Losing Our Heritage
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In 1992, as the county was trying to develop its first real comprehensive land use plan, the Kitsap Regional Planning Council hired consultant Anton Nelessen was hired to conduct a public “visioning” process. Nelessen’s firm took photographs of cities, neighborhoods, commercial areas and rural areas throughout Kitsap County. Then, in a Saturday presentation in President’s Hall at the Fairgrounds, he presented 240 slides showing different scenes from the county.
About 100 county residents who attended were asked to score the slides. Mirroring reactions Nelessen had received in similar presentations all across the country, Kitsap residents indicated a distaste for strip mall development and residential housing that offered garage doors as their public face. I remember sitting in the audience that day and seeing a slide showing my neighborhood on the Ridgetop. The scene received one of the lowest scores of all the slides.
It wasn’t too many years later that residents on Bainbridge Island decided to join with what was then the city of Winslow and incorporate the entire island into one city. For most of the people who voted to incorporate islandwide, it was an attempt to wrest control over local development rules from the county and put that control in local hands.
Scenes from Bainbridge Island’s commercial district and neighborhoods won high marks during the slide presentation that day in 1992.
There was a strong sense among island residents that, in planning growth, neighborhoods should be preserved; development should be focused into specific areas; rural lands should be retained. All these values ended up in the city’s comprehensive planning.
That brings us to today. Bainbridge Island is the second largest city in Kitsap. It has grown more quickly than other parts of the county, despite the city’s reputation for putting more restrictions on development and for being a difficult place for developers to obtain permits. There have been many Bainbridge stories over the years of old trees being preserved, old houses being moved rather than demolished; and chain restaurants being kept off the island. Bainbridge would seem to be the last place where a historic home in an historic district would be endangered by a planned multi-use development.
Scripps Interactive Newspapers Group
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