At COBI’s recent steering committee meeting for updating the Winslow Subarea Plan, Adam Amrhein of LMN Architects revealed their initial attempt to capture potential solutions for our community’s needs, taking into account input from workshops and surveys with our community, and from all the work that went into the recently-approved Bainbridge Island Housing Action Plan, Sustainable Transportation Plan, and Climate Action Plans.
Three alternatives were proposed, but elements from each are very much encouraged by LMN to be co-mingled into a final, unified vision:
- Change Nothing and miss all required targets, community expectations, and goals
- Increase Density a bunch in specific spots, and a little in others, exclude Wing Point from Winslow, and potentially achieve all targets, expectations, goals
- Expand Winslow to include High School Rd and Coppertop, increase density uniformly by a little (plus) and potentially achieve all targets, expectations, goals.
“Bainbridge is a laboratory of missing middle housing.”
Adam Amrhein, LMN Architects
The presentation also does a good job of capturing the types of housing already in place across Winslow and other areas of density across Bainbridge Island, as well as insight into how those residential units and transportation impacts might be deployed to meet the mandatory requirements of the State’s new Growth Management Act.
This now sets a new dual-track community process in motion, with both council member public discussions at regular business and/or study session meetings, as well as public workshops, with the stated goal of completing the updated Winslow Subarea Plan by the end of the year (and then building from that to try to complete the island’s overall Comprehensive Plan by the end of 2024).
For reference, the GMA sets immovable objects for our community’s downtown and neighborhood center Subarea Plans, as well as the overall island-wide Comprehensive Plan, all of which must define the path forward for Bainbridge between 2024 and 2044.
For more information on all these moving parts, please see the Chamber’s previous explanations of:
The Winslow Subarea Plan: A Generational Opportunity To Manage Growth (03/21/23)
City Councilmember Jon Quitslund’s Hopes for the Winslow Subarea Plan (02/28/23)
Housing Action Plan Summary (03/28/23)
Maggie Rich of HRB Shares How Housing Action Plan Helps Bainbridge (07/11/23)
2023 State Legislative Session Summary (04/25/23)
Selected Slides from LMN Architect’s Presentation to COBI’s Winslow Subarea Plan Steering Committee on 09/16/23
To see the presentation in full, and learn more about the updates to the Winslow Subarea Plan, head on over to the project homepage at the City of Bainbridge Island website