We are, on all the earth, at a veritable ‘tipping point’ where every tree counts and every person counts. For the first time in history, every choice we make about the environment needs to be about integrity and balance.

UW Bothell wants to build a football field size dorm, cutting down more than one hundred 200-foot trees, and build it within 60 feet of our established single family homes.

Nothing should be put in that tall treed area and two ponds area (Truly ‘Uplands just west of Cascadia/UW). The architects and early planners promised that nothing would be built here.

Every tree counts and every person counts. These 100, 200-foot trees give beauty, sense of strength and hundreds of tons of fresh oxygen, tons of natural water retention, and homes to countless birds including an eagle nest (surreptitiously destroyed,) Great Horned Owls (also destroyed), Barn Owls, herons, hawks and wetland ponds (almost destroyed).

In our current world crisis, which is getting worse day by day, we cannot continue to believe in needless growth, obtrusive buildings and more pavement. Our neighborhood, too, will not withstand a sudden influx of about a 1,000 transient individuals housed in a monolithic buildings on two sides, overpowering us in every way.

Like the owls and eagles, every sense of our living will be severely damaged or destroyed: sights, sounds, smells, home values, safety and security, privacy… our very livability. When the beauty is gone – it’s gone. UW students too, are damaged. Not only will they have to fork up another huge percentage of tuition, but they will lose the pride of the small forest that now gives the campus its impressive ambiance. The UW and Bothell has a choice – a very important one. No student housing by single family neighbors. Enhance the forest, don’t destroy it. Give neighbors, Bothell and students what they deserve.

Jannelle Loewen, Bothell