South Hill Floor Area Ratio Proposal

The South Hill Neighborhood Associate is working on a Floor Area Ratio (FAR) proposal in order to preserve the neighborhood’s character.

The FAR of a home is the ratio of the total square feet of a building to the square feet of the lot that the building is built on.

The proposal covers single-family homes in the South Hill district. It would limit the size of the structure to a 45 percent ratio to the property size.

“The reason we selected 45 percent is that we did a study of most single family homes on South Hill and found that the average FAR is 0.39 so we selected a slightly higher number of 0.45 to propose,” said Ray Ballweg, South Hill Neighborhood Association (SHNA) President.

“Large properties would still be able to build to the maximum size, but smaller property sizes would be limited,” Ballweg explained. “Instead of being able to build a 5,500 square foot structure, a typical 5,000 square foot property size would be limited to a 2,250 square foot home.”

Several single-family houses are very large and block surrounding neighbor’s views and light. The new regulation would reduce the blockage of the sun and views in new and renovated homes.

“The view makes every small sacrifice inside the house worth it,” South Hill resident Cameron Mowery said. “If that were to be removed from my life due to construction, my place of residence might lose its luster.”

According to the City of Bellingham Municipal Code, the property owners are not allowed to build houses that are 35 feet high and up to 5,500 square feet in the floor area. While following this code, some very large homes are being built on small lots. The problem with this is that the adjacent and up hill neighbors are being negatively impacted by losing sunlight and views of the bay.

“We always watch the sunsets and eat in front of our view,” said South Hill resident Amanda Jarzynski. “It’s the only reason people put up with our house because it’s so run down!” Obstructed views would not only affect the preference of residents, but also the value of their homes.

“Some realtors estimate that the value of a property with a very good view can be reduced by up to one-third if the view from the property is totally blocked,” Ballweg said. The neighborhood is attempting to avoid these negative impacts and also obtain the historic traits that characterize South Hill.

“The South Hill FAR is undergoing technical analysis by the city.” said Geoff Middaugh, SHNA Land Use Chair. The City Council must approve the proposal in order for it to go forward and be voted on. City Planner Kathy Bell is working with SHNA to prepare a report for the Planning Commission and City Council.

“A positive response from the Planning Commission helps us get approval by the City Council, but is not completely necessary,” Ballweg said. After getting a response from the Planning Commission, the proposal will be presented to the City Council and the members will decide whether to adopt the change or not.

SHNA will have a neighborhood wide meeting on May 5 to discuss the proposal and get feedback from residents.

Ben Mann Visits Lowell Elementary

Lowell Elementary hosted local artist Ben Mann to teach art workshops and help to create a mural for the school library during the month of February.

Mann spent 40 hours, 20 in the classroom and 20 in the art room, between the 10 classes at Lowell. Mann taught the students his illustrative techniques and then let them apply their newly learned skills in the art room. Mann’s style involves first outlining designs in chalk, then painting around the lines and finally removing the chalk to create a black outline around the shapes. His imaginative drawings can be seen in Bellingham at Mallard’s, Avenue Bakery and Mambo Italiano.

“Ben has a very unique style, which is bright and colorful,” Lowell Principal Melissa Ferguson said. “We wanted the children to create a visual for the characteristics of a leader.”

While the kindergarten to fifth grade students learned new techniques from Mann, 45, the main goal for his visit was to create a mural to install in the school library to reflect leadership qualities.

“The 11 leadership qualities represented in the project are: individuality, tolerance, optimism, creativity, exploration, inspiration, responsibility, integrity, empathy, cooperation and balance,” Lowell PTA President Wendy Jones said. “Ben met with our PTA and we mapped out the project together. We decided that each cut out shape should represent a different leadership trait or quality. The cut outs would be in "house" shapes to represent community.” The 10 classes each helped paint one of the houses and the PTA painted the eleventh one.

“Our library will have exciting and inspiring collaborative art pieces that will remind the kids every day of the leadership qualities within themselves,” Jones said.

“We’ve been making time for art,” said Lilly, 10, of Beth Kealy’s fifth grade class. The students got the opportunity to take time off science and math to paint with Mann.

The art project was made possible by cooperation from the Bellingham School District, Lowell Elementary PTA and an Allied Arts Grant. The grant was used to pay for the time spent by Mann and the PTA paid for the materials such as paint.

“I worked with the director of Allied Arts and a teacher who was participating in the Arts Impact Program,” Ferguson said. “We looked at different projects that had been previously done and chose Ben.”

“The Allied Arts of Whatcom County established the Education Project in 2002. It has brought together local arts organizations, schools, artists and art enthusiasts to provide high-quality arts education for Whatcom County students,” according to the Allied Arts website.

“The Allied Arts Education Project is committed to supporting our community, develop equal access arts education programs that create cultural awareness, engage all intelligences, and promote the value of arts as basic education,” according to the Allied Arts website. One of the program’s main goals is to advocate for arts education. The U.S. House of Representative and the U.S. Senate are currently looking to create a legislation to cut $4 billion in domestic spending which includes $40 million Arts in Education programs being terminated. The Allied Arts Education Project believes in keeping the arts alive for students inside and outside of the classroom.

Jones explained how the staff was thrilled to have Mann visit Lowell and that he was wonderful to work with. “The kids really responded to him and enjoyed learning a new technique,” Jones said. “It was a great project.”

“You have the ability and the materials on site to keep this wonderful creative outlet alive in your classroom,” said Mann to the Lowell staff. “This was a real highlight in my years as an artist and as an Arts Educator.”

Graffiti Proliferation in South Hill

The recent proliferation of vandalism in the South Hill neighborhood has left community members concerned.

President Ray Ballweg of the South Hill Neighborhood Association discussed the issues of graffiti in the community at a neighborhood meeting on Feb. 2.

Neighbors have seen garbage cans, telephone poles and utility covers tagged by graffiti. Homeowners who rent out houses have been hit the hardest because not only do they have to handle graffiti on their own homes, but also on the homes that they rent out. Many neighbors expressed these concerns at the meeting.

Most recently, graffiti has been spotted on the 400 block of Bayview Drive and the 100 block of Boulevard St. on Feb. 12 and on the 400 and 700 blocks of North Forest St. on Jan. 19 and Jan. 20 respectively according to Police Reports from the City of Bellingham.

The Bellingham Police Department has encouraged community members to call 9-1-1 the moment when they notice new graffiti. If police are immediately contacted, there is a better chance that they vandals will be caught. If they are caught, this will help police to put a face to the tag.

“Police have been very receptive to our concerns,” Ballweg said. Other neighbors at the meeting expressed concern and willingness to work with the police to catch the suspects. Ballweg believes that there are only one or two criminals who are responsible for the recent vandalism.

According to Washington law, vandalism includes “any willful behavior aimed at destroying, altering, or defacing property belonging to another.”

Washington law also says “vandalism is either a misdemeanor or felony offense. Penalties typically include fines, imprisonment in county jail, or both. In addition, a person convicted of vandalism is frequently ordered to wash, repair or replace the damaged property.” Although vandalism may be a felony, the form of graffiti is only a misdemeanor.

Officer Jeremiah Smith is teaming up with Northwest Youth Services (NWYS) to crack down on graffiti crimes. “Graffiti is causing thousands in property damage,” Smith said. In order to minimize the cost of erasing graffiti and to involve the vandals, Smith will work with boys who have to paint over or scrub graffiti for eight hours a day, two days a week during the summer.

“The City of Bellingham’s direction on how to handle graffiti will be clarified at this future MNAC meeting,” said Geoff Middaugh, South Hill Neighborhood Association member and South Hill representative for the Mayor’s Neighborhood Advisory Commission. The next MNAC meeting will be on March 16 at 6:30 p.m. at the Mayor’s Board Room at Bellingham City Hall.

Shoreline Improvements for Boulevard Park

Boulevard Park on Bellingham Bay will need shoreline improvements, which could include replacing 40 feet of grass with gravel and sand and relocating the walking trail.

Construction would start in September 2011 or September 2012 depending on obtainment of permits and feedback from the community, as discussed in a community meeting on Jan. 26.

Improvements are necessary because of ongoing erosion and storm surges damaging the shoreline and general wear down.

These improvements include removing concrete rubble and other hazards and lining the shore with gravel and sand.

Improvements will eliminate beach erosion, increase public access and improve the habitat, according to Gina Austin, project manager and Parks and Recreation employee for the City of Bellingham.

Austin gave some explanation on how the improvements would increase public access. “Right now we have the lawn area and the trail and there is limited access to the actual water. By removing the concrete rubble, we would be making it easier for people to walk right down to the water’s edge,” Austin said. “It’s pretty difficult for children or other folks to navigate down to the water. By removing that material and having small gravel and sand, it would be much easier to walk to the water.”

Although improvements are necessary, community members have concerns about the potential changes to the park.

Ray Ballweg, South Hill Neighborhood Association president, is concerned about the removal of the grassy area. “The main concern I have is that if they put beaches there, they’ll have to push the walkway back into the grassy area,” he said. “That’s where I see most of the college-aged kids.” Ballweg was also concerned about issues that would arise during the actual construction. He explained that there would be much less parking during and after construction.

There would be less parking during construction because of the trucks shuttling supplies in and out of the park. There could be less parking after construction if the shoreline is pushed back, which could push back the entire park into the parking lot.

Other concerns include how well the improvements would control erosion, how the construction would be phased and how high the tides would rise and how much material would be removed.

“West beach has priority for improvements,” said Austin. Making repairs to the 230-foot west beach first would be most efficient for the project’s budget, according to Austin. The project currently has $200,000 leftover from Greenway levy funds approved in June 2008. Austin said they might also search for other funding under park impact fees.

Three-hundred-foot Marine Park had similar repairs completed. The heavy earthwork done on Marine Park took about two months and in all cost about $300,000, according to Austin.

Jim Johannessen, president of Coastal Geologic Services and specialist in beach and estuarine assessment, mapping and restoration design is working closely on the project.

Johannessen used Marine Park and other public parks in King County as examples of how similar repairs can work. “There is a proven track record of these types of designs,” he said about extracting debris and replacing with gravel.

Austin said the next steps are to take into consideration what the community members have said and create a new design to present in the near future. After a design is decided on, funds will be collected, permits will be obtained and construction will start on Boulevard Park.

Historic District Status Awarded to South Hill

South Hill was awarded historic district status in November 2009 in order to preserve the historical uniqueness of the neighborhood.

South Hill is known by Bellingham residents to be diverse in ethnicity, economy and architecture. A school, churches, parks and hundreds of homes make up the neighborhood. Some houses date back to the early 1900s and show off a variety of styles including the Arts and Crafts, the Tudor Revival and Queen Anne.

Many people from South Hill recognized the uniqueness of the neighborhood and decided that they needed to do something to keep it intact. “This is gorgeous and needs to be preserved,” South Hill Neighborhood Association (SHNA) member Sue Hynes said about South Hill. Sue explained how others around her loved the neighborhood, too.

Together, the neighborhood decided that it wanted to gain historic district status. Lynette Felber, chair of historic preservation committee for the neighborhood association, explained that the neighborhood had to go through several steps before historic district status was granted. The first step was approval from the Historic Preservation department through the City of Bellingham, second, being passed through the Washington State Advisory Board and finally going to Washington D.C. and becoming registered through the Keeper of National Registry.

The Washington State Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation also required an extensive 429-page application. This application included zoning and areal maps, and building and house descriptions which described the style and construction dates. Also included were demographics, statistics and photos of the neighborhood.

A grant was needed to complete all of these steps. Katie Franks, project manager for the Planning and Community Development Department in Bellingham and Felber were two of the major leaders in this process. Franks directed the application for a grant from Preserve America to complete a historic resource survey and inventory for South Hill along with the York and Lettered Streets neighborhoods. The grant for $150,000 was awarded in 2007 to complete the survey, inventory and hire consultants.

“At least one hundred people worked on the project for two years,” Hynes said. This included consultants, photographers and many volunteers. After all of their hard work, South Hill was awarded historic district status in October 2009. However, even with this status, all homes will not be protected. “There is less strenuous protection than people think,” Felber explained. People have property rights to their private homes, but development is now allowed with federal money. This includes development on roads and parks using money from the government. These decisions would have to go through the city first.

The neighborhood has been cooperative with preserving their homes, but there has still been a huge growth in development over the past few years. Franks expressed how she was nervous about massive tear downs by over-excited developers. This is one of the reasons that the community wanted the title of historic district. Having the historic district status will limit what the developers will be able to do so that the people of South Hill will have a say in what will be constructed in their neighborhood.

Hynes was able to co-chair a historic neighborhood home tour with Anita Ballweg in 2010. The tour allowed people to view five of the 300 historic homes in the South Hill neighborhood. SHNA also put on a historic neighborhood home tour in 2007.