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Seventh Street residents press council on ferry-area parking and proposed pickleball noise
Summary
Residents from the Seventh Street neighborhood raised safety and notification concerns about ferry upland improvements and diagonal parking, and a resident questioned placement and sound impacts for proposed pickleball courts; council took no action during public comment but staff noted the issues.
Anacortes — Several Seventh Street neighborhood residents told the City Council on July 14 that parking, safety and notification practices around the Guemes (Guimas) Ferry upland improvements and proposed recreation projects need closer review. Boschie Morris, 1618 Seventh Street, showed council a photograph of an aid vehicle at the intersection of Sixth and I and said that Sixth is not a designated arterial for ferry traffic and called the pavement and diagonal parking configuration “substandard” for the traffic it is expected to carry. Morris said the neighborhood has seen heavy parking in recent months and that several nearby homes fall outside the 300-foot notification radius for the ferry upland improvements. “I just distributed a photograph of an aid vehicle on its way to the Guimas Ferry just about at the intersection of Sixth And I,” Morris said during public comment, adding that some homes that will be affected did not receive direct notice under the current radius. Resident Malcolm McCutcheon described new diagonal parking in front of his house and said cars are backing into pedestrian areas; he asked the council to stop diagonal parking and to consider a residential permit for two spaces per house on his block. McCutcheon also raised concerns that recent proposed ADU rule changes could enable more intensive housing configurations in Old Town. Morris also raised a separate concern about proposed pickleball courts, saying the project’s outreach reportedly excluded several homes on the west side of the site and that proponents’ assumptions about sound propagation were incomplete. “It was a — I was here last week, and that was a wonderful presentation,” Morris said, and challenged the idea that noise from courts “doesn’t travel up,” noting neighbors on higher streets report otherwise. Councilmembers acknowledged the public comments during the meeting; no formal agenda action was taken on these items during the July 14 meeting. The matters were raised during public comment and will be routed to staff and the appropriate departments for follow-up on notification boundaries, parking enforcement and the scope of outreach and environmental/noise review for proposed recreation projects.
