Keep Our Waterfronts Working

In response to recent proposals brought to Whatcom County Council, regarding a moratorium for all future industrials permitting for the zoned “Heavy-Industrial” areas just south of the airport, along Marine Drive where a concrete plant, and other businesses currently operate, the Whatcom Working Waterfront Coalition would like to issue the following letter to our community. We also encourage our network and anyone interested in the future of our trades and waterfront economy to visit the County Council meeting on October 24th to voice your concerns over this moratorium proposal. If you have questions about the issues, please reach out to our staff, Info@whatcomworkingwaterfront.org.

To see upcoming County Council meetings, agendas, and get information on dates and location, please follow this link:

At the bottom of this page is a map of the area in question.

Our region and economy are growing. As we do, there are times when local jobs and new economic opportunities intersect with our growing neighborhoods, and detailed, thoughtful conversations must be had. As we report to you, there is an industrial activity which is causing controversy in nearby neighborhoods, going on at the Port of Bellingham’s Shipping Terminal facility at the foot of Cornwall Avenue.  We applaud the Port and ABC Recyclers for being sensitive to the concerns of the community directly above in the Sehome Hill and South Hill neighborhoods.  We are hopeful those concerns will be mitigated in some fashion. The Coalition, and the 130+ member businesses, organizations, and individuals in it, do not approve of City and County Councils making broad changes to permitting, zoning, or city ordinances as a solution, however. These issues are specific, nuanced, and deserve to be solved as such. Broad and lasting change to the ability of trades businesses to operate in the county will have broad and lasting negative impacts on the affordability, diversity, and economic vitality of our region.

Our waterfronts and shorelines in Whatcom County are a precious and important resource for all who live and work in our region. Not only is access to our waters essential for our residents, a study conducted in 2016 found there are over 6,000 direct and indirect jobs in the county’s maritime sector, which has grown since then. This number rivals the number of jobs involved in the agriculture, health care, and the Cherry Point industrial complex.

Our waterfronts in Blaine and Bellingham involve areas that allow Mixed-Use (open to many activities) zoning as well as areas zoned to protect marine trades. These two zoning laws ensure that our public has continued access to our waterfront, as well as preserving areas that are available for water-reliant businesses.

Whatcom County waterfronts feature businesses that build, repair, and service our boats, steward, harvest, and process our seafood products, transport our goods, provide tours and recreation, and more. These businesses, and the women and men who earn living-wages at them, allow our middle-class in Bellingham to, in turn, support other small and regional businesses.  The economic ripple of living wage jobs on our waterfronts ensures the economic vitality of our region and allows Whatcom County to remain an economically diverse place necessary for healthy communities.

Our Bellingham community is growing, and as it does so, it is necessary to continually make the choice of either allowing our industries to coexist with us, or to allow the waterfront to gentrify in the way other cities in Western Washington have.  Bellingham does have a large area zoned mixed-use under development in the Waterfront District, with condominiums, pump tracks, restaurants, a low-income housing building, public access, and a proposed hotel. Our Coalition supports this mixed-use zone which, itself, adds vitality to the waterfront as do the maritime activities.  The balance and compatibility of Mixed-Use and Marine Trades zoning is essential to the continued health of our communities.

Waterfronts the world over are dealing with these same issues. We value each component of public access, as well as the areas where skilled women and men can continue to build, repair, fit our commercial and recreational vessels, harvest and process our seafood, provide services, and more.  Maintaining the vitality and diversity of our authentic waterfront businesses (commercial fishing, seafood processing, boat building and repair, charter, broker, passenger vessels, and more) along with ensuring public access is what distinguishes Whatcom’s waterfronts from those who have ousted working endeavors in favor of condominium creep and gentrification. We can be proud of this hard-fought balance in ensuring that those skilled men and women who keep our waterfronts working have the necessary infrastructure to continue this important work.

A working waterfront can be a bustling and vibrant place. The challenge of locating working endeavors near residential dwellings is something we must all work together to solve. It must not be something that we undermine through broad solutions to acute problems. Applying city-wide and port-wide solutions to individual problems will lead to the loss of that vitality and diversity. Once the maritime economy and trades are diminished, they are more easily pushed aside in the future.  The final result is over-gentrification and a sharp rise in the cost of living, with decreases in the quality of life for those not fortunate enough to live in luxury developments and communities.

The Whatcom Working Waterfront Coalition has seen this effect in other cities in our region. We believe that finding specific and intentional solutions to our growing economy and community is essential to preserving the diversity and economic vitality of our working waterfronts. That preservation is worth the hard work, and as we enjoy our local seafood, our small businesses, and independent owners and operators along with our unique community spaces, festivals and events, we hope you’ll consider how all of these unique characteristics of our county are only possible with a working waterfront that is integrated and part of our downtown. We hope that the community and stakeholders can solve these problems without broad and drastic actions that take away from our vibrant waterfronts, or that put them in danger of the creeping gentrification that would do permanent damage to the affordability and quality of life that Whatcom County enjoys.

See below the map of the area in question, with existing industrial infrastructure and businesses: