POULSBO — Some Poulsbo residents who have been biting their tongues for more than a year will finally have their say.
Poulsbo City Council set a public hearing for the Gaines annexation, which involves 30.82 acres between Liberty Road and Marelaine Lane, for 7:15 p.m. May 5 at City Hall.
The hearing was delayed in April 2009 as one of two annexation proposals the council put off at then-Mayor Kathryn Quade’s suggestion. She wanted to put the annexations on “pause” until the council could create a more comprehensive plan to accommodate the city’s growth.
The annexation process was jump-started in September when proponents began gathering signatures from landowners within the proposed annexation area. Sixty percent of the landowners must support annexation. The council received the completed petition in December.
Revisiting parking issues
Mayor Becky Erickson responded to small business owners’ concerns about parking in downtown Wednesday by reviving parking committee to study the issue. The committee will report back to city council.
“In order to go to varying areas of downtown and figure out what we’re going to do about parking, if we’re going to do something about parking how we can go about reaching that,” Erickson said.
Three-hour parking will be enforced on Anderson Parkway beginning May 1.
Bill Austin, owner of the Hare and Hounds Restaurant, recommended parking meters for downtown, diagonal parking on Third Avenue and a parking garage.
“We have employees and business owners parking where customers should be parking and that’s a no-no, you can’t do that,” Austin said.
South Viking project to begin
The city’s traffic patterns will see some changes come April 19 between the hours of 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. Traffic will be limited to one-way during those times. Improvements will be made on a third of a mile stretch of Viking Avenue between Bovela Lane and the south city limits.
Public Works relocating?
Poulsbo Public Works’ new home may not be so welcoming, according to one of its sole neighbors.
The work needed for the Viking Avenue location has been divided into three phases — clearing the site and consolidating storage space, building a transfer station for city garbage and building offices. The first two phases were presented to city council Wednesday. While the need for consolidating the Public Works services is clear, the funding for it is not, said Andrzej Kasiniak, city engineer.
“We lost a lot of land over the years, we are left with very little land. We have eight locations where we store our spare parts. We’d like to consolidate all these locations to one location,” Kasiniak said.
Having the services spread out in different locations wastes time, effort and money, he said. The first phase requires the leveling and clearing of the site and the consolidation of storage facilities.
However, residents of a home near the new site aren’t likely to offer Public Works a welcoming basket.
Deb and Jim Griggs have lived in their home — which sits within 30 feet of the worksite — for almost 30 years.
“We’re going to be very close neighbors,” Deb Grigg said.
The city’s peace offering — building an eight-foot or higher fence with a filler and natural vegetation as a buffer — have satiated the Grigg’s need for privacy.
The Griggs were also concerned the industrial site would affect their home’s value.
“We ask (city council’s) cooperation to provide adequate buffering between our house and the facility to make it comfortable and livable for the next resident,” she said. “We’re just two folks who bought property 30 years ago and we’d like to continue living there.”
