Now I want you to picture 1.23 acres — and I mean really picture it — because that is not a lot of land, and someone has decided that the correct number of homes to put on it is nine — nine! — which means we are talking about the Kelsie Estates Preliminary Short Plat on Miller Ave NE, and yes I did say "estates," which is a word I have thoughts about when we are describing a parcel smaller than what the Hendersons used to run their vegetable stand on back when Miller Ave felt like the edge of town and not the middle of everything — and I am not saying growth is wrong, I want to be very clear about that, but I am saying that when you cram nine homes onto 1.23 acres you are making a decision about what kind of place Olympia is going to be, and that decision deserves more than a public comment window that closes on May 7th — which, by the way, if you are reading this on Wednesday you have exactly that long to say something, so put down this column and go do that first, then come back.
And while we are on the subject of decisions being made in the Tumwater area — and I will connect this, give me a moment — there is a proposal sitting in Thurston County review right now for two thirty-thousand-gallon propane tanks off Kimmie Street SW, which is in the Urban Growth Area, which is one of those phrases that means "we are still figuring out what this land is supposed to be" — and I remember when that whole stretch felt like you were leaving town, not entering anything, and now we are talking about industrial storage facilities and subdivision plats and forest land being cleared for a single home up on Sunset Beach, all in the same week, all at the same time — and I bring up Intercity Transit here not to change the subject but because I said last month that we keep shrinking the windows where the people who actually live here can weigh in on things, and here we are again with comment periods and review notices and if you do not already know where to look for a SEPA filing you are simply not going to find it, and that is not an accident, that is just how it works, and I think it is worth saying out loud.
I will also say this about the trees on Sunset Beach, because it is nagging at me — clearing half an acre of forest land for one home is a permitted thing and I am not here to tell anyone what to do with their property, but I wrote three weeks ago about $2.4 million going toward protecting our water, and I do not think it requires a degree in anything to notice that we are spending on one hand and clearing on the other, and at some point the people who actually live here are going to have to decide which direction we are really walking in — and I know I said I would circle back to the propane tanks and I will, I just need another week to fully form my feelings on thirty thousand gallons of anything, which I think is a reasonable position to have — and in the meantime, look up your SEPA notices, attend your meetings while they are still being held, and if you see a comment deadline, treat it like it matters, because it does.
That's all for this week. You know where to find me.