Preserve Responsible Shoreline Management LLC has filed a petition for review with the Growth Management Hearings Board to challenge the City of Bainbridge Island’s new Shoreline Master Program (SMP) (Ordinance 2014-04) and the Department of Ecology’s approval of it on August 8. PRSM's website provides the petition at this link: http://prsm-bi.org/?page_id=76 The SMP prohibits docks for single family residences and prohibits bulkheads in some designations. The City declared all single family residences nonconforming, limited their expansion, and limited their height to 30 feet, disregarding SMA allowances. Bainbridge Island shoreline property owners are responsible citizens who care about the waters of the Puget Sound and the wonderful environment we live in. We tend our homes and gardens carefully and responsibly, we enjoy our water views, and we pay a quarter of all property taxes collected from all Bainbridge Island homeowners. Yet, despite eight sewage spills from city lines and the untreated runoff from surface highways and streets (combined or separate these sources represent the largest sources of pollution in our city, far and away) the city aimed its most restrictive rulemaking process at shoreline property owners. We decided that enough was enough, and that it is time to shine a bright light on these new rules: how they will eventually impact you and all island homeowners the lack of scientific justification for how and why the rules were created WHO was behind their creation, and, HOW our public participation policies were ignored or violated.
November 12, 2014