Samish Neighborhood Association monthly meeting held in the Last Week

The Samish Neighborhood Association’s board meeting was held at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 13 at the Community Baptist Church, 810 Samish Way. Several of the board members gathered and discussed mainly two topics: neighborhood safety and rezoning of the Church of Christ on Samish Way.

The board members firstly discussed that the Samish neighborhood need a strong, good communication with police, taking seriously the neighborhood’s safety problems, related to burglary, drug and homeless camps. As an option to solve the problem, a board member proposed to start a community garden somewhere in the neighborhood. The members agreed that they would talk more in detail about it at the next meeting on January.

The second topic was the rezoning of the Church of Christ (Area 4 rezoning) (See also here). The members consented that they would keep their “integrity” of the original rezoning – they, as the Samish neighborhood, would refuse the rezoning in order to protect the “nonretail definition,” which represents the current character of the area and the neighborhood. Also, the neighborhood should guarantee its original character for those who have and buy houses in and near the area, valuing the neighborhood’s environment, said the board members.

The next meeting is held on Thursday, Jan. 8, 2015. The time and the place will be the same as the previous meetings, according to the Samish Neighborhood Association’s website.

Ongoing Plans and Upcoming Meetings about Rezoning in Samish Neighborhood

Now, the Samish neighborhood has three rezoning plans ongoing.  They might interest many of you, the Samish residents because they would change the characters of the areas and might also affect the environments of the areas where you live. How much do you know about these rezoning? Here is brief introduction about these rezoning plans:

1. Area 1 (the west of South Ashley St., the north of Byron Ave.)
   The area is located in the northern end of the neighborhood. Rezoning the area from Commercial Auto—for “auto-related uses”—to Commercial Planned, which allows more variety of use, including “mixed residential and commercial uses.”
2. Area 4 (the Church of Christ):
   Rezoning from Residential to Commercial. This plan is along with remodeling of the Church of Christ, to allow the Pacific Harbor Psychology to put its new medical clinic in the area. A public hearing was held in the City Council Regular Meeting on Oct.13.
3. Area 9 (the opposite side of the Church of Christ, between the Elks Lodge and the Community Baptist Church)
   The area is planned to be rezoned to Planned Commercial for broader range of use.
   Public hearing is held at 7:00 p.m., Thursday, Nov. 20, at the City Council Chamber, 210 Lottie St., Bellingham. Materials will be available on the COB website (about a week prior to the meeting).

*Zoning table of the Samish neighborhood

*Other relevant sources are provided by the Samish Neighborhood Association website.