PORT ANGELES — Port Angeles residents will be asked to go to the drawing board later this month to say how they would like to see Lincoln Park redeveloped if many of its tall trees are removed.
The first public meeting on the Lincoln Park Master Plan will be at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 30, in council chambers at City Hall, 321 E. Fifth St.
It will be the first of three or four meetings the city of Port Angeles, Port of Port Angeles and the master plan consultant, HBB Landscape Architecture, will conduct to help determine the future of the park.
The city is considering removing the evergreen trees within the landing path of nearby William R. Fairchild International Airport and replacing at least some of them with low-canopy species in order to maintain aircraft safety, allow the port to implement a more gradual landing approach, and prevent more of the runway from being lost.
Runway unusable
Currently, 1,354 feet of the runway is unusable due to the presence of the nearby trees.
The Port Angeles City Council has yet to take a position on tree removal and is waiting until the public input process is done before approving any changes to the park.
The landing path incorporates most of the park, leaving mostly patches of evergreens on the north and south ends that are not at risk for removal.
City staff and Juliet Vong, HBB Landscape Architecture president, said the meeting will include a presentation on the problems facing the park and the airport, but beyond that, it will be entirely about public input.
First meeting for input
“That first meeting is really to hear,” Vong said. “We’re not coming to the meeting with plans or concepts.”
The port, back in 2009, developed its own rendering of how Lincoln Park could be redeveloped if many of the evergreens are removed.
But port Executive Director Jeff Robb said that was “purely a concept” and is not something that will be presented at the meetings.
He said the port does not want to have the rendering, developed as part of the port’s airport master plan, to influence public input.
The drawing, done by Mike Gentry of Gentry Architecture, depicts a park with trails meandering through open space and deciduous trees, with some evergreens in the background.
But the concept, which is in line with previous comments from the city and port about the possibility of creating a low-canopy forest at Lincoln Park, does not sit well with William Hunt and Devon Graywolf.
The two Port Angeles activists have led the drive to have all of the evergreens protected at the park.
Signatures to save trees
They told the City Council on Tuesday that they have gathered 1,500 signatures backing that effort and displayed their own concept for changing the park, which includes maintaining the current forest with various trail and aesthetic improvements.
“This is not a forest,” Graywolf said after the viewing the port’s drawing, with its depiction of deciduous trees.
“I find it really disturbing.”
Graywolf and Hunt said they cannot support cutting down evergreens, even if it would result in them being replaced by deciduous trees, because it would result in causing harm to an existing forest and the plants, animals and insects that live there.
It may also reduce the wind break that the trees provide to nearby residents, they said.
Hunt, who has said the port should extend the runway to the west to avoid removing trees, also dismissed seeking a compromise since he believes the port will have to extend the runway anyway to accommodate large jets.
“It seems like a stop-gap measure,” he said.
Doug Sandau, the port’s airport and marinas manager, said that’s not the case.
Sandau said the jets can use the runway now. That may change if additional runway has to be given up if the trees continue to grow into the airspace, he added.
The port has said that extending the runway to the west would cost about $30 million, mainly because of the cost of property acquisition.
The Federal Aviation Administration is covering most of the $3.2 million redevelopment of Lincoln Park, minus a 5 percent match from the port.
Although it won’t have a presence at the public meetings, Gentry said he hopes his drawing can at least show that with good planning, the park can be improved without as many evergreens.
“It will be different,” he said. If well-designed, different is good, and I would say it’s an improvement.”
The master plan is expected to take several years to complete, with any tree removal occurring in 2013 or 2014.
________
Reporter Tom Callis can be reached at 360-417-3532 or at tom.callis@peninsuladailynews.com.
