Members of the Steering Committee — Coalition of Neighborhood Associations
Letter to the Planning Commission — June 24, 2008

To: Olympia Planning Commission Members

Re: Proposed 2008 Comprehensive Plan Amendment, Item number 7, Urban Waterfront Rezone Proposal

As members of the Olympia Coalition of Neighborhood Associations' (Coalition) Steering Committee, and as neighborhood and community leaders who care deeply about Olympia's future, we respectfully request you recommend to the Olympia City Council that the City conduct a more effective community education and involvement process before making a decision on the Proposed 2008 Comprehensive Plan Amendment, Item number 7, Urban Waterfront Rezone Proposal.

The Coalition's mission is to promote and enhance the quality of life in our neighborhoods by providing a forum to collaborate to achieve common goals. To serve this mission, the Coalition is working to facilitate effective communication on key community issues in ways that support public agencies and elected officials to make well informed decisions that reflect the community's values and priorities. In this letter we are not advocating for any particular position on the waterfront rezone proposal. Consistent with the Coalition's mission, our intent is to support a process that ensures a wide diversity of views and ideas are considered before a decision is made on this vital issue.

Given our interest in helping to support engaged, constructive and collaborative community dialogue and action, we have been saddened and frustrated by how the discussion of the waterfront rezone proposal has deteriorated into a polarized, confused, angry and sometimes ugly debate.

We strongly support the creation of a more vibrant and sustainable downtown core that offers a wide variety of housing options that attracts more people to live downtown. Everyone we have spoken with shares these goals.

However, despite widely held areas of agreement about what should happen downtown, the decision about the future of Olympia's extraordinary waterfront now appears to many people to have been boiled down to a choice between having new housing in one downtown location or not having it at all.

We strongly believe it is premature to take action on any specific proposals at this time. The community and other public agencies including the State of Washington and the Port of Olympia need to be provided the opportunity to work together to develop and evaluate a variety of alternatives to meet our downtown housing and development goals before the options are narrowed and the City makes a decision.

Many of us attended the March 22 public workshop on the waterfront rezone and left confused and frustrated. Although this workshop was designed, in part, to receive input from the community on the current rezone proposal, we have not seen a summary of the results of the workshop and we are not sure how the feedback that was shared at the workshop was used by City staff to craft their recommended option. This meeting, together with what promises to be a divisive and polarizing public hearing on June 24, will be the only opportunities many community members will have to share their views with the City on a decision that will have a dramatic long-term impact on Olympia's future.

We believe this poorly structured community process has damaged the City's credibility and its ability to make a decision that the community will perceive to be fair, responsible and responsive. In the current environment, people have stopped listening and learning from each other. Many feel like they have no choice but to advocate for a particular position, even though they would prefer the discussion be structured to allow for a diversity of options to emerge and be considered in the context of the community's larger goals.

The City's current process has not and will not provide the Planning Commission or the City Council with the kind of feedback they will need from the community — or the kind of thorough and thoughtful analysis of options that will be required — for them to make an informed decision on this issue with confidence that it reflects the community's values and priorities.

Creating a more vibrant, more beautiful and more sustainable downtown will require tapping our exceptionally engaged, creative and talented community to come together around a common vision. The current debate on the waterfront rezone is pushing us apart and is likely to cause long-term divisions in the community unless the City takes a different approach.

For all these reasons, we strongly urge you to step back and recommend to the City Council that they design a more engaged, inclusive, responsible and responsive community education and involvement process that begins to rebuild trust in the community and between the community and the City before making a decision on this vital and important issue.

We also recognize our responsibility as Coalition members, as neighborhood leaders and as citizens of Olympia to do more than just raise concerns and identify problems. In that spirit, we offer our help to the City to design and implement a more effective community education and involvement process that addresses the serious issues we've raised in this letter.

Thank you for your consideration of our request.

Peter Guttchen — CNA Steering Committee Chair and President, Northeast Neighborhood Association
Julie Hankins — CNA Steering Committee Vice-Chair and President, Indian Creek Neighborhood Association
Bob Jones — CNA Steering Committee member and Vice-President, Goldcrest Neighborhood Association
Laura Schleyer — CNA Steering Committee member and President, Upper Eastside Neighborhood Association
Jeanne Marie Thomas — CNA Steering Committee member and Board member, South Capitol Neighborhood Association
Karen Veldheer — CNA Steering Committee member and President, Cooper Crest Neighborhood Association