Revised boundaries would make Cordata own neighborhood

Large northern neighborhood boundaries to be revised in order to better suit the community.

The process is underway for a revision of the Guide Meridian/Cordata Neighborhood boundaries after the city initiated a project to break up massive northern neighborhoods into sizes that are easier to manage and better representative of the area’s population and interests.

Nicole Oliver, the communications coordinator for the Planning and Community Development Department, said the project seeks to divide the Guide Meridian/Cordata neighborhood, making the Cordata area into its own neighborhood.

Adrienne Lederer, the president of the neighborhood association, said it can be hard to relate to the highly commercial and industrial areas in the neighborhood and hopes the new boundaries will lead to more community participation and make it easier to inform people about common interests.

“Stores have different problems than we have as residents,” Lederer said. “We hope that [the change] brings us all together as a community. That’s the main thing we want.”

With zoning ranging from industrial to single-family residential, Lederer said there have been problems organizing and accurately representing the needs of all who live or work in the area.

Boundary Change Details

According to city planning documents, northern neighborhoods such as Guide Meridian/Cordata had become “unwieldy and oversized due to successive annexations.”

Neighborhood statistics compiled by the Planning and Community Development Department for 2009 show Guide Meridian/Cordata covered 1,545 acres and had a total estimated population of 5,855.

The new Cordata Neighborhood will include land north of West Bakerview Road to the city limits and land west of Cordata Parkway to the city limits, with all other land from the original Guide Meridian/Cordata Neighborhood being combined into the existing Meridian Neighborhood.

Bob Sanders, a member of the neighborhood association, said he feels the boundary revision is a smart idea, but if the neighborhood association had worked harder they might have been able to better interact with the business district.

“We were only moderately successful in working with the business community,” Sanders said. “Frankly, we talked about it a great deal but haven’t done a lot.”

A Focus on Residential

Oliver said the current population and growth of Cordata does not match what was envisioned when the neighborhood was annexed from Whatcom County in the 1990s.

“The neighborhood plan needed to be updated because it was written with the intention of being a business park, when in fact it ended up having a lot of residential,” Oliver said.

Since the Cordata area has become mainly residential, the issues of that area are not necessarily related to the surrounding commercial zones along West Bakerview Road and Guide Meridian, Oliver said.

Of the 5,855 people living in the combined Guide Meridian/Cordata Neighborhood in 2009, the majority of those, about 4,484 people, will live within the new Cordata Neighborhood boundaries.

Making a New Plan

Neighborhood members are currently working with city planners to revise the proposed neighborhood plan for Cordata. The plan was put together by multiple city departments and submitted on April 27 for a month-long review.

Oliver said the neighborhood plan process includes incorporating the neighborhood’s vision and goals from the submitted plan update of 2007, re-numbering the land use areas, developing consistency with the city’s comprehensive plan and updating sections of the plan such as housing, parks, transportation, utilities and area descriptions.

Lederer said some of the most important aspects of the new plan will deal with developing green space such as parks and trails, making housing affordable, making sure housing developments consider playgrounds and pathways for pedestrians and providing provisions for increasing traffic, such as stop lights on busy intersections off of Cordata Parkway.

A planning session is scheduled for June 24 at City Hall to introduce the revised and updated neighborhood plan, followed by a hearing on July 15.

Oliver said the changes should be finalized by December and in effect by January of 2011.