1979 Beachcomber Opinion Piece on Vashon Vision

What’s below is scanned (without permission of the BC or the author) from the 1979 “Island Life” magazine put out by the Beachcomber. Thought folks might appreciate it.

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Most of us have a private future vision. A dream around which to center our private lives. But in a metropolitan area, especially, you cannot sustain a private dream without participating in some kind of public vision of the common future.

There isn’t enough space left to withdraw behind property boundaries to do your thing. Everyone’s doing his thing and he needs space to do it in.

The moat reinforces Islanders’ need to develop a public vision of our future. It slows the pace somewhat from the pell mell rush around us. We have a chance.

In other ways it reminds us how delicate the situation is. The Island is small and perhaps not strong enough to resist pressures of urban, suburban, metropolitan entanglement beyond our shores.

There seem to be three main pressures confronting the Island.

The first is the that the Island will become just another Seattle bedroom. A place where beautiful houses are built, probably always with some green patches remaining, maybe even with large lots, well manicured. Only the really rich will own the houses. Taxes and property prices already are beyond the means of many of the kinds of people who live here now.

Another growing pressure is from city entrepreneurs out to make a big buck fastest. Everyone’s gotta grow bigger, expand, make more. Who’s to blame when we all must keep up with inflation?

Most people who want to make the maximum amount of money look to the cities. However, another possibility is sprawling Vashon, burgeoning Burton, tacky shops, fast food joints, condominiums, black-topped shopping centers, trailer courts. Burien. Bellevue. Gorst. Gig Harbor even has sprawl problems now.

Tourism is a third threat. In many ways, tourism is something Vashon can capitalize on. But most places which draw a lot of tourists have difficulty remaining attractive.

Most people on the Island see a future somewhere between these three extremes.

“Islanders are relying on three courses of action to protect and sustain the three things they like about the Island,” says the report of a cross section survey of Islanders which preceded the current land use planning effort involving so many young Islanders.

“To sustain a rural environment, they see a need for continued open space and introduction of more parks and agriculture. To protect their privacy they place an emphasis on permanent residents and less growth. To guarantee their separation from the mainland they want to ensure that access to the Island is limited to the existing ferry system,” the yet unpublished report says.

Luckily, young people are helping lead the process of determining Vashon’s future. Young people, who may wonder if anything, especially a government-directed process, can work to redirect what seem to be the bottom lines of the American Way of Life, turned out in large numbers for community and neighborhood meetings this year and last to help determine our direction.

Perhaps we have a chance.

These are young people who have a grip on their private dreams and want to make sure Vashon remains a place where their dreams are possible.

Most people value being a ferry ride from all that over there. They want the opportunities, the cultural exposure, and the facilities of the city within reach.

But they want the privacy, the peace, being closer to land and forest and nature, and small community familiarity for themselves and their children which the Island provides.

Often newcomers themselves, they understand that shutting the gates is not an answer.

Visually and philosophically they value the fields, trees, ties to nature, open space, privacy, independence, and life style associated with small scale farming; gardening, some might call it.

This vision, this dream might include some kind of community food preservation arrangement, perhaps an effort not only to grow food, but to process it as well. It could mean sharing skills: you grow this for me and I’ll grow the other for you. It could mean shared machinery to make intensive, small scale farming efficient.

Perhaps the most important practical aspect of all this small farm dreaming is that it uses the land as a resource and justifies preserving it from fence-to-fence development.

But for young people, especially, small farms on five or 10 acres are economically out of reach. And there is neither time nor energy to improve acres into a farm and hold down a $40,000-a-yearcity job.

There may be no way to control escalating land prices. But for those who have their land already, escalating taxes are still a threat. Most young people I know would like to see some kind of tax shelter for small-scale family  subsistence farming as is now proposed for the larger commercial farms in King County.

Along with this is a desire to see cottage industries legal in residential areas. To work a small parcel they must also turn to part-time jobs or some skill or talent they can use at home.

This is not tied to small farming, but it does seem to have parallels. In any residential community on the Island you are likely to find craftspeople and artists quietly going about their business.

It’s a way to get cash to back up small-scalefarming, time to improve the land, and time for both parents to participate fully in child raising.

Often, many young Islanders live this way-illegal according to the book. Most would be the first to agree there are good reasons to keep disruptive commercial uses out of quiet residential neighborhoods. The key is “disruptive.”

As Islanders apparently have always done, some even build their own homes outside the code.

There are inoffensive home pursuits by which people can support themselves, which, they might argue, add vitality, life, and character to a neighborhood.

What public future for the Island will ensure that the dream of many young Islanders is at least possible?

-Mary G.L. Shackelford