How to love thy neighbors, all 1.4 million

The 300 millionth American has arrived at a hospital near you, meaning another wave of arrivals will come to Puget Sound — an estimated 1.4 million new neighbors in the next decade or so. What will we do with them, and how will they change our lives? Plenty, is the answer.

Barbara Seitle, president of the League of Women Voters of Washington, points to the League's recent report on the effects of growth management as a way to consider the region's next moves before we are crushed by uncontrolled density and a transportation meltdown. The LWV report at www.lwvwa.org deals with the failures of controlling growth and the opportunities ahead. Speaking from her home on Whidbey Island Friday, Seitle was more optimistic than pessimistic about the quality of life ahead for this region — but just barely.

"Right now developers are having a good time redoing Belltown and South Lake Union — putting in a Whole Foods near The Times on Denny, but they have no incentives in other neighborhoods, so they tend to do high-end development in Seattle and surrounding communities," she said. "Here in Island County, I see no leadership to anticipate the coming influx of retirees and families. We've heard just this week of some ideas for affordable housing in Langley, but it is hard to imagine local government will go for that."

The League's report understands a single growth policy for the state is impossible to implement on the ground. Okanogan County, in the far northeast part of Washington, is larger than Connecticut and Vermont combined. It's crazy to assume the same level of planning must occur there as in Vancouver, in the far southwest side of the state, which has seen 45-percent growth in Clark County, mostly outside the city.

In Okanogan County, the report says, there's now a disclaimer to incoming land buyers warning them they are entering an agriculture zone. Get this: On every deed of property located near a farm or ranch, the following is attached: "You should be prepared to accept inconveniences or discomfort arising from agricultural operations as a normal and necessary aspect of living in a county with a strong rural character and a healthy agricultural sector."

Wisely, the folks of Okanogan County are preparing for residential growth that comes in and doesn't like the smell.

When I first moved to Mercer Island about 15 years ago, real-estate agents were saying there were only about eight or nine buildable lots left on the island community. Hah! North Mercer Island, now orbiting somewhere closer to Belltown, is the result of high densities and such small things as accessory housing units — mother-in-law apartments. There are no more than 300 such units in the community, and the town center has a density of 81 units per acre.

"I'm a big fan of accessory units," Seitle said. It's something Seattle resisted for years, in part based on fears of the impact on street parking. But without those little fixes in zoning and planning, the growth goes elsewhere, leapfrogging boundaries and sometimes common sense.

Much-higher densities have the potential to ruin the quality of life and the reason we live here — just look at Bonney Lake and the growth in rural Pierce County. The answer for me is much-faster annexation of some lands within King County into cities, much-more-adequate public services and roads, requiring some cities such as Redmond to go higher, rather than wider.

Here's the last fact I gleaned from the League's seminal report: In 1950, there were 153,301 acres of land in farms in King County. In 2002, there were 41,769 acres — and those lost 100,000-plus acres are never coming back.

James F. Vesely's column appears Sunday on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is: jvesely@seattletimes.com