Strongest Town 2022, Round 1: University Place, WA vs. White Salmon, WA
Welcome to this first round match-up in the seventh annual Strongest Town Contest! In this round, 16 towns are facing off, and eight will advance to the next segment of the contest based on your votes. We invite you to read answers representatives from these two cities provided to our questions about economic resilience, citizen involvement, community response to the pandemic, and more. Then vote for the strongest at the bottom of this page.
Can’t decide? If you’re looking for inspiration, check out how we describe the Strong Towns approach.
You may vote once per match-up. Round 1 voting closes at noon CT on Thursday, March 3. For rules, and to follow along with the contest, visit the Strongest Town Contest page.
Note: All entries are lightly edited for clarity and readability.
UNIVERSITY PLACE, WA
Entry submitted by: James Feore, Kim Medchill.
What is your favorite thing about your town?
More than anything else, I love that University Place (UP) has embraced a decades-long approach of incremental progress. Unlike so many other towns that strive for instant perfection—building the perfect development, crafting the perfect park, investing in the perfect new downtown—UP has spent the last 25 years making modest but measurable progress towards livability and financial resilience.
When UP became the first city in Washington to adopt a Complete Streets policy, it didn’t tear up miles of road and attempt to rebuild everything from scratch. UP started with nothing, and then added a few sidewalks, the state’s first roundabout, and some bike lanes. We made progress little by little to build out the South Sound’s most robust network of pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure. One step at a time, UP slowly transformed its once dangerous streets with road diets, street trees, and roundabouts into beautiful, walkable boulevards.
This same approach extends to the municipal code too. Where so many towns are fighting incremental development with restrictive zoning or stifling review processes, UP has taken measures to enable it. Duplexes and accessory dwelling units (ADUs) can be built throughout all the town’s residential zoning, and UP’s entire commercial corridor—all 481 acres of it—was rezoned to mixed-use with a form-based code. The high value-per-acre developments that have followed are a testament to the success of this approach.
What is the biggest challenge your town faces, and what are you doing to address it?
UP is part of the Greater Seattle area, and like many other cities in the region, it has seen rapidly escalating housing prices. The rapid shift to remote work brought on by the COVID pandemic only exacerbated this problem, as many Seattle residents looked to buy into cheaper suburbs now that they no longer had a commute to consider.
Despite those problems, UP has positioned itself well to come out ahead. In addition to allowing “missing middle” housing throughout the entire town, large sections of UP were zoned for mixed-use and multi-family housing well in advance of the current crisis. The city’s mixed-use town center, completed only a decade ago, has served as a catalyst to lure more high-value developments into the immediate area. Over 1,000 new, high-density units have either already been built, are in construction, or will be breaking ground shortly as a result of the town’s permissive zoning and active assistance of healthy development.
Perhaps the starkest example of this is the giant, dead strip mall and abandoned movie theater on the town’s north end. Built before the town’s official incorporation, the strip mall was the perfect example of inflexible suburban sprawl. It has been a half-abandoned, blighted sea of asphalt for the last decade, and now, the lure of permissive zoning has attracted a vibrant, 300-unit apartment complex to replace it. So called “suburban retrofit” is more than just a dream in UP.
What transportation options exist in your town for people of varying ages, abilities, and means? How easy is it to live in your town without regular access to a car? What transportation investments has your town recently made or is it in the process of making?
We’ve already bragged about UP’s incremental approach to implementing its Complete Streets policy. Now, we get to brag about how far that’s come.
What started as a car-centric suburb with no sidewalks or bike infrastructure is now a thriving town with over 43 miles of sidewalk and bike lane. A street redesign which boasted the first roundabout in the state has now expanded into a network of eight roundabouts and slow streets that do more than just pay lip-service to “Complete Streets”. The city’s next six-year transportation improvement plan continues that trend by adding another 20+ miles of pedestrian and bike infrastructure, including shared-use paths, pedestrian shortcuts, and even more roundabouts.
UP’s two main arterials, Bridgeport and Grandview, were transformed so thoroughly that they have literally become case studies in effective street redesigns. Bridgeport was featured by the FHWA’s PedBikeInfo for its safety and walkability improvements, and Grandview’s conversion into a healthy street was covered by Blue Zones.
The north end of our town is anchored by a regional transit center, which also provides bus service throughout the city. One of those bus lines is also slated for conversion into a bus rapid transit route by 2027, with light rail to follow. Buses to bus rapid transit to light rail; even the transit is incrementally developed here!
Tell us about your community's local economy. Who are the key players, big and small, and how do they help your town to be financially strong and resilient? What local businesses are you most proud of?
University Place is a story of financial resilience from the get-go. The town is literally named after a university that was never even built. When that dream died, the community continued to grow anyway, supported by the small bets they had made instead of being saddled by the weight of large, risky gambles.
UP has continued to thrive as its economy has slowly diversified. Perhaps the most prestigious business in the town is the Chambers Bay Golf Course, which helped draw attention to UP when it hosted the 2015 US Open. Much of the town’s other business is grounded on a health-focused retail and services model that complements the active lifestyle that the town’s infrastructure encourages. UP has a near over-abundance of specialty health providers, pet stores, bike shops, and health-conscious grocery stores, like Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s. These businesses draw their customers from across the entire region, all while avoiding the big box store suburban development model.
Backing all this up is UP’s close proximity to Joint Base Lewis-McChord (JBLM). Many of UP’s residents either work in JBLM or are stationed there, providing a solid and stable base for the local economy. The town also works to make this relationship a mutually beneficial one by partnering with the 16th Combat Aviation Brigade through our Community Connector Program.
If we took a walking tour through your town, what would we see? How does your community use its land productively to promote long-term financial resilience?
University Place isn’t an old enough town to be able to fall back on a resilient, traditional downtown core. It had no Main Street or 1st Avenue, instead it shared the same land-use pattern as so many other suburban communities: a bunch of scattered homes and subdivisions connected by miles of pavement to a loose network of strip malls on the edge of some larger town. When UP incorporated some three decades ago, the town had to craft something out of that.
UP started by focusing on its downtown core. It didn’t have high value-per-acre properties to capitalize on; it had to attract them. The town transformed its main thoroughfare, Bridgeport Way, in a well-connected, walkable boulevard and zoned the area attractively to encourage mixed-use development. Only a few decades later, the impact is obvious: The same town center that had once been the home to a cluster of dying strip malls and empty parking lots is now a vibrant, semi-urban district.
Standing at City Hall, you could point yourself in any direction and take a self-guided walking tour. Within a 20 minute walk, you’d find the elementary school, middle school, high school, six parks, three supermarkets, health care providers of every variety, multiple gyms, over a dozen restaurants, and—most importantly—plenty of housing to let residents actually live next to all these amenities. The area is thriving and attractive, providing more than enough tax revenue to finance its continued upkeep.
How easy is it to become an entrepreneur or a small-scale developer in your town? What kinds of support are available for a resident who wants to open a business or build on a small vacant lot?
In UP, it’s less a case of providing direct support for development, and more a case of just getting out of the way of natural development. Permissive zoning and a form-based code make it attractive to build along the town’s arterials. Even better, the code allows for reductions to parking minimums along transit corridors, allowing for better land-use on small plots. Even in the most restrictively zoned areas, duplexes, cottages/tiny homes, and ADUs are all permitted, allowing residents the opportunity to meaningfully improve their existing residences.
As a small town with a pro-urbanism staff and accessible council members, engaging with local leaders where there are issues is also surprisingly easy. Instead of endless design reviews and code changes to stifle development, the UP Municipal Code is almost littered with changes made to enable new developments. Just last month, the Council passed three zoning changes reducing setback requirements and certain land-use restrictions to specifically enable the construction of a new, 400+ unit mixed-use development. The ease of development within UP, especially in contrast to much of the Puget Sound Region, is a major part of the town’s success.
At Strong Towns we believe financial solvency is a prerequisite for long-term prosperity. What do you consider your most potent (existing) tax producing property? Where does your revenue come from? What do you spend it on?
“These businesses were good, local businesses. But over the course of an entire year, they generated about $45,000 in combined property and sales tax. The projection for this development is that it will generate $2 million a year in combined property and sales tax.”
That quote is from 2004, from the mouth of our then-”assistant city manager” (and current “city manager”) when he was interviewed about UP’s plans to transform its town center. Four years before Chuck wrote his first Strong Towns blog post, our city staff was thinking in terms of value per acre, and the results of that kind of thinking are obvious today.
Just as predicted, the new town center has become the financial heart of the city. The mid-rise apartments located there generate the highest property taxes per acre for the city, and the many businesses in the mixed-use development generate its high sales tax revenues. The success of that development must also be qualified in terms of how it spurred on further growth. Not just the town center itself, but the entire surrounding region has been transformed with new mixed-use developments, high-value-per-acre housing, and bustling retail. The income from all that is in turn poured back into the same area, with the greatest concentration of infrastructure development being reinvested into the area which best supports UP’s financial health.
At Strong Towns, we believe that local government is a platform for strong citizens to collaboratively build a prosperous place. How are residents in your town involved in shaping its future? How do residents’ experiences, struggles, and concerns directly inform the projects undertaken by local government? Provide one or more examples.
UP’s strength is best reflected in its high degree of citizen engagement at all levels. As the pandemic has limited many traditional means of direct engagement, the city government has worked hard to make itself more available through other means. The city expanded its social media communications, began to livestream and post all the Council meetings to YouTube, and made regular usage of FlashVote surveys to gauge community interest.
Citizen involvement goes well beyond city-led efforts too. During a recent special election on whether to renew property tax levies that help fund local schools, “Citizens for UP Schools” led a campaign that resulted in the UP School District receiving the highest voter support in the county. University Place also benefits from other community organizations. Bringing together local residents, business leaders, and nonprofits, “United for UP” works to identify and address critical needs in the community. Leading the push for livable, walkable communities, “People Oriented Places UP” has focused on direct action volunteerism and community advocacy. These organizations join a host of more traditional groups, like the American Legion, the Rotary Club, and Freemasons, in providing avenues for citizens to contribute to the strength of the town.
WHITE SALMON, WA
Entry submitted by: Brendan Conboy, City Planner; Marla Keethler, Mayor of White Salmon.
What is your favorite thing about your town?
The City of White Salmon is often described as “the land where the sun meets the rain,” in reference to its location atop a 550-foot bluff at the unique crossroads of microclimates of the Columbia River Gorge, and the leeward side of the Cascade Mountain range. Mount Hood to the south frames a stunning backdrop throughout town and the sunsets are unsurpassed. Long summer days see town buzzing with activity at local shops and eateries as locals and visitors enjoy all the recreational opportunities the Columbia River Gorge has to offer. White Salmon is known internationally as a funky hub for whitewater kayaking and wind sports junkies. In late fall and throughout winter, the town becomes much quieter with the seasonal rains. While this respite is welcome by many locals, it also presents challenges to local businesses.
Like the climate, White Salmon is characterized by a diverse and eclectic blend of residents, including multi-generational families who can trace their lineage back to the Oregon Trail, and new arrivals who are drawn to the quality of life, year-round recreational opportunities, and the sense of place and community the city offers. This intermingling of long-time residents and new arrivals, coupled with runaway real estate prices, has created both tension but also robust discussion regarding growth and change. Our favorite thing about White Salmon is that both new residents and long-time residents are deeply engaged in discussions regarding the future of their community and are eager to participate in all manner of civic activity.
What is the biggest challenge your town faces, and what are you doing to address it?
Without a doubt, a lack of a diversity of affordable and attainable housing for residents of White Salmon is the biggest challenge facing the city, and one which threatens the very fabric of the community. A lack of affordable and attainable housing has resulted in an acute workforce shortage for local businesses. White Salmon is both blessed and constrained in buildable land by what is, in effect, an urban growth boundary established with the creation of the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area by Congress in 1986. Additionally, White Salmon has one of the lowest property tax rates in a state with one of the most regressive tax structures in the country. As a result, the city is limited in its ability and funds to make inroads on addressing the housing crisis without thinking creatively and building relationships with community partners.
White Salmon’s staff is in the initial process of creating a Housing Action Plan. Such a plan is intended to create a roadmap for policy and zoning changes to spur the production of the 1,100 housing units which will be needed by 2040. In addition, they are actively working with the Mid-Columbia Housing Authority to explore potential infill development within White Salmon. They anticipate utilizing the Housing Action Plan to institute comprehensive zoning reform, as envisioned in the recently passed 2040 Comprehensive Plan, to enable the production of missing middle housing, with incentives for the creation of deed-restricted affordable and attainable units.
What transportation options exist in your town for people of varying ages, abilities, and means? How easy is it to live in your town without regular access to a car? What transportation investments has your town recently made or is it in the process of making?
White Salmon is served by regional bus transit and is connected to Hood River, Oregon, by an aging toll bridge across the Columbia River. The bridge is slated to be replaced by a new bridge with dedicated pedestrian and bicycle improvements within the next eight years. Because White Salmon was platted in the early 1900’s, the core downtown is laid out in a grid which is a quick fifteen-minute walk to anywhere in town, however, sidewalk infrastructure is lacking in many locations and there is no dedicated bike infrastructure to speak of. Furthermore, White Salmon sits atop a 550-foot bluff, which presents a challenge to regional connectivity for those walking and biking.
The city is working with the firm Nelson Nygaard and is halfway through the creation of a “lite” transit plan with a focus on active mobility and Complete Streets improvements throughout town. As part of this plan, staff reached out to internationally renowned planner and author, Jeff Speck, who came to White Salmon in late January to assess the town and present recommendations to the community. The virtual event was attended by over 60 community members who had the opportunity for a question-and-answer session with Jeff. The video has since been circulated widely on various media platforms and has been watched hundreds of times in a town of 2,500 residents. Upon completion of the plan, the city intends to pursue state and federal funding (i.e., the DOT RAISE funding package) for Complete Streets and the transit improvements identified.
Tell us about your community's local economy. Who are the key players, big and small, and how do they help your town to be financially strong and resilient? What local businesses are you most proud of?
White Salmon’s local economy is increasingly tied to recreation and tourism, as the area is considered a mecca for wind sports and whitewater kayaking, as well as mountain biking, hiking, and skiing at nearby Mt. Hood. Additional core sectors include the lumber, agricultural, and fruit-packing sectors, which have been the historic mainstays of the economy. The area is home to a cluster of companies that are involved in the development of unmanned aerial vehicles for defense and civilian purposes. The health care sector and hospital are large employers, as are professional services, schools, government, and workers who commute to nearby Hood River. Lately, the city has been experiencing a growing remote workforce of people who want to live in the Gorge and work for companies located elsewhere.
The service and hospitality industry have certainly reshaped downtown White Salmon in the past twenty years from a sleepy, out-of-the-way town, into a locus of hip restaurant and retail activity within the historic downtown. Everybody’s Brewing, a local brewery, led that charge and has been a key anchor in the economic revitalization of downtown White Salmon. The spillover effects from Everybody’s as a community gathering place extend to numerous other restaurants, bakeries, bars, tattoo shops, and other unique retail ventures that thrive particularly during the spring, summer, and fall months.
If we took a walking tour through your town, what would we see? How does your community use its land productively to promote long-term financial resilience?
Starting downtown on Jewett Boulevard, one would find a historic streetscape consisting of brick buildings, with charming storefronts interspersed with modern developments containing ground floor retail and upstairs residential and office space. Between the streets you would catch glimpses of the Columbia River below and on a clear day, Mt. Hood in the distance. Enveloping town are the sloping hills forming the north shore of the Columbia River Gorge. Surrounding the commercial downtown core you would find residential areas typified by early- to mid-century single-family homes in the craftsman, farmhouse, and Victorian style, as well as newer, more modern homes and the occasional duplex and apartment building.
The city is actively working to revise the zoning code to better ensure that land is being used productively to help ensure financial resilience. In July of 2021, the city adopted an updated the 2040 Comprehensive Plan, supplemented by a May, 2020, urbanization study which, in addition to a buildable lands analysis, focused on employment growth forecasts, employment land needs, stakeholder input, and employment land policy considerations. The city has reached out to the firm Urban3 for the purposes of revenue modeling in anticipation of presenting a levy lid lift to voters in November, 2022, regarding property taxes. In addition, staff is actively working with stakeholders on the formation of a White Salmon Downtown Association in affiliation with the Washington State Main Street Program.
How easy is it to become an entrepreneur or a small-scale developer in your town? What kinds of support are available for a resident who wants to open a business or build on a small vacant lot?
There is ample room for entrepreneurs and small-scale developers to grow into existing vacant storefronts near downtown or to build on vacant lots, however the types of commercial development to date that have been successful tend to be higher-end casual dining and short-term rental developments. Housing and construction costs, commercial rent, and staffing issues present a difficult obstacle for any would-be developer or entrepreneur. The kinds of support that are currently available include the Mt. Adams Chamber of Commerce and the Mid-Columbia Economic Development District for promotional and business financing.
As mentioned previously, staff is working on the formation of White Salmon Downtown Association, a focus of which is the economic development of downtown and business start up assistance. In truth, the types of businesses that are doing well are those that provide experiences and things you cannot order off Amazon: the bakery, the brewery, glass blowing, custom guitars, wine tasting, etc. A key priority for staff is to incorporate a business incubator with a commercial kitchen space within the new community center building which will be constructed next year.
At Strong Towns we believe financial solvency is a prerequisite for long-term prosperity. What do you consider your most potent (existing) tax producing property? Where does your revenue come from? What do you spend it on?
The most potent tax-producing property within White Salmon is Everybody’s Brewing. It anchors the downtown core on two historic 50-foot-by-125-foot lots for a total of 12,500 square feet, or 0.28 acres. All parking is provided on street, and the building occupies the entirety of the property, with an expansive rear deck and views of Mt. Hood. The property is appraised at a total assessed value of $1,405,000 and brings in significant sales tax revenue, which is 7.5% in White Salmon. This equates to a tax value per acre of $4,896,152. Comparatively, just up the street is a two-acre parcel that contains the Harvest Market grocery store, some office space, a salon and barber, and the library with a vast expanse of surface parking in front. The entirety of the improvements on the parcel is $1,490,000, which equates to a tax value per acre of $745,000.
Our revenue comes primarily from charges for services like water (60.67%), utility taxes (12.57%), sales tax (9,64%), state revenue (7.82%), and property taxes (6.50%). AS noted previously, White Salmon has a very low property tax rate in a state with a regressive tax policy. Our 2022 operating and maintenance budget sets aside 29.23% of funds for water, 21.32% for police, 15.96% for wastewater, 10.09% for finance, 7.84% for streets, and 5.58% for planning, with the remainder spread across smaller categories.
At Strong Towns, we believe that local government is a platform for strong citizens to collaboratively build a prosperous place. How are residents in your town involved in shaping its future? How do residents’ experiences, struggles, and concerns directly inform the projects undertaken by local government? Provide one or more examples.
Citizens of White Salmon are actively engaged in collaborating to build a prosperous place. An organization has formed to create a new pool for the community and is raising funds to break ground this spring. Numerous boards and committees are filled by volunteers who bring their expertise and insight. Recent items which have elicited a strong response and involvement from the public include the newly adopted regulations on short-term rentals (Airbnb). Members of the public in favor and opposed to short-term rentals attended numerous lengthy meetings and helped shape the outcome of the new regulations. Another example is the city’s response to the displacement of mobile home parks for speculative real estate development. The city adopted new zoning to protect the remaining mobile home park residents from being displaced. The city strives to be transparent and forthcoming with residents and makes every effort to include opportunity for public comment in all matters.