Local News

Ridgefield's Waterfront Plans Draw a Packed Room and Pointed Questions

The Port of Ridgefield's conceptual development plans for the waterfront — a 41-acre site that could include apartments, a hotel, shops, and a park — drew roughly 60 residents to a city council meeting last week. Here's what happened, who controls what, and how you can weigh in.

If you've been anywhere near Ridgefield's community Facebook groups or the pages of The Reflector this week, you've probably seen the waterfront development debate heating up. Last Thursday, April 23, what started as a routine city council meeting turned into a standing-room-only public comment session — with more than 20 speakers and roughly 60 to 70 people in attendance, the vast majority opposed to the Port of Ridgefield's current conceptual plan.

We covered the waterfront's funding milestone earlier this year in a more optimistic light. This week, we want to give the full picture — including who's in charge of what, what the plan actually includes, and how residents can make their voices heard.

What's Actually Being Proposed

The Port of Ridgefield owns the roughly 41-acre waterfront property — a site that spent decades as a contaminated industrial site (the Pacific Wood Treating Co. facility operated there from 1964 to 1993) before the Port spent an estimated $90 million cleaning it up in partnership with the Washington Department of Ecology.

The conceptual plan that has drawn community attention includes a 58-room boutique hotel, residential apartments, commercial and office space, light-industrial makerspace buildings, and a new Port headquarters. The plan also includes a roughly 9-acre park with trails, an active recreation zone, and an amphitheater. No formal development application has been submitted yet, and no official timeline has been set — though early infrastructure work could potentially begin as soon as 2027.

What Residents Said

For many attendees, the April 21 Port Commission Coffee at the Clark County Fairgrounds was the first time the scale of the vision fully landed. That surprise carried into Thursday's council meeting.

Goodwin, who also announced a city council run during his remarks, called on the council to act as a safeguard rather than a rubber stamp, and asked for an independent financial review before any approvals move forward. Many other speakers echoed concerns about traffic, environmental impacts, and the plan's proximity to the Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge — a recurring theme given Ridgefield's identity as a town that embraces its wildlife corridor.

Not everyone who spoke was opposed. Former city councilmember Rob Aichele, who resigned from the council in 2024, spoke in favor of the project, noting the long history of development discussions and the Port's efforts to incorporate design features like view corridors that avoid a solid wall of buildings.

Who Actually Decides — City vs. Port

This is where some confusion has entered the conversation, and it's worth getting clear on.

The Port of Ridgefield is a separate governmental entity from the City of Ridgefield. The Port has its own elected board of commissioners and controls the waterfront property. The city's role, as City Manager Steve Stuart clarified at the meeting, is primarily through zoning — and the waterfront is currently zoned Waterfront Mixed Use, which already allows for the types of development being proposed.

Councilmember Judy Chipman put it plainly in her remarks: the council and the port are two separate entities, and the most direct path for community input runs through the Port, not city hall. The city's formal review would come later, once an actual development application is submitted — at which point staff would evaluate traffic, environmental requirements, and consistency with zoning standards.

The city also released an official statement on April 28 addressing community concerns and clarifying the development review process.

The Broader Growth Context

The waterfront conversation is happening against a backdrop of growth pressure across the region. The Clark County Council is also in the process of updating its Comprehensive Growth Plan, which affects Ridgefield along with other Clark County cities — and includes a public comment process of its own.

Some residents have also pointed to the Reddit discussion on r/ridgefield, where the debate has played out across a range of opinions — from those who believe some residential density is necessary for a healthy downtown, to those who feel the waterfront specifically should be protected from intensive development regardless of what's built elsewhere.

How to Weigh In

The community conversation around Ridgefield's waterfront is clearly not over — it's just getting started. We'll continue covering it as the project moves through the planning process.