By Don Nelson
For a small town with only about 400 residents and covering a little more than 500 acres, Winthrop is a complicated place.
There’s the downtown commercial core, where the heart of Winthrop’s Westernization theme beats. There are other commercial areas along Highway 20 and adjacent to downtown. There is an industrial zone. There are several distinct neighborhoods with names that I’ll bet many of you have never heard of (besides Heckendorn). There are planned developments with many empty lots. Two rivers and some trails run through it.
Although you only have to stop once on the way through town, Winthrop has traffic problems. Everyone squeezes through on Riverside Avenue, waiting their turn at the four-way on busy weekends. Or the locals work their way around the clogged artery by way of Castle Avenue — which takes them past mixed uses that include residential. Cars, bikes and pedestrians mix it up all over town, each looking for safe and convenient passage.
Rental housing is pretty much limited to stand-alone residences, if you can find one. There’s only one 16-unit apartment complex in the town.
These are just a few of the considerations that went into an overhaul of Winthrop’s comprehensive plan that has been underway for several years at the planning commission level. The proposed update is now available for public review and comment. The comp plan provides a framework for the town’s growth based on a sense of what residents would like to see happen.
You might ask, what exactly is the town comprehensively planning for? Over the past quarter-century, Winthrop has been active but not booming. Its population bottomed out at about 320 in 1990 and has been increasing by about 1 percent a year since then — hardly explosive.
At the same time, Winthrop has established itself as a destination community within a destination area. Its livability is as important as its economic health.
It may not always feel like it, but Winthrop has room to maneuver. There has been a lot of interest in residential development since 1999, when the town first adopted a comprehensive plan to help guide its growth. But while several single-family home developments have been proposed, only a few have materialized, and they are not very populated. In fact, about 43 percent of land within Winthrop remains undeveloped.
The goal of the comprehensive plan is to ensure that whatever happens within the town limits is consistent over time, and compatible with the town’s needs. While Winthrop’s marketing focus is on tourism, the comp plan is primarily meant to work for the people who live there or have businesses in town.
Winthrop isn’t even required to have a comp plan, but it’s scary to think what the town might look like without any zoning or regulations on land usage (see the High Country News article on this page for an example of a what a non-zoned nightmare looks like). And as town planner Rocklynn Culp discreetly pointed out in a recent presentation before the Winthrop Chamber of Commerce, not many local residents trust Okanogan County government to be especially considerate of Winthrop in its planning decisions for areas adjacent to the town.
The proposed plan has lots of elements, including land use, transportation, utilities, housing, parks and recreation, capital facilities, shorelines and economic development. It’s detailed. But the plan is worth taking a look at if you live in or do business in Winthrop — or even if you just care about the town. There will be public opportunities for review and comment before the planning commission adopts the proposal and sends it on the Town Council. Take advantage of them.
