About 100 people Wednesday night helped to lay out a vision for Anacortes’ future as part of a 2-year project to update the city’s Comprehensive Plan.
The Visioning Workshop conducted by Makers, an architectural and urban planning outfit from Seattle, led participants in voting on what’s important and in discussing, in small groups, just what they want to happen in Anacortes.
After hearing about Anacortes’ history and an overview of the past 2 Comp Plans, participants voted on a series of topics to help prioritize what’s important. The voting, using little wireless clickers, showed that attracting family wage jobs is important, as well as providing a variety of housing types, and scaling future retail development to the community.
Regarding retail, the group voted, by a narrow margin, that future retail should infill current spaces, that it should be small-scale and could include junior-box and mixed use. Also important was balancing economic, public access and environmental issues along the waterfront.
Small groups gathered around tables discussed what they love about the city, what they’re concerned about and what they hope happens over the next 50 years. After the group discussions, a representative from each group outlined what their table voted as important.
Themes included family-wage jobs, affordable housing, fixing what one group called a quiet drug problem, a viable working waterfront and an engaged citizenry. But, the theme that kept coming up is that people here love Anacortes’ small-town character and don’t want to lose it.
The next public meeting is set for April 30 at the Transit Shed Event Center.
Resources
- View and download the Presentation (31MB pdf),
- View all the documents concern the 2016 CompPlan process, jump to the city's 2016 Comp Plan Documents page.
- Unofficial Rock the Plan on Facebook