No thanks.
That’s the word from the community concerning the Langley Lift proposal following a recent view assessment, and city officials should take this to heart. The objective is a worthy one, but the people have spoken: in its current form, the project is unacceptable and needs to be rethought.
Plans for connecting Cascade Avenue and the marina go back about a decade. It’s a long walk up Wharf Street, and the hope has been to identify a faster, easier way to get up the hill.
Over the years, designs for accomplishing the feat have undergone several revisions, from a funicular to the latest concept of an elevator and bridge, the vision that appears to be the most affordable.
Funding for the $500,000 Langley Lift would come from an Island County grant. Any overruns would be covered by Pam Schell, who is partnering with the city on the project. She is planning to build a separate mixed-use and multi-story building next to the elevator, and has volunteered to provide an easement for the lift.
Considering the financial aid, the marina’s renovation in 2013 and additional expansions outlined for the future, the project makes sense and would seem like a boon to Langley but for the recent public feedback. The majority of approximately 30 respondents to a view assessment, a healthy response by Whidbey standards, said the impacts to the view-shed along Cascade Avenue were just too great.
In response, a city official said in an interview with The Record this week that the results of the survey may not represent the whole of public opinion. Perhaps so, but if the survey isn’t the basis for weighing community support, then what is?
The view assessment was a voluntary measure by the city, and a welcome one. But just because it wasn’t a formal public comment period, which are required by law, it doesn’t mean the results are any less meaningful.
Public comment periods exist so people have a chance to weigh in on important projects. Those opinions are preserved in the historical record, but are also supposed to help officials in the decision-making process. To discount the majority sentiment, even if the survey was voluntary, is poor form.
These are the people who took the time to respond with formal and written comments, and their opinion should take precedence over casual conversations in the grocery store or other undocumented forms of community feedback. Perhaps today’s meeting with the Planning Advisory Board — 3 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 1 at City Hall — will reveal different opinions from members of the public, and, if so, they should also be taken into account.
If not, then the city need look no further, at least with this version of the proposal. The city asked and got its answer — a free lift simply isn’t worth a priceless view.
