Letters to the Editor
Letter to the Editor | Growth should not outrun Gig Harbor
Gig Harbor is growing. That is neither surprising nor necessarily undesirable. New housing is needed, communities change, and cities must plan for the future. But there is an important difference between planning for growth and allowing growth to outrun the infrastructure and natural environment that must support it.
The proposed Harbor Winds development in north Gig Harbor brings that distinction into sharp focus. The current proposal calls for 77 single-family homes on approximately 26 acres near 93rd Street and the Cushman Trail. According to information circulated about the project’s traffic analysis, the development is expected to generate approximately 887 additional vehicle trips on an average weekday.
Those vehicles will not enter an empty road system. Anyone who regularly drives through Gig Harbor North knows the Borgen Boulevard corridor. A series of closely spaced roundabouts connects neighborhoods, Costco, Target, Safeway, Home Depot and other businesses, Swift Water Elementary School, the YMCA, senior housing, recreational facilities, and ultimately SR 16.
I drive these roads regularly. Traffic already backs up at the roundabouts. At times, vehicles cannot enter one roundabout because it is filled with traffic. Drivers trying to enter shopping centers and residential developments must negotiate multilane traffic. Vehicles merge, weave and cross lanes while other drivers are waiting to enter roundabouts.
Pedestrians add another important dimension. Crosswalks are located close to roundabouts and merging traffic. A person walking a dog, a parent with a child, or anyone else legitimately crossing the street can require traffic to stop immediately downstream from a roundabout. When traffic is already heavy, the resulting queue can extend backward and affect other vehicle movements.
These are not simply complaints about inconvenience. They are questions of transportation capacity and public safety. The City has itself been studying capacity concerns at the Borgen/Burnham/Canterwood/SR 16 roundabout. Gig Harbor’s transportation planning recognizes congestion in this area, and recent analysis has examined how additional development could affect operations at this critical interchange. That makes Harbor Winds part of a much larger question.
It is easy to consider development incrementally: 77 houses here, apartments somewhere else, another subdivision down the road, additional commercial development somewhere nearby. Each individual project’s traffic contribution can appear manageable when considered by itself.
But residents do not experience development one permit at a time. We experience the cumulative result.
Before Harbor Winds is approved, the City should demonstrate that its traffic analysis considers not only existing traffic plus these 77 homes, but also approved, pending and reasonably foreseeable development throughout Gig Harbor North.
And average intersection delay is not enough. We need to know how long traffic queues will become, whether those queues can spill backward into neighboring roundabouts and commercial or residential entrances, what happens during school and major shopping periods, and whether emergency vehicles can move effectively through the system during peak congestion.
The environmental questions are equally important. The Harbor Winds property is currently undeveloped. Seventy-seven homes require more than 77 building footprints. Development requires roads, driveways, utilities, grading, stormwater infrastructure and other improvements.
Residents deserve straightforward answers: How many acres of existing forest and native vegetation will be cleared? How much mature tree canopy will remain? What wildlife habitat will be lost or fragmented? What happens to wildlife movement through the area? How much impervious surface will replace land that currently absorbs rainfall?
Streams, wetlands and their buffers deserve particular scrutiny. Mature wooded buffers are not empty spaces waiting for development. They filter stormwater, reduce erosion, provide shade, protect water quality and provide habitat and movement corridors for wildlife. If buffers are reduced to accommodate roads, grading or building lots, the public deserves to know what ecological functions are being lost and whether mitigation can genuinely replace them.
This is not an argument that Gig Harbor should stop growing. It is an argument that growth should be responsible. Before approving another substantial development, the City should be able to answer one basic question:
Can Gig Harbor safely and sustainably absorb Harbor Winds together with development already built, approved, pending and reasonably foreseeable without exceeding transportation capacity, degrading environmentally sensitive lands and wildlife habitat, or compromising public safety and essential services?
If the answer is yes, then the City should demonstrate that conclusion transparently with data. If the answer is no, the development should be reduced, redesigned or delayed until the infrastructure necessary to support it exists and environmentally sensitive areas can be adequately protected.
Growth is inevitable. Environmental destruction and infrastructure failure are not. Gig Harbor should insist that growth follow infrastructure capacity and environmental stewardship, rather than outrun them.
Regina Fletcher-Sadono, PhD
Gig Harbor