Downtown Together – 09.06.26
For a meeting without an agenda, this morning’s Downtown Together involved lively discussion and generated excellent ideas. After several updates from different downtown organizations, we moved into the latest developments around the estuary. From there the conversation turned to The Port of Olympia’s selection of Tarragon to develop the East Bay area in downtown Olympia, which naturally led to urban development.

From general discussion of the estuary, it’s obvious that many people are still forming opinions about the future of Capitol Lake. Clearly, maintaining Capitol Lake comes with a price. Dredging is an expensive process that the state pays for maybe every 10 years to remove the build up of sediment.But what happens to sediment if the damn is removed and the lake is restored to an estuary? It ends up out in the bay in the marina. If left to nature, the marina would become a mud flat over time unless dredged, which again is an expensive process that someone would have to pay for. But who? The state? The Port of Olympia?

Obviously, money isn’t the only thing to consider. Everybody wants to do what’s right for the environment, but it’s not always clear what is best and what the cost will be. The salmon would clearly benefit from the estuary, but recent reports indicate that the local colony of bats that feeds off the insect life over the lake would lose their primary source of food.

Check out some of the latest posts about the estuary to see what’s going on.

A general attitude of disappointment was expressed regarding the Port of Olympia’s decision to award the East Bay District development to Tarragon. Several points feeding this attitude include the lack of development for residential housing and a general lack of vision for the downtown community. Many of the usual points came up regarding the importance of developing a denser community base in downtown Olympia. But the main point of the discussion turned toward why it’s not happening. There are many advocates for increased housing in the downtown neighborhood, but how many of them would actually sell their homes and move downtown if the opportunity was available? We have a cultural bent toward the home in the country with lots of space, acreage, peace and quiet, and privacy. We can’t imagine living downtown in a dense community and giving up all of these things. We need to re-imagine a life style, a new culture and create solutions that address these needs but in a new way. Without a clear vision for the downtown community, we’ll constantly run into hurdles and challenges in the form of apathy and disbelief.

Check out these links regarding the Port of Olympia and Tarragon.

As usual, the discussions continued after the meeting closed. That’s one of the great things about participating in Down Together. It inspires, motivates and encourages constructive conversation about issues that affect our community and helps us build a vision for our future.

I hope to see you all at A Table for Olympia on July 10 from 5 to 9 p.m.

Downtown Together meets every second and fourth Friday at 8 a.m. in the Rockway-Leland Building.