Letter to the Editor: Let's Talk About Madrona Ridge

Written by Dylan Quarles, Port Townsend

Madrona Ridge isn't on the way to anything. You don't pass it heading downtown or see it out the window on a grocery run. You have to mean to go there. So if you've got an opinion about the place and haven't driven out there lately, or walked around and talked to anyone who lives there, I'd ask you to hold that opinion a little looser.

Like a lot of its loudest critics, I remember when Madrona Ridge was all trees. Then came the clear-cutting. Shock and awe, I called it. It hurt to watch. I won't pretend it didn't. Houses went up fast, packed in on lots you could almost reach across, with a grid of matching rooflines to boot. People were furious. Social media blew up. Some in my neighborhood even took their complaints to city council.

But that was then. Here's what's happening out there now. The trees are still gone, and the houses are still pretty damn close together. But my son has several new friends who live in Madrona Ridge. Kids who weren't here a year or two ago, riding bikes down new streets and old trails alike. When my son and I pedal through the unfinished development, past lots still waiting for houses, we see toys left out on front porches, bikes dropped in driveways, chalk art fading on the sidewalk from whatever game got interrupted by the call for dinner. In short, we see a neighborhood with kids and families in it, something this town has had less and less of for longer than most people like to admit.

Madrona Ridge isn't cheap, and it isn't subsidized. But it is at least within reach for more families who want to put down roots, or stay and raise kids in a town they love and help keep running. It's having an effect on the rest of the market too. When a brand-new three-bedroom home starts under $450,000, it gets a lot harder to ask $650,000 for something older, smaller, and in need of a new roof. Buyers have choices now. And sellers have to be a bit more realistic. That's what more housing does.

Part of me suspects that's exactly why Madrona Ridge gets talked about the way it does in certain circles. Less as a neighborhood and more as a dog whistle. Say "Madrona Ridge" to the right crowd and you don't have to finish the sentence. Everyone knows you mean cheap, ugly, too many, not like it was, not us.

If that's how you see it, I'd invite you to think back to your own childhood. Did your hometown hold still for you? I bet it didn't. Somewhere in your story there's a field that became houses, a view that got blocked, a favorite hangout sold to people you never met for reasons you didn't understand. The world didn't freeze back then to protect your idea of how things should be. It changed around you, through you, often because of you, and you got to grow up anyway. Somebody made room for that. Now it's your turn to make room back. Port Townsend was never meant to stop changing the year you got here.

Which isn’t to say change is easy. Watching those trees come down broke my heart. But hard doesn't automatically mean wrong, and new doesn't stay new forever. Give Madrona Ridge a few more years. Watch the new trees grow, and the houses get a little more lived in. Watch more families move onto the block, until one day some kid rides their bike through and doesn't remember it ever being new.

In the meantime, all I'm asking for is a little grace, online and in person. Life isn't a zero-sum game, and change doesn't have to be either.