THIS STORY IS BY NO MEANS an isolated incident. It is, however, a piece of a bigger picture. And I’m choosing this particular planned development as a focal point because it is in my neighborhood. But in the interest of remaining neutral, I’m writing this from a half-empty campground at the ocean.
You may have seen the yard signs scattered about East Bremerton for the ‘Save Enetai’ Organization. Enetai is an unincorporated piece of this town, located between Manette and Illahee, where a plan for a 189-unit housing development on a plat of forested land near Enetai Creek has drawn the ire of surrounding neighborhoods. Neighbors are concerned about the project’s potential impact on the affected area’s current infrastructure as well as potential environmental and historical impacts of developing this shoreline adjacent property.
The ‘Save Enetai’ group, opposed to the project, held a community meeting last month, inviting the public as well as the new Central Kitsap County Commissioner Katie Walters and Deputy Kitsap County Administrator Eric Baker.
The county is currently in the midst of updating its comprehensive plan for the next 20 years.
At a public hearing on proposed alternatives to the plan earlier in April, more than 100 residents signed up to speak before the commissioners. County planners are grappling with how best to accommodate for nearly 20,000 new homes over the next two decades to keep up with increasing population and county housing targets. The comp plan advisory committee has recommended a preferred alternative to the plan which prioritizes concentrating density within the county’s already established population centers, ideally fostering walkable urban communities while preserving the county’s rural land, minimizing environmental impacts and providing for affordable housing.
Arguments for and against, and with regard to ‘does the plan do enough,’ have been made in many directions. Commissioners heard testimony from community members ranging from concerned residents who have lived here for generations, to newcomers, to conservancy groups, bicycling advocates, local working farmers, local agriculture proponents and more at the public hearing.
A week later, at the ‘Save Enetai’ meeting, a few dozen community members gathered to voice their concerns about the planned development in their neighborhood, on the piece of land labeled on county maps as the ‘Fisher Plat.’ The project has been in planning stages for a few years. An engineering firm is currently conducting a survey for the project and permits with the county are expected to be filed.
Last year, the Bremerton city council signed off in support of managing sewer services for the development if, or when, city sewer infrastructure is expanded to the area.
That decision, reported in the local newspaper, helped kickstart the Save Enetai organization. And got the neighbors talking.
Many in the audience raised concerns that the development is ‘putting the cart before the horse’ without proper consideration for the impact such a large development would have on the surrounding community. Others voiced the historical significance of the property in question which was once a part of the Cheney Estate, not far from one of the original homes of the Bremer family and also near the original townsite of Port Orchard. Others gave voice to the area’s role as habitat and corridor for local wildlife, noting its proximity to Illahee State Park, the Illahee Preserve and areas of protected shoreline along Sinclair Inlet and Port Orchard Bay.
A college student in the back row pointed out an apparent contradiction: With all the work and resources currently being put towards salmon habitat recovery through culvert repairs across the state in response to a lawsuit by local tribes, why would we approve a housing development that could potentially further jeopardize another local creek’s ecosystem?
Long answer short: the land is privately owned.
That particular plat has been zoned for urban residential development since 1998, said Baker, the Deputy County Administrator, who has worked for the county for nearly 30 years. The area is not expected to be re-zoned during the current update to the comprehensive plan. Though not without complications, the proposed Fisher Plat development—just over a mile and a half away from the new Bremerton Station commercial development, about a mile away from Manette and two and a half miles from downtown—seems to fit into the currently proposed alternative to the comp plan update which favors concentrating density in the county’s existing population centers. While permits for the project have not yet been filed, if they are, there is nothing currently within the county regulations that would discourage the development, pending proper engineering reviews and environmental impact surveys.
Sometimes the costs associated with development which are brought about through those required surveys and impact studies can deter developers from completing a planned project, Baker added to conversation. The wooded area visible from this meeting room’s windows is an example of such a project that was planned for development but never completed. However, the best course of action for concerned citizens in favor of preserving land from development, both Baker and Commissioner Walters told the crowd, is conservation or acquisition. Either protecting the land by way of a state, local or federal conservancy funding or through a purchase from private donors in favor of preservation.
Short of that, Baker and Walters recommended the community keep an open line of communication with the developer.
A guy in the back row rose his hand to speak and says he’s from ‘the other side of the water.’ He had come to the meeting from his home on Beach Drive in Port Orchard and said he was a representative for a number of neighbors in his community who would be impacted by the change in scenery a large housing development placed on a forested hillside across the water would create from their perspective.
The crowd seemed to share a collective ‘a-ha moment.’ Baker nodded and pointed out instances of investors from Bainbridge Island interested in purchasing, or contributing to the purchase, of property in Kitsap to preserve their own waterfront views. And not long ago—not far from the site of this proposed development in Enetai—a group of concerned citizens in Illahee formed a stewardship group, pooled their voices, resources, man-power and fundraising to purchase and protect now-more than 500 acres of forested land in this town, over an immense and impressive decade-long project which created the Illahee Preserve. // BILL MAN
THE NEXT UPDATE of the Kitsap County Comprehensive Plan is due December 2024, check out draft plan documents, the current plan as approved in 2016, commissioners’ meetings and more at kitsap.gov. Find more about the Save Enetai organization at saveenetai.org
