Primarily motivated by a desire for local control, preservation of the Island’s special character, protection of groundwater resources, and a commitment to sustainable development, Islanders voted in 1990 to incorporate Bainbridge Island as a city. Our first comprehensive plan in 1994 reflected those values, as would updates in 2004 & 2016. Now, 35 years later, C.O.B.I. is using highly questionable interpretations of the Growth Management Act to undermine those founding principles.

If you attended the City’s public workshops for the current comprehensive plan update in 2023 you would have seen these three maps of Winslow:

Alternative 1: Existing zoning capacity for 5,640 more people Island-wide¹

• Winslow boundaries unchanged;
• In Winslow: Zoning for 592 additional housing units and 1,334 more people;
• Island-wide: 5,640 more people and 2,494 housing units;
• Satisfies the Island’s official allocation of 4,524 new residents by 2044.

Alternative 2: Increased zoning capacity for 11,601 more people Island-wide ²

• A much denser Winslow within its current boundaries;
• Increased building heights from 45’ to 55’ in the Winslow Core;
• From 45’ to 65’ in the Ferry District, and 45’ to 65’ in the High School District;
• Winslow: Zoning for 2,868 additional housing units and 6,397 more people;
• Expansion and density increases in Rolling Bay and Island Center;
• Island-wide: 11,601 more people and 5,180 additional housing units.

Alternative 3: Winslow expanded for 11,068 more people Island-wide³

• Expands Winslow’s boundaries into the Island’s Conservation Area, adding zoning density and removing tree protections;
• Maximum building heights and density slightly less that in Alternative 2;
• Winslow: Zoning for 2,386 additional housing units and 5,412 more people;
• Expansion and density increases in Rolling Bay and Island Center;
• Island-wide: 11,068 more people and 4,889 additional housing units.

C.O.B.I.’s highly questionable claims about growth mandates

Part of the messaging at the 2023 workshops was that alternative 1, existing zoning, doesn’t satisfy recent state legislation. While some in attendance at the 2023 workshops welcomed this, and the proposals to drastically up-zone Winslow and the Island’s neighborhood centers, many questioned or even rejected it. City Staff, however, were prepared to defend plans for accelerated growth and cited recent legislation amending the State’s Growth Management Act. Here’s a legal analysis from the City’s 2024 draft environmental impact statement analyzing the three planning alternatives:

HB-1220 – New Housing Affordability Growth Targets

Housing-specific growth targets are a new GMA requirement applicable to this periodic update for the first time. Previously, the Comprehensive Plan only needed to demonstrate that enough housing could be built within the City over the 20-year planning period to accommodate the population growth target. Now, the Comprehensive Plan must demonstrate that various housing types, including housing affordable to specific income brackets, can feasibly be built over the 20-year planning period.

There’s ample reason to question this interpretation of the GMA’s requirements, simply based on what’s in the GMA.

Housing goals and requirements are not assigned special status in the GMA

Washington State’s Growth Management Act was enacted in 1990, the same year Bainbridge Islanders voted to incorporate the entire Island as a city. The core intent of the GMA is to prevent unplanned growth, protect critical areas, and enhance the quality of life in Washington State. To that end, the GMA requires counties and cities to create and regularly update comprehensive plans that consider a spectrum of goals and requirements: Protection of groundwater and the environment in general; historic preservation; displacement prevention; reduction of overall greenhouse gas emissions, and housing. There is no language in the GMA prioritizing housing goals and requirements over the GMA’s other goals and requirements. Here’s what the GMA’s section on goals—RCW 36.70A.020—says:

The following goals are not listed in order of priority and shall be used exclusively for the purpose of guiding the development of comprehensive plans, development regulations, and, where specified, regional plans, policies, and strategies.

The GMA on balancing its goals and requirements

While the GMA calls for comp plans to be internally consistent it also recognizes that its various goals and requirements may be in tension depending on local circumstances. Here is what the GMA says about the balancing act that goes into developing comprehensive plans by counties and cities in Washington State:

RCW 36.70A.3201

Growth management hearings board—Legislative intent and finding.

The legislature intends that the board applies a more deferential standard of review to actions of counties and cities than the preponderance of the evidence standard provided for under existing law. In recognition of the broad range of discretion that may be exercised by counties and cities consistent with the requirements of this chapter, the legislature intends for the board to grant deference to counties and cities in how they plan for growth, consistent with the requirements and goals of this chapter. Local comprehensive plans and development regulations require counties and cities to balance priorities and options for action in full consideration of local circumstances. The legislature finds that while this chapter requires local planning to take place within a framework of state goals and requirements, the ultimate burden and responsibility for planning, harmonizing the planning goals of this chapter, and implementing a county's or city's future rests with that community.

Planning for accelerated growth appears to be a political decision

The City of Bainbridge Island’s interpretation of the GMA’s requirements focuses entirely on housing as if the GMA’s other goals and requirements didn’t exist. The GMA’s statement of legislative intent—RCW 36.70A.3201—however, appears to say there are no mandates in the GMA but rather an overall requirement to balance its goals and requirements “in full consideration of local circumstances.” On Bainbridge Island there are a number of “local circumstances” that warrant consideration:

Finite groundwater resources

One of the GMA’s requirements for comprehensive plans—RCW 36.70A.070(2)—is for a land use element that “… shall provide for the protection of the quality and quantity of groundwater used for public water supplies”. Bainbridge Island is an EPA certified Sole Source Aquifer geography, solely dependent up groundwater for its supply of domestic water. This is a critical and finite resource that the Island’s current population may already be extracting at an unsustainable rate. As an indicator of how much attention C.O.B.I. wants to focus on it, Bainbridge Island’s designation as a Sole Source Aquifer geography was not mentioned a single time in the City’s recent 600-page draft environmental impact statement analyzing the three planning alternatives shown above.

Limited sewage treatment in need of major upgrades for quality of effluent

Bainbridge Island’s main sewage treatment plant is located on Hawley Way near the ferry terminal in Winslow. Currently running at 95% capacity, the aging Winslow plant’s ability to keep pace with the volume of sewage associated with the City’s accelerated growth plans is questionable. Added to capacity issues, the Winslow WWTP is limited to secondary treatment and does not remove contaminants of emerging concern, including PFAS—often referred to as forever chemicals. To date, the City has avoided discussing upgrading the Winslow plant to four-stage treatment needed to remove forever chemicals and prevent their discharge into Puget Sound. This complacency contrasts with COBI’s virtue signaling on its Fact or Fiction page where the following statement about PFAS appears:

PFAS substances and chemicals, found in many man-made products including plastics, are harmful to people and the environmental according to the EPA. Bainbridge requires that all home compostable containers be free of intentionally added PFAS to help protect public and environmental health.

Contaminants of emerging concern—including forever chemicals (PFAS), pharmaceuticals, and micro fibers—are found in numerous products commonly used by households served by the Winslow WWTP.  Because of COBI’s decision to prioritize upgrading the Winslow plant for increased volume versus quality of effluent, forever chemicals and other contaminants of emerging concern will continue being discharged into Puget Sound where they contribute to degradation of the marine environment and pose a risk to human health.

Water infrastructure

Apart from responsible groundwater management, significant population increases will come with a hefty price tag for the drilling of new wells, expensive storage tanks, and distribution infrastructure. As with all infrastructure, these expenditures are at the discretion of locally elected officials and cannot be mandated by the state.

Roads and intersections

Bainbridge Island has inherited a rural system of roads and intersections. While that system has been upgraded to some extent, its potential capacity is inherently limited. Significantly expanding the Island’s transportation system would require acquisition of land for new roads, which would be prohibitively expensive and extremely unpopular.

Unfunded mandates

In addition to subsidies for low-income housing, mandates for accelerated growth would come with a steep price tag for new and expanded infrastructure. If, as the City claims, the State is mandating accelerated housing growth, that would arguably be a violation the State’s own ban on unfunded mandates, RCW 43.135.060. This is one more indication that the City’s interpretation of the GMA is a political decision involving bias in favor of accelerated growth.

Bainbridge Island’s long-awaited Groundwater Management Plan

It was only through the lobbying of citizens in 2014 that creation of a GWMP became an action item in the 2016 comp plan. After eleven years of stalling its development, C.O.B.I. is now in the final stages of creating a GWMP for Bainbridge Island.  Some experts in groundwater management, however, have expressed concerns that C.O.B.I. may be politicizing the process in an effort to reverse-engineer the GWMP to accommodate accelerated growth. One member of the city council has even stated his preference for approving the Island’s new comp plan without a groundwater management plan in order to focus on “more immediate needs”.

Why is C.O.B.I. partial to accelerated growth?

Increased supply in the name of housing affordability

C.O.B.I. has long promoted the idea that increasing the supply of housing on Bainbridge Island will make it more affordable. This narrative is contradicted by a significant increase in housing over the past fifty years that’s been accompanied by ever-rising costs.  MRSC—the Municipal Research Service Center, to which C.O.B.I. subscribes—provides insight into this notion. This is from an article on Affordable Housing Overlay Zones:

“One common assumption is that increased supply will result in lower housing prices. While this supposition is broadly true, especially on a macro scale, it does not always result in an increased amount of housing that is affordable to low and low-moderate income households (such as those at 50-80% and 80-100% AMI levels), especially in hot real estate markets where demand greatly exceeds supply.”

Bainbridge Island is clearly a hot real estate market and could never create enough housing capacity to satisfy demand. In spite of this reality, C.O.B.I. and its allies in the development sector continue to claim more housing supply on Bainbridge Island will equal more affordable housing.

Increased revenues for the City

C.O.B.I.’s primary budget expenditure is salaries and benefits. These expenses comprise a majority of the City’s budget and increase yearly. As with other cities in Washington State, the 1% annual limit on increasing property tax levies creates a problem of sorts. With this in mind, there are obvious revenue related factors that could be influencing the City’s collective judgment and messaging for the current comp plan update process:

1. Every time a property is developed the assessed value increases, and so do the property taxes collected by the City.
2. When density is increased, that alone can impact the assessed value of private properties, resulting in higher property taxes.
3. More building means more sales tax revenues for the City. Increased population also means more sales tax revenues from both local and online purchases.
4. More housing means more sales and increased Real Estate Excise Tax revenues.
5. More population—and public works projects—equals more opportunities for State and Federal grants that help fund increasing salaries and benefits.

It should be noted that the City appears to have intentionally avoided addressing questions about rising property taxes and displacement pressures associated with major up-zoning of properties.  Rising property taxes resulting from increased zoning densities was not mentioned a single time in the recent draft environmental impact statement. Given the City’s efforts to minimize adverse impacts associated with up-zoning in the DEIS, this could be taken as an acknowledgement that with up-zoning comes rising property valuations and rising property taxes.

So what would a good comp plan process look like?

City Staff and consultants wouldn’t be running the comp plan update and effectively making policy. It would be overseen by a steering committee made up of members of the city council and planning commission who meet in public.

The City’s Planning Commission would be involved from start to finish.

The Growth Management Act would be interpreted in its entirety without bias. Like Bainbridge Island’s past comp plan updates, a good process wouldn’t include taking one category of goals and requirements of the GMA and improperly assigning them an elevated status over all other goals and policies. Housing, for example, would be balanced with the protection of Bainbridge Island’s groundwater resources, protection of the natural environment and natural systems. Housing needs would also be balanced with the Island’s limited transportation system, historic preservation, and GMA requirements to plan for the overall reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

Completion of a groundwater management plan would precede the comp plan update. Protection of groundwater supplies is a requirement of the GMA the City can and should prioritize. It goes without saying that creating increased zoning capacity prior to having a plan for the sustainable management of groundwater on a Sole Source Aquifer island does not constitute responsible planning.

A good comp plan process would be transparent. Unlike the current process, with Staff and consultants working behind closed doors, a good comp plan process would mostly be done in public, like it has in the past. Transparency would be enhanced by providing the city council and planning commission with redlined copies of proposed changes. In turn, those bodies would keep track of proposed revisions with redlined drafts so everyone can see what’s being proposed.

Final thoughts

Honesty and transparency are official core values of the City of Bainbridge Island. These core values are being violated during the current comp plan update process with biased messaging regarding the GMA requirements. To some it appears the City is intentionally undermining local control with its biased interpretation of the GMA. This makes some special interests happy and it bodes well for increased City revenues. What C.O.B.I.’s current campaign for accelerated growth doesn’t do, however, is to plot a sustainable course for the future of Bainbridge Island.

Footnotes:
¹Population and housing unit numbers for planning alternatives are from Table 2-5—Land Capacity Assumptions—of the City of Bainbridge Island’s draft combined environmental impact statement for the Comprehensive and Winslow Subarea Plans released in July of 2024.
²From Table 2-5—Land Capacity Assumptions—of the DEIS
^{3From Table 2-5—Land Capacity Assumptions—of the DEIS}