Leavenworth kicks off community revisioning series

LEAVENWORTH – Approximately 150 people, plus 25 live stream viewers, attended the first session of the city’s four-part community revisioning series on Sept. 9.

“I knew Leavenworth was going to show up. And your voice is here. This is just the beginning…This is not to wrap something up. This has just started. And then it's going to take the ongoing work to keep working at it, to keep that vision of what we want to become, where we want to go together,” said Mayor Carl Florea.

The first night’s focus was housing, with sustainable tourism and accountable environmental stewardship as themes for the Sept. 16 and 23 sessions. On Oct. 14, the city plans to consolidate the collective input received over the sessions and define goals and initiatives for the 2026 Comprehensive Plan update. 

“I thought I’d learn a lot, especially with so many people engaged, and I’d learn a lot more about affordable housing,” said resident Kay Lisch, who attended the Sept. 9 meeting.

Residents came with intentions to share their thoughts, ask questions, meet new people, and learn more about the town’s largest issues. During the three-hour session, attendees split up into tables of seven to eight people to brainstorm answers to five questions related to the topic of housing and community. 

The first question, “What makes Leavenworth feel like a community?” prompted a long list of answers, such as neighbors knowing each other, walkability and public transportation, access to arts, safety, and intentional and committed residents.

“We rally for each other. When we thought we were going to lose our music program in our schools, the community rallied together big time…So I think that's pretty special about our community,” said resident Jamie Krejci during a table session.

When asked, “In a perfect world, who would live here?” residents wanted to see more political, religious, cultural, and socioeconomic diversity. They also envisioned a community with multiple generations, families, and full-time residents that are able to live and work in the community.

“Full-time residents [that] live here and work here, serve, and care about our community, diversity, friendly [residents]…Lots of consistency tonight,” said Mike Nash, the event’s MC.

After an overview of new state housing requirements from the Interim Community Development Director Maggie Boles, attendees were asked to think of the pros and cons of higher density. For pros, attendees listed increased affordability, socioeconomic diversity, more housing inventory, less urban sprawl, and a larger tax base. Parking, traffic, stress on resources, wildfire risks, less space for snow removal, losing the small town feel, loss of green space and views, and more noise were some of the cons.

Following the density discussion, residents were tasked with answering, “What do we want the community to provide for quality of life?” Residents responded with small parks, increased public transportation, better parking systems, preserved green space, and improved infrastructure.

Lastly, the city asked, “How do we get there?” Listening to the community, improving outreach, allowing zoning law changes, and proactively planning and investing in the community were a few of the many suggestions made.

The next two sessions will take place on Sept. 16 and 23, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Festhalle. A meeting summarizing input from the series will be on Oct. 14, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., at Chelan County Fire District #3 Station located at 228 Chumstick Highway.