Bellingham Bicycle Master Plan Open House

If you are concerned about bicycle safety on Lincoln Street due changes from the new development site, you are welcome to attend the Bicycle Master Plan Open House meeting on Thurs. Feb 20 from 5:30-8:00 p.m. at Whatcom Middle School.

The Bicycle Master Plan proposes adding more than 125 miles of bicycle lanes to Bellingham streets over the upcoming 25 years. The purpose of the plan is to design safe bicycle lanes in each Bellingham neighborhood in which experienced and non-experiences bicyclists can access any of part of the city.

Goals of the plan include:

-Promoting bicycling, walking and driving safety

-Encouraging Bellingham residents and visitors to use bike transportation to remain active and improve the environment

-Creating a variety of bikeways that allow residents to access all parts of the city by bicycle

-Making Bellingham a more bike-friendly city and community

Design for the plan has been influenced by public comments from residents and focus groups. The current draft of the plan is now available for public review before the open house.

Residents who wish to voice comments to the city regarding the Bicycle Master Plan must do so before Mar. 7.

New Apartments on Lincoln Street

The Grove apartments, soon to be located at the development site just south of Fred Meyer, are continuing a pattern of development geared toward students for Lincoln Street.

Over the last two decades, the Lincoln Street area has been developed to adjust for the growing population of college students in Bellingham, Martin Kjelstad said, Bellingham Publics Works employee.

Lincoln Street has been adjusted for student use and needs with:

·      The Maple Park apartment project built 20 years ago

·      The drive-in movie theater becoming the Lincoln Creek Park and Ride 15 years ago

·      The Edge apartments built in 2009

·      Southgate apartments

Planned for East Maple Street, The Grove apartments are intended for mainly college-aged tenants just like University Ridge destined for Consolidation Avenue.

The development will include office space, retail space and a parking garage. The site will also bring in more college students with 550 units planned for The Grove.

There has not been much development on Lincoln Street that was not student housing or intended for student use, Kjelstad said.

Currently, 14,833 students attend Western Washington University and 11,000 attend Whatcom Community College. As student populations rise at Western and Whatcom, areas surrounding the schools, like Lincoln Street, will develop to accommodate the number of students living in Bellingham.

Hearing Examiner Reviews Proposed Changes to Lincoln Street

A public hearing at Bellingham City Hall was held on Feb. 12 by Hearing Examiner Dawn Sturwold to discuss variance requests for the Lincoln Street development. The meeting also addressed the site’s permit plans and public concerns voiced by spectators at the meeting.

The development will feature three separate phases. The first phase includes a 7000 square foot apartment complex to be built near East Maple Street featuring 175 units, the second will add 216 more apartment units and the third phase will build the Lincoln Street commercial center.

The permit applicant, Stebner Real Estate, plans to reduce East Maple Street’s width to 11 feet as well as reduce sidewalk width on Lincoln Street from 8 feet to 5 feet in order to build as far away from Lincoln Creek as possible.

Plans for the development also include a 60-foot right-away lane for The Grove Apartments on East Maple Street as well as added street parking on Lincoln Street to adjust for overflow parking from the commercial center.

Speaking on the behalf of Stebner Real Estate who owns the development lot, Ali Taysi, principal of AVT Consulting addressed concerns about the East Maple Street sidewalk reductions and traffic on Lincoln Street.

A footbridge will be added connecting Lincoln Street to Samish Way to allow for pedestrian walkways to the commercial center in order to reduce car traffic, Taysi said.

“The traffic load on Lincoln should be lower than a typical through street,” he said. “We believe with the bridge, the Maple Street sidewalk will become a secondary pedestrian access to the development.”

Aside from traffic, the addition of 16 street parking stalls may cause problems for business owners on Lincoln Street.

Gary Barnett, owner of Sehome Carwash and Zoom Zoom Espresso, voiced concerns about parking blocking the entrance to his business.

“If cars can’t get in and out on a nice day to my carwash, I’m in real trouble,” he said.

Barnett already has problems with vehicles blocking his entrance. Bus drivers from the Whatcom Transportation Authority take their breaks in the bike lanes that intersect the business entrance, he said.

“I’m just trying to have a little safety here while continuing business”, he said.

Taysi suggested eliminating one parking stall to help reduce the risk of cars blocking the business. He also added that the city had completed a traffic analysis of Lincoln Street for the next 20 years to analyze the impact of added traffic and concluded there should not be an issue.

For Puget Neighborhood Association president Gaythia Weis, bicycle lane width and drainage of Lincoln Creek are the unresolved issues with the development.

“The Puget neighborhood generally supports the idea of the development of this location,” Weis said. The neighborhood, however, is very opposed to reducing any sidewalks and bicycle lanes, she said.

The sidewalk on the east side of Lincoln Street will remain the same width and the road will have wide travel lanes, Taysi said.

Brent Baldwin, development manager with the Bellingham Public Works department, said the city requires at least a 5-foot bike lane along Lincoln Street. A narrow sidewalk will be added during phase one of construction, starting at the park and ride continuing past Fred Meyer mainly for student use.

“The housing type in this location is really going to be targeted to college students,” Baldwin said. “A standard sidewalk won’t fit there due to physical limitations of the creek.”

Mitigation of Lincoln Creek wetlands is also very important and the city needs an overall watershed level plan, Weis said. A drainage problem already exists on East Maple Street, she said.

“We will be detaining all of our site storm water,” Taysi said. “Anything we do will not have an effect upstream of the creek since we are downstream from the drainage problem.”

The city does not require a watershed level plan for this site, Baldwin said.

“We have in-depth review and require facilities to handle storm water in regards to how it effects the creek,” he said.

Hearing examiner Dawn Sturwold expressed concern about plan permits being consistent with planning department requirements for the development site.

The public works department is currently reviewing the construction plans. Sturwold will make her decision on the proposed adjustments to Lincoln Street and East Maple Street next week.

Development Plans for Lincoln Street

Starting late spring of this year, the Puget neighborhood will become home to a new mixed-use urban village featuring retail space, offices, a hotel, parking garage, and apartments targeting university students.

 The 24-acre lot, located south of Fred Meyer on Lincoln Street, will be developed in three phases managed by AVT Consulting. The development will begin with the apartment complex and end with commercial space, AVT said.

The site, owned by Stebner Real Estate Inc., will begin construction in the spring and be completed by the fall of 2015 in time for fall quarter, city planner Brian Smart said.

Commercial space and a parking garage will be built along Lincoln Street as well as a parking garage. The apartment complex, called The Grove at Bellingham, will be located near Maple Street and will accommodate more than 500 occupants in 201 rooms.

Residents of Lincoln Street have voiced fewer concerns about this complex in comparison to the proposal of the University Ridge apartments on Consolidation Avenue, which is currently being reviewed by the hearing examiner. Noise, traffic congestion and potential concerns with college residents added to the opposition of University Ridge.

Although The Grove proposal received a more positive response from Puget neighbors, some concerns may remain unresolved. 

“Being in a senior park, I moved here for the quiet neighborhood and I know there are going to be a lot of college students,” Lucinda Christman said, a resident of Lakeway Mobile Park located across from the future construction site.

Parking lot plans for the development require more than 1300 parking spots. The amount of added cars brought by the urban village may also negatively affect residents of the neighborhood.

Christman has lived in the mobile park for more than seven years. Even though her home is located on the opposite end of the park, she is worried about how much more traffic will come from the complex.

“Traffic is definitely a concern,” Christman said. “Basically, there’s already enough traffic here as it is.”

Smart, the city planner monitoring the development site said added traffic will not be an issue to the Lincoln Street area. A turn lane will be added to the street so that traffic can easily turn into the development.

“There won’t be any new stop lights, but street lighting and lane configuration will allow for left turns into the site,” Smart said.

Aside from traffic congestion, other problems may arise from construction.

Gaythia Weis, president of the Puget Neighborhood Association is concerned about the drainage of Lincoln Creek. The creek runs through the lot next to the development and could cause flooding where the creek disappears into the ground near Fred Meyer. 

“The city ought to do a full watershed analysis of Lincoln Creek as increasing development depletes forest cover and increases impervious surfaces,” Weis said. “This also relates to uphill issues, such as the previously proposed [University Ridge] development, which is in an area with groundwater springs.”

The new runoff water created by the commercial and residential site will be “released in a forced rate into Lincoln Creek,” Smart said. There should be no added water into the creek, he said.

Apart from traffic and flooding concerns, there has not been much opposition to the Lincoln Street development site.

“It is a challenging site to develop, but the city has confidence in the design team,” Smart said.

If current issues such as traffic, bicycle and pedestrian safety and storm water drainage are resolved, Weis is not opposed to the development.

“I think that The Grove is well located and has the potential to make a positive contribution to the neighborhood.”

The City of Bellingham has investigated potential problems to make sure the environment and neighbors of the site will not be negatively impacted, Smart said.

“At this point we are looking at potential impacts to the wetland buffer,“ Smart said. The construction team has assured the city there will be no impacts to the wetlands, he said, meaning that water drainage will not negatively effect the environment around the development.

ATV Consulting refers to the site as a contained “Life Style” center and said it will provide “a wide mix of uses on a single, walkable site.”