countdown is on for comp plan amendments

Published 12:00 pm Wednesday, December 6, 2006

With the year drawing to an end, the first revisions to Langley’s growth plan will also wrap up.

Tonight, the Langley City Council is expected to vote on amendments to the city’s comprehensive plan, the document that will guide development in Langley for the next two decades. The growth plan can only be amended once a year.

A dozen committees have worked on the comp plan over the past few months on ideas to make Langley a better place to live. The land-use committee and the transportation committee are the first ones to introduce amendments.

Land-use amendments for the 2006 revisions to the plan primarily include provisions that allow the city to carve up Langley into planning “subareas.” Subarea plans give growth planners the chance to craft policies that reflect the unique attributes of each subarea.

“It’s about the importance of human scale in Langley,” said comp plan chairman Robert Gilman.

Gilman said the proposed revision would lead to a new policy that would allow subarea plans, which could then be tailored to the needs and character of a particular neighborhood or part of the city.

“I see Langley developing as a collection of neighborhoods. This (change) allows us to plan for each neighborhood,” Gilman said.

“Downtown has this atmosphere, the urban growth area doesn’t,” he said.

The current comp plan needs updating because some newer ideas in urban planning — such as the clustering of homes to preserve areas of open space — are tough to do under the existing growth plan.

The change does not create any subarea plans, it just allows the city to create them, Gilman added.

Other committees have also picked apart the city’s comp plan. This year, the transportation committee has focused on pedestrian and other non-motorized transportation.

The committee has developed a number of recommendations, including priority places for new sidewalks and a map of proposed new trails. The specifics will go into the city’s six-year Transportation Improvement Program, a transportation plan required by the state that must be updated annually. The program identifies capital transportation projects, prioritizes them, estimates project costs and identifies funding sources.

Keeping Langley walkable or accessible for people who aren’t driving is important. And Langley’s size, even if population jumps from 1,000 to 1,500 residents in the next decade, allows for this approach, Gilman said.

The transportation committee also wants the city to design and maintain Langley’s roads and streets in a way that balances the needs of all users but retains Langley’s small-town character while minimizing the use of pavement.

The proposal includes a call for “shared-use” streets. As the name suggests, these roads give the same priority to pedestrians, bikes and cars.

To keep them safe the roads must have low speed limits and must be designed to discourage fast driving, Gilman said.

“Most of our residential streets are already de facto ‘shared use’–Edgecliff, Al Anderson. The committee wants to preserve their best features and improve their safety going forward,” Gilman said.

The detailed development of street designs and associated regulations will be done in 2007 as changes are made to the city code.

Also, the transportation committee wants improved access to non-motorized facilities and services.

The committee suggests improving the network of trail systems by tying together neighborhoods with the downtown, the waterfront, the school and fairgrounds while also connecting to the county trail system.

The committee wants to ask private landowners for permission to include some of their private trails in the overall trail network.

The final council vote on the amendments will be taken at the last city council meeting of the year on Dec. 20.

The comp plan group was off to a great start earlier this year, with more than 100 Langley residents volunteering to help.

“It takes a village to run a village,” Gilman said.

However, the group ran into some road bumps along the way.

First, the executive team consisting of Gilman, Mayor Neil Colburn, Paul Samuelson and Bob Waterman changed as Samuelson and Waterman were appointed to the city council. That left two positions open on the executive team. Meanwhile, Colburn became too busy with city business — including the pending condemnation lawsuit over Fairgrounds Road — to continue the work.

By the end of the year the team was complete again, however, as Walt Blackford and Heather Ogilvy stepped in to help.

Also, Gilman said he expects the new city planner, Larry Cort, to be active in the planning process.

Elsewhere, the Regional Relations committee was put on hold after the team had trouble getting started.

Next year, other committees are also expected to present their work.

Besides the land-use and transportation committees, there are three other comp plan “element” committees; those groups will focus on housing, economic development, and parks and open spaces.

Other committees will discuss what Langley should do with its waterfront, watersheds and bluffs, as well as tackle topics such as energy use, food and agriculture.

Also on the list are issues concerning Langley’s demographics. Another committee will make recommendations for changes to the plan on arts, culture and education.

The city had expected to spend $30,000 for comp plan work in 2006. Only a fraction, about $5,000, has been spent, Gilman said.

The city has now earmarked $35,000 for comp plan work in its 2007 budget.

Gilman expects the comp plan group to spend more money next year as more committees finalize their plans. They have also contracted with a consulting firm to provide on-call help.

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