As of 3.15.08
I find this quote from Eckhart Tolle's book, Awakening To Your
Life's Purpose, page 115, illuminating.
"The ego loves its resentment of reality. What is reality?
Whatever is. Buddha called it tatata--the suchness of life,
which is no more than the suchness of this moment. Opposition
toward that suchness is one of the main features of the ego.
It creates the negativity that the ego thrives on, the
unhappiness that it loves. In this way, you make yourself
and others suffer and don't even know that you are doing it,
don't know that you are creating hell on earth. To create
suffering without recognizing it--this is the essence of
unconscious living; this is being totally in the grip of
ego. The extent of the ego's inability to recognize itself,
to see what it is doing is staggering and unbelievable."
(That is, until you are victimized by it -- then it becomes
"reality".)
So, in the presence of failed data presented by proponents
of the "Habitat", data that is tantamount to fraud, their
vision does not change, they push forward, regardless.
(See link below regarding "Defective... Data...")
NOTE: If you are not familiar with the zoning/LID (low impact
development regulations) debate that is currently (eternally)
going on in the city of Bothell WA. U.S.A. then this may not
be relevant or useful to you. If, however, you need a good cry...
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Links For Associated Information
Land Owners /Properties /City of Bothell Links [popup]
Public Letter - Sept. 1 (developing) [popup]
Video to be made available soon
Zone 1 Hillside Waterflow and related topics [popup]
Comments/Concerns To July 07 Council Hearing [popup]
The YouTube Zone 1 Island Video [popup]
Council Comments/Response Sept. 18th...
DEFECTIVE DATA IS DISCOVERED) [popup]
History [top]
In 1997 my neighbor to the north approached me across the
fenceline as I worked in our Canyon Park Orchard, a small
commercial apple orchard that we operated for 20 years. He
was a retired real estate broker who had recently purchased
his property, property the exact same dimension as ours that
stretched out alongside our north property line. His intent
at the moment was to suggest that he and I go together to
create applications for a rezone hearing, to be submitted to
our city, the city that we had recently been annexed into.
His experience knew that the process of making application
was fairly easy and not expensive. "We have nothing really
to lose for trying", he said. He felt that at least we would
find out how we stand in the prospects of having our land
rezoned from a rural 1 acre zoning to a residential zoning
of 4 houses to the acre.
I was not a pro-development person but when he emphasized
that we would merely be finding out if there was any
potential for changing the property's zoning I liked the
information option. I've always loved research.
I was a computer hobbyist and had the resources available to
print out maps and text necessary for submitting the rezone
requests, thinking that it would be handy for the neighbor
who did not have computer skills. The whole zoning process
was entirely new to me and if given the choice I would
rather not have had to try to negotiate the bureaucracy of
trying to do business with a city municipality -- because of
my ignorance in the matter. But that was what was necessary
and I put my best foot forward.
Paperwork tended to make me ill at spirit and I was at the
very beginning of a long and arduous learning curve in
dealing with the it. I plowed my way through the list of
required texts, forms and maps that were required for
approval, to time-stamp our application for the public
record. Terminology, acronyms and abbreviations-nauseated I
was finally able to put it all together and our requests
were approved. All we had to do was sit and wait for a date
to go before the city council, to have our plea heard.
Time and again passed by and by and by without word. We had
been warned ahead of time that it would be a little while
before our turn in line would allow our requests to be heard
by the council. Years passed.
More recently we've put together a dossier of documents
collected over the years, correspondence between ourselves
and the city, the city's excuses and reasons why our rezone
request was not ever being heard and the documents are now
part of the public record. Our submission approval date, in
line, was circumvented, passed up by request after request
from individuals in other areas of the city who had filed
their requests after ours. The correspondence we collected
would promise that our request would be heard "in the next
cycle" before a certain date and then nothing would happen.
We were obviously being passed over even though the city
staff was being reminded that our request, dated, existed
and was not being heard.
I was being educated in the fact that time passing in the
city staff's mind was a different time relevence than my
own. As the decade milestone, since our request was filed,
approached without hearing -- it became evident that even
staff's time relevence was questionable although I made
every attempt to understand things from their perspective.
The protracted arbitration that has ensued, now that the
rezone has been granted (albeit currently crippled) is
seemingly non-ending. As of this moment the property owners
are caught in a situation that will tax burden them into a
dangerous financial situation while not allowing developers
to be able to afford land development consideration -- while
trying to meet the stringent environmental requirements that
are placed on the property. As the planned and dedicated
Bothell Connector arterial project will bisect our
properties and highest and best use taxes are applied plus
the strict environmental required 65% forestation/10%
impervious road surface burden considered, it is not likely
that any buyer, private individual or otherwise, would be
interested in purchasing the land. The property owners are
trapped in a situation that for lack of a better definintion
seems hopeless.
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ADDITIONS / EDITORIAL THOUGHTS
[A Voice of Utter Frustration - 2007]
Life goes on with my wife's nightly nightmares...
We are still in the grip of the city government's will,
being played like the bottom feeder fish that we seem to
represent (as greedy land owners). The group of properties
that Zone 1 is comprised of, east of the Bothell Connector
right-of-way, has been granted the highest available
residential zoning. This far exceeded any zoning that we
might have asked for and we will be taxed by the county
assessor based on highest and best use for that zoning -
which is going to be far more than we can afford. But the
city is requiring that the land be forested at 65% and given
the 'pervious' roads and improvements required, out of 50+
acres of land in Zone 1 of the subarea, it is presumed at
this point that only about 7+ acres would be build-able. So,
we can't sell the property, no individual wants it because
there is a busy arterial that is going to bisect it in the
(?) future. The required conifer forest will block out the
beautiful mountain view that the hillside has now. When the
consulting environmental engineer was asked by the city
council about details of the strict low impact development
requirements the individual said that they didn't have many
answers yet. "It's all experimental". Our lives have been
sold for science experiments. When asked where the results
of this research work would be applied next the answer was,
"We aren't going to do this sort of thing again anywhere
else.".
We feel like lab rats -- trapped.
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We are all environmentalists. We share the air that we
breath and sharing in survival is required, without debate.
But there are strong issues that need to be addressed
regarding our city imposed "Critical Species Habitat"
regarding the Zone 1 hillside. The fact that the special
zoning was enforced on our sub-area lands as a deadline
driven issue, the city council having run out of time
creating the state required comprehensive planning at the
very end of the allowed 1 year extension period -- without a
thorough surveys conducted -- raises concerns. The creation
of the Critical Species Habitat was very much an agenda
driven issue supported by "environmental groups" who had
lost their bid for creating a critical species habitat to
include the adjoining subarea north. The subarea to the
north had been removed from consideration for this special
zoning through opposition that was driven by land developer
support and the environmental agenda had to be satisfied
with designation of just one subarea, Fitzgerald.
When the city council was able to vote our subarea into the
special zoning -- opposition from land developers took the
issue before The Puget Sound Growth Management Board for
testimony and consideration by the panel. The Growth
Management Board, in an effort to consolidate the hearing,
placed all petitioners with similar issues together in one
hearing session. Because of the disparate claims made by so
many petitioners the hearing was confused in nature and the
board decided to award the city approval for their habitat.
The city council voted to hire an environmental engineering
firm, Parametrix, to survey the Critical Species Habitat
properties and to make recommendations on low impact
development restrictions. This was done in part to satisfy
the Puget Sound Growth Management Board's requirement that
the city provide facts and findings to substantiate their
claims. Although the science to support the city's critical
species habitat claim is good science the lack of
comprehensive and complete survey of the uplands in Zone 1
brings serious questions about the applied science's
validity into play. Also in question is the relevence of
creating a critical species habitat in a small geographic
area that is surrounded and directly iffluenced by land
development completed and currently taking place.
The lands surrounding the subarea, all lands being part of
the North Creek drainage, are under heavy development in
creating housing, using current land development practices,
that are creating pollution and runoff in the waters that
supply the small tributary creeks that are focus in the
critical species habitat. There are approximately 19 miles
of North Creek that flow down from the north, drainage that
supplies the Critical Species Habitat, lands that are
heavily developed, being developed and that subject the
creek to non-point pollution, septic system effluent,
general run-off and chemical contamination. The
approximately 19 miles of North Creek arrives at the .9 mile
single shore critical speciea habitat, east, that are the
lands adjoining the rest of the habitat. As the engineer
testified to the city council, the habitat is experimental
and the results of treating it as a critical species habitat
are uncertain. The fact that the uplands of Zone 1 were not
ever entered by personnel conducting any survey can only
lead to questions regarding this "good science" as it is
applied -- in making assumptions. Also, the fact that
surveys, now aged, that identified the lands of two
adjoining subareas as valued highly in the preservation of
existing salmon spawning runs apply to only the one
remaining subarea. The two spawning creeks identified are
fed by water sources that are outside the control of the
remaining subarea and are identified, now, as polluted,
caused by heavy development that has already taken place.
Given the current severities imposed on the land owners
involved in this debate any amount of assuming during the
application of "good science", which by definition "is
always subject to peer review", jeopardizes the legitimacy
of the Critical Species Habitat. It is bad thinking to
assume to apply good science when the effort is overshadowed
by agenda driven bias. The city needs to be very careful in
applying experimental habitat policy in a city growth region
that will be continually scrutinized for its experimental
nature. According to the consultant's testimony it may take
100 to 200 years of experimenting to judge whether the
habitat is a success or not, in the ability to recreate an
old growth forest environment. The science that is being
quoted regarding a desired 65% forestation/10% impervious
road surface low impact development restriction is assuming
"natural" conditions. There are no natural conditions
existing in Zone 1 of the Fitzgerald subarea. The mayor's
comments regarding this situation do well to reflect the
current condition. "We are trying to create a Jurassic Park
where there now is none." He went on to note that the lands
on the hillside in Zone 1 have been cleared and farmed for
many years.
In 1856 New York city set aside over 700 acres of land
destined to become Central Park. In all that time New York
City remains a high density building cluster surrounding
Central Park and Central Park remains, as does its city host
does, a people place. People come first in "the city" albeit
required to observe good environmental lifestyle practices
to remain healthy and dense in habitat -- to allow outlying
low development areas to remain that -- to protect the
overall environment. No experiment needed in that but rather
good rationale.
If the city of Bothell wants a PARK then the
responsibilities of acquiring and maintaining a park is the
correct agenda to pursue, not the sneaky approach of last
minute designation of lands, agenda destined to burden the
few private land owners for the benefit of special interest
desires. Otherwise that's called theft. To date there has
not been any discussion regarding protecting this Critical
Species Habitat from the influences of all the development
surrounding it, ie: fences. The population of humans moving
into all the new housing is going to have a great impact on
the health of the habitat. For examples of how other
watersheds are protected one needs only to drive around and
observe. The city's agenda tends to mindset grabbing land
and experimenting, to wait to see where the chips may fall.
The sense of rudeness developing from all this in regard to
humanity creates a veil of sadness.
Special interests WANT what they want and through
manipulation have imposed their will on the sleepy bedroom
community that Bothell has for a long time been. A few of us
are paying the price for their "experiment" and to the
Berrys that will likely mean the loss of an entire life's
work, insignificant in the greater scheme of things,
certainly, but just the same a recipe for a healthy curse.
As farmers, the Berrys have always used sweat equity and
cash to pursue their lives. The land that they payed
reverent stewardship to is their only asset for the future.
To jeopardize them in a sense of disdain is, if nothing
else, remarkable thinking. "Amazing" was Tom Berry's more
charitable approach to defining his loss of property owner
rights.
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Another perspective
2007 -- The lands to the north of Zone 1, hillside, in the
Critical Species Habitat are under development as of August
2007. The land as of August 15th is completely cleared for
110 new homes, currently being scraped to separate the
soils. The land immediately behind, east of the city line,
will commence developement shortly to resemble the
development currently being worked to the north. To the
south of the habitat there is an existing apartment complex
built out on R5400A zoning. Soon, the Bothell Connector
arterial will bisect the hillside properties on the west,
separating the hillside properties from the rest of the
Critical Species Habitat with linear highway construction,
north -south, that will permanently alter the water flow
that flows west and south. The Zone 1 hillside properties
will be effectively removed from direct influence in the
Critical Species Habitat system. Few people like land
development but it's simply reality and old biases need to
be modified to deal with this reality -- to be governed by
reasonable restraints.
This video is available to help describe the terrain
features and surrounding development.
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