t Study will identify and prioritize critical areas on the island.

Last year, people pushed for parks in Winslow.

While that’s still a need, planners are spreading a bigger net as they look to balance development with open space on the island.

“We’re looking at what areas should be preserved as we continue to grow,” said Long Range Planner Libby Hudson.

Like it or not, Hudson said, that growth is coming.

The city’s population is expected to swell from about 23,000 now to 28,660 by 2025. Half of that growth will be funneled into Winslow. The rest will be spread among the neighborhood service centers of Lynwood Center, Island Center and Rolling Bay, and to a lesser extent the outer reaches of the island.

But as population waxes, will parkland wane?

“At this point, Bainbridge Island is in a very good position compared to other communities in the Puget Sound region,” said Biologist Jim Keany, of environmental consulting firm EDAW. “(Bainbridge) has a lot of good land, high bio-diversity, key habitat corridors and a lack of sprawl.”

Keany and EWAD were signed on by the city to conduct a four-month open space study that the city will use as a tool to plan for growth and conservation. The final report will be released in July. As part of the process, the city will host a public meeting at 6:30 p.m. tomorrow at City Hall. Keany will be on hand to outline the effort to this point – so far the city has created a map that ranks every inch of land on the island according to environmental sensitivity and susceptibility to development.

Streams, wetlands and habitat were among the environmental factors considered; land ownership and the likely intent of owners – Bloedel Reserve, for example, is expressly committed to its own preservation – determined a parcel’s susceptibility to development.

A similar public meeting was held last month to gather information.  The focus of Thursday’s meeting will be the human elements of open space planning.

“It’s not just about identifying areas,” Hudson said. “We want to identify priorities within those areas. What is important to an interconnected system? Farmland isn’t habitat, but culturally it’s important to the community.”

Trails are another example of the types of human components the city is looking to prioritize. Collected data will be overlaid on the existing maps and incorporated into the final report. Eventually planners will turn to the flip-side of the equation, using a similar process to specify where growth should be distributed.

“But obviously we want to find out what to preserve first,” Hudson said.

The study emerged from the work of the 2025 Growth Advisory Committee, a group that wrapped up its work last year. The committee’s aim was to help determine how the city should accommodate future growth, while remaining aligned with its Comprehensive Plan and the state Growth Management Act.

Several island groups – including the Bainbridge Island Land Trust, Watershed Council, Historical Preservation Commission, IslandWood, Bloedel Reserve and Sustainable Bainbridge – are assisting with the current work.

The park district is conducting its own open space study as it updates its comprehensive plan. City and park officials say the two studies will compliment one another.

Funding possibilities for open space purchases will be taken up later, Hudson said.

Park purchase over the past several years were fueled by $8 million in open space bond money, but the buying continued even after the bond money was exhausted. Last year the city bought both Meigs Farm, off State Route 305, and the Williams Property, on the shore of Manzanita Bay, without the aid of voted bonds.

Knowing that much of the island’s growth is coming to Winslow, several citizens last year began urging planners to look for open space there. The dearth of downtown parkland has been acknowledged by city and park officials and by a special task force, which recently studied the issue in depth.

Though important, Hudson and Keany said Winslow is but one part of the island’s park picture.

“The pressure is growing,” Keany said. “I think the island is on the cusp. If citizens really want to preserve what they have, they’re going to have to take action.

“It’s one thing to write up a really good plan,” he said. “But if the implementation falls flat, that plan doesn’t really matter.”