HeraldNet: 'Mini-city' man

HeraldNet: 'Mini-city' man:

"Lots of people are worried about developer Dave Barnett. What is he thinking?
What will he do?
But Barnett says all the worry is premature.
For about
three years, Barnett has been lobbying for the right to build 'mini-cities' in
Snohomish County's rural areas.
'These communities are a better planning
tool than the other planning tool, which is sprawl,' said Barnett, who owns
2,655 acres of timberland west of Lake Roesiger.
To create mini-cities,
formally called fully contained communities, in Snohomish County, Barnett hired
three of the state's top land-use experts to help him.
He's almost there."

Which is bad news for us, as we live next door to the proposed city.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Pombo tours Wild Sky site with jeff Sax

Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Pombo tours Wild Sky site: "'There's a lot of camping ... even right now,' he said just minutes after stepping from one of two helicopters that shuttled Pombo and Wild Sky opponents Jeff Sax, a Republican Snohomish County Council member, and apple grower Ed Husmann."

Jeff Sax accompanied Pombo on a trip to the proposed Wild Sky Wilderness area that Sax opposes.

Your input needed

Dear Friend,

The Snohomish County Planning Commission needs to hear from you. They
are having a public hearing at 7 p.m. August 23 in the County's
Administration Building East, 3000 Rockefeller Avenue, on the
development regulations that will allow for a new city at Lake
Roesiger. Click the link below to send them an email message today!

http://actionstudio.org/?go=1625&i=KjsmUjddXD8kUiw5VVIgICAK

Kristin Kelley at Futurewise via Bev

komo news | New Road Has So Little Traffic, It's A Danger

komo news | New Road Has So Little Traffic, It's A Danger: "SNOHOMISH COUNTY - A new Snohomish County road is so under-used, it's actually a danger. Now the county is looking for money to crack down on the unsafe drivers who use it.
'If you build it, they will come' never rang true for Cathcart Way. The state spent $25 million dollars on the stretch of road to handle up to 30,000 cars a day.
But only 6,000-to-8,000 use it. "

They got that right! If it takes you 15-20 minutes to get across the valley on Hiway 9, then who in their right mind whould go that way. Most of us continue to take Seattle Hill Road when going that direction; and it is still slow. It's the traffic light at Airport Way that causes the problem.

Too bad that we can't tell all the prospective buyers at Panther Lake Ridge that they can't get to Seattle from here . . . but by the time the PLR subdivision is full they probably will have fixed the problems and Snohomish will be the bottleneck.

New Web Site for: Panther Lake, Snohomish WA

Panther Lake, Snohomish WA:

"The Panther Lake web site is maintained by the Chisholm family. If you have comments or suggestions regarding this web site you can send email to one of the following addresses.

Questions regarding the weather data should be directed to Dan. Questions about water quality monitoring and data should be
directed to Ken.

Long term we hope the PantherLake.net web site can be used to capture and share information about the past and future of this
wonderful lake. Please send your comments, stories and historical
pictures.

Thanks for visiting! "

From the Contact information page for the new Pantherlake.net web site.

They have a weather station so we can get local weather data!

There is also some beginning history information and photos of the lake (all from the East side so far--I'll send them some shots from the west side).

HeraldNet: Wealth lopsided in county elections

HeraldNet: Wealth lopsided in county elections:

"Developers are pouring thousands of dollars into the campaigns of three
Snohomish County councilmen seeking re-election this fall.
Individuals and
the companies they run are fueling the fundraising success of Republicans John
Koster and Jeff Sax and Democrat Dave Gossett, giving the three a significant
financial edge over their opponents at this stage of the campaign."

And they're not the candidates we support, as is to be expected.

Housing bubble is busting -- good news for us if not for the country.

That Hissing Sound - New York Times:

"This is the way the bubble ends: not with a pop, but with a hiss.
Housing
prices move much more slowly than stock prices. There are no Black Mondays, when
prices fall 23 percent in a day. In fact, prices often keep rising for a while
even after a housing boom goes bust.

So the news that the U.S. housing
bubble is over won't come in the form of plunging prices; it will come in the
form of falling sales and rising inventory, as sellers try to get prices that
buyers are no longer willing to pay. And the process may already have started."

Which may not be good news for the national economy, but it is good news for us in attempting to preserve our rural neighborhood. If the local housing boom busts, then we might end up with many fewer houses built on our friendly neighborhood Rural Cluster subdivision than the builders might anticipate. Instead on only taking a few short years to fill it up, it could take a lot longer. I suppose it would get filled up eventually, but the sales rate will be much slower.

That will, of course, prolong the period where we have big sales signs up at the entrance to 163rd, and the traffic from potential buyers, but the traffic will probably be lower and spread out over a longer time.

HeraldNet: Urban traffic hits rural roads

HeraldNet: Urban traffic hits rural roads: "More drivers are using Snohomish County's rural two-lane roads to travel between booming urban areas and state highways.
As a result, county officials want to relax some traffic standards to recognize that some rural roads through farms and flood country are becoming urbanized."

Although Three lakes Road doesn't appear to be on their list, many of the roads that I drive on are, including Machias Cutoff, Bickford Avenue, Lowell-Snohomish River road, Airport Way, 88th/92nd street SE, and Broadway. Let's face it--they are going to lower the standards so they can allow more development.

I searched the web and found some background material on the county web site. There is a lot more material there in PDF format. Do a Google search on the site for urban congestion or rural.