 Prairie, the coastal strip,
Keystone Spit, Crockett Lake and uplands, and Grasser's Hill and Lagoon.
Three secondary visual areas, Smith Prairie, Coupeville, and the Fort
Casey Uplands, completed the list. "We 'dropped a rock' at Ebey's
Landing," said Len Engle, "and the ripple effect going away from it was
how we developed the initial concept of what to preserve." NPS
acquisition of scenic easements from private property owners would be
concentrated in the most visually sensitive and vulnerable locations.
[9]
Having identified the significant areas of the
cultural landscape, the group focused on natural and historical
landmarks within each area. It identified the specific components of the
visual area and then, after debating and finally voting, ranked each
element in order of significance and urgency. Len Engle pointed out that
the major landowners in the reserve averaged nearly sixty in age, and he
urged the committee to consider farmlands that were particularly
vulnerable to sale. By the end of May 1979, the committee had selected
eighteen areas--what one member called the "heartwood" of the
reserve--as its highest priorities. [10]
These priorities were:
Initially considered, for the sake of completeness,
but later removed from the list were Penn Cove Park, Surf N' Sands, and
Libbey Road/Sierra. These were voted down as being too residentially
developed. [11]
The committee was motivated by a general desire to
maintain a working community; it was therefore reluctant to encourage
recreation in the manner of a traditional "park" in EBLA, particularly
since the bulk of the landscape remained in private hands. It sought to
reassure landowners that their privacy would be protected and that
visitors would not disturb farm operations. No one wanted the community
to be overwhelmed or otherwise intruded upon by inappropriate activities
or excessive crowds. With the exception of public beaches and the
permissible use of roads and trails, the committee selected the eighteen
sites as places for low-key tourism and mostly passive appreciation of
the landscape.
On the southern side of Penn Cove, the coastal strip
including Ebey's Landing topped the list, followed closely by Ebey's
Prairie, which was on the brink of development. Here, especially, the
conceptual plan reflected compromise among committee members and the
growing pressure from the Smith farm owners to develop their land. The
conceptual plan permitted cluster development on the edges of the
prairie, away from the prime agricultural lands. (Meanwhile, however,
the NPS was attempting to limit such developments in negotiations with
the Smith family and Bud Wagner. See Chapter Six.)
In addition, the plan agreed to limited recreational
development on Keystone Spit, and did not rule out private development
there. The conceptual plan recognized Coupeville as the urban nucleus of
the reserve and acknowledged its unique historic atmosphere; the reserve
needed a central point to which people could gravitate, and Coupeville
was the logical spot. Generally, management of the scenic highways was
not an issue, because the committee members felt that the county and
state would handle highway maintenance. The NPS would provide scenic
pullouts and interpretive signs. [12]
Lands on the north side of Penn Cove were more
controversial, and the kettleholes, Grasser's Hill, Monroe's Landing,
and Blower's Bluff stimulated lengthy debate. To some committee members,
these areas seemed remote from Ebey's Prairie and the original purpose
of the reserve. But the committee agreed that the usual tour of the area
included a circuit around Penn Cove; both Monroe's Landing and Blower's
Bluff gave people a different visual perspective of Coupeville and the
cove. These areas were clearly part of the historical landscape.
Monroe's Landing, in particular, had once supported an Indian settlement
and also offered a rare swimming beach on Penn Cove. The committee
recognized that some spots were probably in safe hands for the time
being. Monroe's Landing was a county road end, with private land to the
east, and had become de facto a public swimming beach. (Island County
later planned to purchase Monroe's Landing Spit in 1995.) [13] Blower's Bluff, a broad, green open space
at the eastern edge of Penn Cove, was a stable and financially secure
dairy farm. While it would make the preservation list, it would be a low
priority. The kettleholes on the western end of the cove formed a
unique, glacially-formed geological feature situated in scenic open
space. If one wanted to take the long view, Island County Assistant
Planning Director Len Madsen quipped, here was a historical landscape
13,000 years old. [14]
The conceptual plan noted that, aside from the
purchase of conservation easements, the federal government would rely
upon local zoning ordinances to preserve the character of the landscape.
Cluster zoning would help protect open spaces by concentrating
development in areas already developed or platted. The Coupeville
Historic Review Board and the Central Whidbey Island Historic Advisory
Committee would continue to review historic design, permits, and rezone
requests. Scenic and interpretive pullouts would be provided in key
areas, and the trail along the west shore of the island extended north
and south and maintained. Maintenance and operation of the reserve was
to be the responsibility of the appropriate local and state agencies,
with grants from the NPS of up to fifty percent of operational costs, as
called for in the enabling legislation.
Out of concern for local control, the committee
recommended that the reserve be managed by a trust board, consisting of
ten representatives selected by Coupeville, Island County, Washington
State, and the National Park Service (this was later reduced to nine
members when the representative from the state Department of Natural
Resources Economic Division was dropped). [15] In part, the trust board idea was intended
to resolve two seemingly contradictory points of view: the county's,
which wanted to maintain strong local control, and the Park Service's,
which had a mandate to maintain oversight. [16] The trust board would function as an
advisory board to the governmental partners, and as an arm of county
government. Once Para. (c) of Sec. 508 of P.L. 95-625 had been satisfied
("At such time as... local government... [has] enacted such zoning
ordinances or other land use controls which... will protect and
preserve the historic and natural features of the area in accordance
with the comprehensive plan..."), the NPS was to convey full
management responsibilities to this trust board. At that point the NPS
representative would cease to be a project manager, leaving day-to-day
operations to the reserve trust board.
Ebey's Landing Suddenly Expands
In the process of evaluating the EBLA landscape, the
committee made one assumption that considerably expanded the size of the
reserve, at least on paper. Jimmie Jean Cook's 1972 historic district
nomination referred only to eight thousand acres surrounding Penn Cove,
as did P. L. 95-625 (Congress had mentioned no specific boundaries). But
this figure was incorrect. h fact, the land totalled 13,100 acres, and
if Penn Cove itself were included, the reserve spanned 17,400 acres. The
committee decided to define the cultural landscape in its entirety. It
informally extended the boundary line of EBLA across the mouth of Penn
Cove, from Snakelum Point to Blower's Bluff. Recognizing Penn Cove as an
integral part of the cultural landscape would later have implications
for shoreline developments. [17]
Conceptual Plan Completed
At the request of the Island County Planning
Department, local historian Kristin Ravetz drafted an environmental
impact statement evaluating the plan under SEPA guidelines. By the New
Year, 1980, the citizens' conceptual plan was ready for adoption by the
Island County Board of Commissioners. In public hearings, some local
farmers worried that selling development rights was not "fair to the
kids," but a consensus emerged that such sales were a far better way to
preserve farmlands than zoning, which Freeman Boyer likened to
"stealing." [18] Of primary concern to other
participants was the limited development the plan permitted on Ebey's
Prairie and Keystone Spit, which they had hoped to eliminate altogether.
Of all the committee members, only Renee Smith was unhappy with the
planning document. Despite repeated reassurances from Reed Jarvis, Smith
felt that the government would force landowners to sell "for a song,"
and she resented the NPS request for a moratorium on development in the
prairie (discussed in Chapter Six). But the majority of the committee
accepted the document. Having done its work, it turned the next phase
over to the local and federal planners and disbanded. [19]
Comprehensive Plan
The National Park Service now had four months to
complete a comprehensive plan in order to meet the eighteen-month
deadline specified by Congress. The job was relatively straightforward
at this point, requiring only the selection of the best strategies
within existing laws, regulations and policies to complement the work of
the citizens advisory committee. Because acquisition of