There are some bright spots in the draft Community Service Area Plan (CSA) that will be presented to the King County Council. A requirement that all new housing units in Vashon Town incorporate the latest water- and energy-saving technologies for one. But what strikes me most about the plan is the missed opportunity.

Vashon is a small, creative community insulated from the mainland with its own perspective and way of doing things. So when it comes to solving island problems such as the pressing need for more affordable housing, why not encourage King County to leverage island ingenuity before defaulting to the tired, off-the-shelf solution embraced in this latest CSA proposal?

The new plan recommends boosting the allowable density in Vashon Town. Given the county’s red hot housing market, that prospect must be tantalizing to the development industry. Critics of the plan call affordable housing the Trojan Horse that will spirit in developers and density that far exceeds both the projected need for housing and limited capacity of the Vashon sewer and water districts.

Vashon could have been an incubator for new ideas that were presented during the public input process. The plan’s authors included some of those suggestions in the draft plan, namely a community land trust model, but the ideas were relegated to an “Alternative & Innovative Housing Approaches” sidebar. Duly noted — and ignored. So much for innovation.

As an affordable housing solution, the latest CSA Plan seems like overkill, maybe even folly. I can see why many islanders view it as a giveaway to developers eager to exploit new building opportunities. I strongly support affordable housing and smart, sustainable development. I’m just not sure this mainstream plan will deliver either. If the County Council adopts its recommendations, we’ll be left to wonder what might have happened if we had given some of the community’s “alternative and innovative housing approaches” a chance.

— Mary Bruno