BLAINE COMP PLAN UGA

February 18 letter to Whatcom County:

Blaine Community Development Services is the posterchild for Growth Management fraud. (See Blaine Case Study in the September 2025 issue of Whatcom Watch.) 

The City of Blaine never held a single Growth Management orientation for the community to participate in setting priorities for civic center redevelopment, Critical Aquifer Recharge Area and wetlands protection, or the proposed expansion of the city at Birch Point. Instead, the city met behind closed doors with developers to come up with their vision, and after they passed ordinances enacting the developers vision, they sold it to the public. 

Part of that sales job was by Ocean Farms LLC, the Birch Point developer who pushed for expanding the Blaine city limits at Birch Point so he could develop under the city's environmental standards, which are significantly lower than those of Whatcom County. Ocean Farms LLC paid for the public relations campaign to influence Blaine voters to de-annex part of East Blaine, in order to justify to Whatcom County Blaine's expansion at Birch Point. 

That campaign stated that de-annexation would protect Blaine's drinking water CARA, which it does not. Allowing wells and septic systems over the CARA is problematic. 

Pouring salt on the wound, the City of Blaine never provided the state-required analysis of the costs of growth. If approved by Whatcom County, Blaine's land use plans will place the financial burden of growth infrastructure on Blaine/Birch Bay taxpayers and utility customers, while causing increased flooding at Birch Bay Village, and urban pollution of Drayton Harbor, presently under a 303 listing with the EPA for high human and fecal bacteria, presumably due to a failing sewer and stormwater system they now want to add a thousand homes to.

 

To comply with state law, Blaine must repeal the Urban Mixed Use rezone Ordinance No. 25-3028, which unlawfully reduced creek setbacks and other protections in violation of the Blaine Critical Areas Ordinance, as well as financially benefitted then planning commissioner Sam Randhawa and his employer, Freeman Real Estate (see attached complaint to U.S. Department of Justice). Randhawa and Freeman should not profit from crime, and the comprehensive plan is invalid until this ordinance is repealed.

Blaine must also repeal the June 10, 2024 reduction of parking requirements in the Central Business District ordinance, and the November 25, 2024 increase in building heights in the Central Business District ordinance (included in the Blaine Comprehensive Plan UGA), which were both voted on by then Councilman Mike Hill, who owns numerous commercial properties in the Central Business District, and did not recuse himself as state law requires.

All these UGA rezones were done without public participation, as noted in the Pentland report on the Downtown Advisory Committee, which included Councilwoman Bains husband Gurdeep, who voted to increase building heights and reduce parking requirements for his three commercial properties, despite his financial conflict of interest.

Additionally, the lack of enforcement of the Blaine Municipal Code by City of Blaine Code Enforcement, as evidenced by the attached Water Planning Matters report on Shoreline Management Plan Compliance Failure (see attached), invalidates the Blaine Comprehensive Plan. 

The de-annexation of part of East Blaine was unlawful due to the fraudulent ballot measure Prop 7, and must be repealed as well. Learn more at URGENT ELECTION FRAUD WHATCOM COUNTY.

The City of Blaine 2025 Comprehensive Plan should be invalidated by Whatcom County for violating the letter and spirit of the Growth Management Act by 1) eliminating public participation, 2) concealing planning documents, and 3) retaliating against citizens (see attached) and threatening those who raise ethical questions about Blaine officials exposed self-dealing in rezone votes that removed critical area protections and reduced shoreline setbacks by half the county standard, all while lining their own pockets, which is a crime in Washington State.