PORT TOWNSEND — The city of Port Townsend has seen a barrage of public comments opposing changes to zoning, likely to result in increased density, during its final stages of deliberating on the adoption of its 2025 comprehensive plan.
The primary issues of concern stem from proposed amendments to Port Townsend Municipal Code Chapter 17, on land use.
Specifically, changes would increase the minimum and maximum number of housing units per 40,000 square feet in R-II zones, the most common residential zones in Port Townsend.
Staff presented the council with proposed maximums of 32 or 48 units per 40,000 square feet, up from the current maximum of eight units.
“The push for density is based on the idea that more market-rate housing will address our housing needs and that we get there by effectively deregulating zoning through maximizing density,” said Viki Sonntag, a member of the city’s Planning Commission.
“However, the evidence shows that more market-rate housing does little to address the existing inequity in access to housing or the wider issues of displacement and homelessness.”
Sonntag also sits on the city and Jefferson County’s joint Housing Fund Board and the Housing Task Force subcommittee.
In more than 50 pages of written public comment and more than an hour of spoken public comment, residents repeatedly raised concerns that the proposed upzoning could lead to increased gentrification, overwhelm existing infrastructure, erode the town’s Victorian character, and — without anti-displacement measures — fail to produce the desired outcome of affordable housing. Several also expressed concern about the removal of the daylight plane clause.
Long-range planner Adrian Smith included a chronology of public outreach events, which combined walking tours, radio interviews, multi-day open house studios, online meetings and presence at multiple Saturday farmers markets. An agenda document lists 63 public events relating to the comp plan, in-person and virtual, dating back to May 2024. Many were at least partially focused on developing direction for land use and housing policy.
Predominant recurring themes of community values gathered from the outreach included environmental and climate resilience, affordable housing, retaining the city’s character, and equity and inclusion.
At Monday’s city council meeting, staff will present the council with a second public reading of the document, which the council may adopt.
Council member Libby Urner Wennstrom said that while she understands that people are busy, she found the stark contrast between the absence of such opposition in the large number of public hearings and the last-minute flood of comments frustrating.
“This is just a sentence from a three- or four-page letter, ‘Our quality of life is in jeopardy because of “I want syndrome” from people who can’t afford to live here,’” she read. “I want you to hear those words and I want you to think about how those words feel to someone who grew up here, whose grandparents grew up here, maybe their great-grandparents grew up here, and they are being told that their desire to stay in their community, where they’ve lived and worked for generations, is a ‘I wanna,’ and that they are not welcome because they can’t afford to live here.”
Urner Wennstrom had the conversation with three different people — all of whom had grown up in the area and are facing housing insecurity — in the days leading up to the meeting, she said.
“Despite the city’s best efforts to engage the public and get meaningful input, most community members are still unaware of the sweeping zoning changes that are on the table today,” residents John Capps and Karelle Anthony submitted in written public comment.
“People can have different opinions about whether we did all of the right things to engage the community, but we certainly did a lot more than most any other community I know of around the state or even beyond, both in process and in creative approaches,” City Manager John Mauro said when he introduced the topic in the Nov. 17 meeting.
The council held a special meeting for the continuation of the hearing on Nov. 24.
In response to comments suggesting that housing stock could be increased by pushing into less developed parts of the city, rather than maximizing infill, Mayor David Faber said such development would require costly infrastructure, which would not result in affordable housing.
The housing crisis in Port Townsend is multi-layered — not only is it an issue relating to the cost of houses or rent, but also their availability, Faber said.
“If enough housing is not built to satisfy demand, the existing housing will continue to increase in value and those without sufficient resources will fall out of the market,” Faber said. “It’s essential that we stop trying to have a strangle-hold of control on exactly what happens here. We have to allow a little bit of change to occur more organically.”
________
Reporter Elijah Sussman can be reached by email at elijah.sussman@peninsuladailynews.com.
