PENINSULA DAILY NEWS
SEQUIM — The story paints a picture of paradise, a “playground” where people “welcome this growth.”
Two weeks ago, some 1.2 million copies of the New York Times told the nation about Sequim, a town “awash in sun and those drawn by it.”
The article by California-based freelance writer Matt Villano appeared in the newspaper’s Oct. 24 special section titled “Retirement.”
And though no Times-driven deluge has yet hit the Sequim-Dungeness Chamber of Commerce, the article points up Sequim’s quandary:How to keep the small-town feeling, even as that atmosphere attracts thousands of transplants.
“We hear from people who’ve moved here in the last year or so, and they say, ‘Now we wish we could zip up the road behind us,”‘ said Jeri Smith, who works in the chamber Visitor Center at Sequim’s east entrance.
The center is surrounded by construction – subdivisions, plus Sequim’s first movie theater — and real estate offices.
Over the past six months, Smith has received 822 e-mailed requests for relocation information, along with 1,469 requests for tourist brochures.
Just up the road are the six railroad cars that constitute the Red Caboose Getaway bed and breakfast, where Villano stayed while researching Sequim.
Many who overnight at the Red Caboose talk about moving here, said owner Olaf Protze.
Not all welcome growth
He and his wife, Charlotte, came north five years ago from San Mateo, Calif. — another place they watched exchange its wide-open spaces for high-density housing and shopping.
“I don’t mind development, but this overbuilding . . . hurts my eyes,” said Olaf.
“People are coming here because they like the [rural atmosphere], but it’s not going to be a quiet little town anymore,” observed Charlotte.
Mike McAleer, a Realtor whose ReMax office readerboard proclaims, “LiveinSequim.com,” is quoted in the Times article as saying, “Seniors are leading the pack” of people moving to Sequim, and “a lot of them come with a fair amount of equity, so our prices don’t disturb them at all.”
But McAleer told the Peninsula Daily News that he made other comments that didn’t appear in the Times.
“I talked about the quality of life here, and how we need to plan for the projected growth.
“We’re doing that,” he said.
If Sequim is to avert further sprawl, it must foster higher-density housing developments close to the city center, instead of allowing big houses on large parcels to spread across the valley, he said.
It’s possible to build plentiful housing while preserving farmland, and views of the water and mountains, McAleer added.
High density in the urban-growth zone is the key.
“Most people accept the need for growth,” he said.
He agreed with the Times article’s assertion that most in Sequim welcome Wal-Mart, Costco and The Home Depot.
Higher density
Whoa, said Jim Aldrich, a retired geologist who lives in Sequim.
“The people I talk to don’t welcome the growth,” said Aldrich, 64.
Which isn’t surprising.
Aldrich is president of the farmland preservation coalition, Friends of the Fields.
He agrees, however, with McAleer on the sprawl-aversion point.
“People have to come to terms with higher density,” he said.
“Sequim’s density is not where it should be according to the Growth Management Act,” which calls for four or more housing units per acre at the urban core.
“We know growth is going to happen. So we need to designate areas as open space and keep the houses clustered together.”
Look at Europe, Aldrich added, where homes are close together in towns and pastoral countryside stretches between.
Sequim often publicized
Across this country, for decades, people have been reading about Sequim in the national media.
Aldrich first learned of this place two decades ago from a U.S. Army magazine.
Sequim was billed then, as now, as a rural mecca for retirees.
Others, tired of traffic and density in Seattle, vacation here and decide to put down roots.