The Value of What? And, to Whom?

Okay, so yesterday's bottom line was that the members of the community in attendance at the new Lily Point LLC development didn't want it to happen but figured that the best way to have the development avoided (or at the moment, the only way since the actual hearing on the development itself isn't until June) would be to have the County planning board decide that more work needed to be done on the environmental impact statement that they'd already said didn't need any more work.  However, they left it up to the public to point out where they might be wrong about that.  Thus, the meeting was intended to encourage people to write about that.  It was more a matter of using whatever law was available to slow things down because there is a general concern that the trees are at risk of being cut very soon.

But, here's my other concern.  I certainly share in the general emotional concern of those at the meeting that this is not what I want for Point Roberts, nothing that is likely to improve Point Roberts, nothing that is likely to make it more scenic or more livable.  But there is a very big 'not in my backyard' nature to that concern.

Wayne and Anders have, after all, laid out real money for this property and this is, after all, a country devoted to capitalism, profit-making, and private property and everybody owning a house or two.  So why shouldn't they be allowed to do that here?  Granted, we'd all like it done somewhere else, but so what?  There are plenty of things in the world that I'd like done somewhere else, but I have no evidence that my wishes in such matters carry or should carry any particular weight.  Even when I would like something done somewhere else, it's very likely that some of my neighbors either don't particularly care or in fact value whatever it is being done in our neighborhood. So, I don't know that just not wanting something to happen is much of an argument, even if it's a strong feeling.

Plenty of the people, including plenty of the permanent residents here, probably rarely go down to this property.  I live near the road that heads to it (APA Road) and as far as I can tell, it is a little trafficked road.  And many of those who are driving down it either live that way or are going down to the Lily Point Preserve which is, after all, being maintained as a preserve exactly because it merited protection.  Isn't this next piece of property just a ragged edge, of which there is bound always to be one?  And isn't our concern a tad impersonal in the sense that we are mostly concerned about the idea?

If this property is so extremely valuable to those of us who live here, how come the Point Roberts Foundation (a non-existent non-profit corporation that we could all contribute money to for such purposes if we had one and if we wanted to make such contributions to improve the community's life) doesn't offer to buy it from the bank and Wayne and Anders?  And, more to the point, why isn't there a Point Roberts Foundation to do such things?  A couple of years ago, I was proposing that everybody with a house on the Point donate, say, $500 a year for the community betterment.  If we'd been doing that for a couple of years, we'd be on our way to buying the Butler property's 40 acres and saving ourselves the inconvenience and unaesthetic qualities of this development and its minus trees.  My guess is that the people with houses here, regardless of whether they do or do not have discretionary income, would mostly say, 'Hey, I already pay taxes.  Why should I pay more to live here?'

I suspect that, for the most part, people here would not be willing to put significant amounts of money to this purpose.  They would not, e.g., all give up their vacations next year and put the money they might otherwise spend on the vacation into the buying out Wayne and Anders fund.  Instead; they largely just don't want Wayne and Anders to put their money to their purpose.  The Nature Conservancy, or the Trillium Corporation, or Whatcom Land Trust will be encouraged to reach into their deep pockets, but those of us who live here and care about this?  Well, my guess is not so much.  My guess is that the Point Roberts Conservation Society still exists as a legal entity to donate funds for taking treasured Point Roberts property out of the development arena.  It was started to try to raise money for Lily Point before the Nature Conservancy, Whatcom Land Trust, and the County and State ponied up those funds.  But it was not phenomenally successful in getting contributions from Point Roberts homeowners; not in the millions of dollars, certainly.

But if we really want to preserve this property, maybe we ought to be thinking about what those of us who live her and care about it need to sacrifice for that goal, not just what Wayne and Anders ought to sacrifice.

So, those are the two sides of my conflicting views.  Today is the final day for comment to the County planners on the SEPA plan.  I wrote such a comment, in line with my first post and in particular in light of my attachment to the Point's rapidly disappearing historic houses.  But, in line with this second post, I doubt if it would--or even should--carry much weight in anybody's decision to move on with this project.