Participant Invite

It has been just over two weeks since I sent out personal invitations to over 300 citizens that have participated in past planning projects with the City. As a result, visits to the blog site have increased; I have also been able to get my first round table discussion group together and we will be meeting shortly.

Evolution of City and Plat History

The city has developed through the incremental change represented by over 176 individual plats (subdivisions) beginning in 1889 with the original Town of Oak Harbor plat. It is interesting to note that the first plat of the community included park space, Smith Park.

I have just completed an extensive analysis of the historical plats for Oak Harbor where I examined 50 plats looking at a variety of characteristics to better understand the way subdivisions have influenced the look and function of our city, including:

• number of intersections;
• connections to neighboring areas;
• lot size;
• dead end streets;
• block and street patterns; and,
• open space or parks.

The relationship of these characteristics affect our way of life and livability in a host of ways:

• how easily we can move around our neighborhoods;
• our access to open space or parks;
• traffic management; and,
• urban sprawl.

By examining these we will be better able to determine how to best achieve the neighborhoods we desire for our city. This will be the subject of the discussion I will be having with the Planning Commission at their meeting on April 22.

I will also be posting these findings and other analysis of current conditions to the blog shortly.

New Poll Question

A new poll question has been posted and will run until April 14th. “Should walk/bike trails be required in new subdivisions, and should they connect to neighboring subdivisions?”

Currently PRD subdivisions are required to have 10% of the gross area of the PRD as common open space, with at least ½ of that being for active or passive recreation. This has typically resulted in trails within the subdivisions. These trails generally have limited connections to neighboring subdivisions, as this is not a required condition within the Code.

Video Report - Updated

The second video (2 - Subdivision Public Engagement) in the VIDEO REPORTS bar has been updated with improved picture and sound quality.

Poll Results

The results of our second on-line poll are in! 17 people voted and answered the question "Which kinds of neighborhood streets do you prefer?" with the following responses:

1. Wide streets without trees - 5% - 1 vote
2. Wide streets with trees - 52% - 9 votes
3. Narrow streets without trees - 0% - 0 votes
4. Narrow streets with trees - 52% - 9 votes

Not surprisingly, the preference shown in this poll is for tree lined streets within neighborhoods.