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209 East Fourth - Build Moats, Not Fences

by Peter Moulton

For the SPEECH Board of Directors

With groundwater bubbling up all around us and a gnarly El Niņo; poised out in the Pacific, we'd better be thinking about how we're going to live with, and not in our aquifers. Tumwater and Thurston County planners will be faced with just such a challenge in what promises to be one of the more contentious and confusing zoning issues of 1998.

The battle ground lies in Tumwater's urban growth area south of city limits, a relatively undeveloped area currently zoned for high-density development. But ask anyone who lives there whether thousands of new immigrants will find enough high ground to set up camp, even with modern stormwater management standards.

Recognizing a problem in the making, local planners are already suggesting adoption of special review criteria under critical area ordinances as a means of avoiding high groundwater areas. Eventually, the overlying zoning will need to be reviewed and altered, and the urban growth boundary itself may need to be trimmed.

Meanwhile, the state Office of Financial Management continues to crank out population projections for the area with a blind eye to its unique, sponge-like qualities. This disconnect between the theory and reality of growth management presents a special challenge to local planners. It's one they'll likely be revisiting in many locales in the years ahead.

One solution being proposed for new subdivisions offers a creative answer to these problems. As anyone familiar with rapid growth knows, high opaque fences designed to isolate residents from the harmful effects of community are quickly raised around new subdivisions, even before the freshly painted T1-11 siding has a chance to dry. Creative developers could achieve their goal of exclusivity and meet stormwater retention standards by building moats instead of fences.

These moats could double as water hazards for the many golf courses going in as density bonuses under the county's clustering ordinance. Out of work teens could become self-employed as gondoliers instead of part-time slaves at mass-market discount stores. If area colleges were smart they'd start offering classes in Italian instead of trying to prepare folks for high-tech jobs snapped up by over-trained Californians.

I could go on, but you get the idea. The best laid dreams of planners and developers are no match for Mother Nature.

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