To the editor:

I urge citizens to contact our city council members to advocate for the preservation of the Suzuki property. The 14-acre piece is simply too valuable to clear and develop at this time.

It is a strategically located piece. On one side are three public school facilities, and on the other side two more. Let’s play the long game. Following the rampant growth we are experiencing, the next generation is likely to need more school facilities.

Suzuki is contiguous and walkable between school buildings. Forty years from now, there will be nothing like it, and to reclaim it will be prohibitively expensive. The district will then be forced to build far outside greater Winslow, continuing the failed suburban sprawl of our previous century.

Our comprehensive plan calls for affordable housing and economic diversity. It also calls for high density development within a defined Winslow core.

Presently, there are numerous sites within the core that have been sparsely developed and already have ruined environments. The Safeway parking lot is the most obvious example, along with near-empty office space and other lots downtown. We would like to see Winslow fully developed with high density housing and businesses before we start increasing density outside the established core. We encourage the council to think of ways to incentivize high density housing within Winslow, including affordable units.

Let’s redevelop the core before we sacrifice a 14-acre environmentally productive and sensitive site. Let’s not sacrifice a valuable piece of land that we, the citizens, own and that should be preserved for future generations. We will never get this life-sustaining acreage back.

We need to steward our finite island responsibly and according to our comprehensive plan by planning for the long-term.

MARY CLARE KERSTEN

Bainbridge Island