SEQUIM — Downtown merchants and property owners praised the Sequim City Council’s decision Monday night to adopt a downtown plan that plays down the prospects of creating a “woonerf” and instead stresses the guarantee of access to businesses and residents.
“We finally have a City Council that listened, really understood and acted appropriately regarding projected plans for Seal Street in the downtown plan,” said Carol Zellmer, who along with her husband, Gary, co-owns the Sequim Trading Co. Plaza at the northwest corner of Washington Street and North Sequim Avenue.
“We were very pleased with the city’s attention to its citizens’ needs.”
Others, saying they were surprised by the council’s 6-1 approval of the plan with their concerns in mind, also lauded the council’s action.
They called for safety, raising concerns that additional pedestrian and vehicular traffic in the Seal Street area could threaten that.
Councilman Erik Erichsen, the lone dissenting vote, was highly critical of the plan, saying he could not support something he believed was not broken.
“It looks like we’re creating yuppieville in downtown Sequim,” Erichsen said. “We’re creating a yuppieville ghetto downtown.”
The Zellmers’ property is backed by two parking lots that abut Seal Street, which had been recommended for conversion to a woonerf, which Mark Hinshaw, project manager for city-contracted consultant LMN Architects of Seattle, said was a shared space that can be used for festivals as well as opened to traffic.
The Zellmers in 2003 requested that the city not issue any more permits allowing the Sequim Lavender Festival to block access into their parking lots on Seal Street.
Mayor Ken Hays defended the downtown plan, which the council last year launched after hiring LMN for $80,000, with the intent of initiating action once plans were laid.
“Downtowns are about people, not buildings, not streets,” Hays said. “I see the plan as one that embraces all of that.”
Hays said the plan was “not about fixing anything.”
Councilman Bill Huizinga said the plan gave property owners “more freedom to do what they want with downtown.”
Essentially, the concept is to enlarge the idea of downtown into a city center, focusing new and mixed-use development into a compact, walkable core.
The plan, the result of hundreds of public comments and ideas, recommends investments in streets and sidewalks, public spaces and civic facilities that would reinforce the center.
Higher-density residential development surrounding the core would, over time, support a wider array of goods and services, restaurants and galleries, the plan states.
Gateway districts leading into the core around Washington Street would signal to visitors that they were arriving at a special place that would offer an authentic, small-town feel with unique buildings and businesses.
Existing and new residents would find choices in housing close to the center so that they could be less dependent on the automobile if they so chose.
Pioneer Park would realize its potential as a distinctive, accessible green space with mature trees and a celebration of heritage, as proposed.
The council’s action shed doubt on further development of Seal Street, after several surrounding property and business owners protested that portion of the plan in June.
Originally, the consultants had proposed Seal Street as “a wholly new public gathering place” that would be anchored by civic facilities and a seasonal market, making it the focus of many community events and celebrations.
In other action Monday night, the council:
■ Approved in a 6-1 vote a new sign ordinance after approving 5-2 amendments that increased the number of off-site garage and open house signs from two to three.
The ordinance was approved with council members Ted Miller and Erichsen opposing the amendments adding one more off-site sign for garage sales and real estate open houses.
Only Erichsen voted against overall approval of the ordinance, intended to give the city’s ordinance new, sharper legal teeth to restrict and enforce the proliferation of off-site signs in city and private rights of way.
■ Unanimously approved the city investing no more than $50,000 to remodel City Hall on West Cedar Street intended to last until a new City Hall is built as planned within the next five years.
City officials are now negotiating for a new City Hall site downtown.
The remodeling would create a lunchroom and conference room and move City Manager Steve Burkett to a 190-square-foot space at the end of the building.
Burkett said it was “no sacrifice” for him to leave his existing 236-square-foot office.
The remodeling would allow a payroll employee and the human resources director to move back to City Hall from newly remodeled space at Sequim Village Plaza, a strip mall adjacent to the police station south of West Washington Street.
■ Unanimously approved a finance analyst position to assist city Finance Director Karen Goschen.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.