Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutCity Council Committees - Planning and Economic Development Committee - 07/20/1993 CITY COUNCIL PLANNING COMMITTEE MINUTES July 20, 1993 5: 30 PM Committee Members Present City Attorney' s Office Leona Orr, Chair Laurie Evezich Jon Johnson Planning Staff Other City Staff Jim Harris Tony McCarthy Kevin O'Neill Margaret Porter Fred Satterstrom Other Guests List Available Upon Request GROWTH MANAGEMENT UPDATE - (F. Satterstrom) Planning Manager Fred Satterstrom spoke in reference to a letter dated June 28, 1993 from Cynthia Sullivan of the Growth Management Planning Council about an appeal by the City of Snoqualmie in regards to amendments ordered by the Central Puget Sound Growth Planning Hearings Board to the Countywide Planning Policies. The City of Snoqualmie alleged in their appeal that some of the policies in the Countywide Planning were too specific and went beyond the authority that state law of the Growth Management Act gave the County. The Board agreed with the City of Snoqualmie on that point and the policies indeed were too narrowly written particularly the policy as indicated on page 2 (Attachment A) in the June 28 , 1993 letter. The City of Snoqualmie indicated the policies were too specific in saying that we cannot expand the existing land areas zoned for business or office. The Puget Sound Growth Planning Hearings Board ruled that some of the policies went too far and were invalid. The King County Council reconsidered some and passed Ordinance No. 10840 in May and modified some of those policy statements. The one that concerns the City of Kent is the first one crossed out on page two, "jurisdictions shall not expand the existing land area zoned for business/office parks" and the other changes deal with rural centers. The City of Kent is being asked to concur these changes to the Countywide Planning Policies by suburban cities and/or the City of Seattle. Manager Satterstrom quoted a portion of the letter "a City shall be deemed to have ratified the CPP unless, within ninety days of its adoption by King County, the city by legislative action disapproved the CPP. " Chair Orr requested it be noted in the minutes that since this change did not impact the City negatively, there is no reason to draft a resolution. Councilmember Johnson MOVED and Chair Orr SECONDED a motion to have other council members aware of the letter and not to take any action. Motion carried. Mr. Satterstrom stated he would send a cover letter with a copy of the June 28 , 1993 letter from the Growth Management Planning Council to explain this issue to all the City Council members. CITY COUNCIL PLANNING COMMITTEE MINUTES JULY 20, 1993 PAGE 2 DEPARTMENT WORK PROGRAM/UPCOMING REQUESTS Planning Manager Fred Satterstrom distributed copies of the Planning Department 's Work Program for 1993 . The purpose of bringing this forward to the Committee is to let them know where the Department is with regards to the Work Program. In the Environment and Land Use Management area, some impact has occurred with the development of the new Office of Development Services (ODS) . Planner Brad Hazeltine began working full-time with this new office on Monday, July 19 . However, some of the current planning workload went with Brad. The down side in losing Brad is that he is an excellent customer service representative at the Planning Department' s counter, and now the Department has had to double up with the remaining planners to cover the counter. The landscape plan, environmental review, and land use permits are going ahead as indicated on the Work Program chart. Fred mentioned that the chart indicates there is not a lot of time allocated for code enforcement, yet this is becoming a priority. With the new Nuisance Committee that has been formed, Fred senses the Council wants more priority on this issue and perhaps the number of hours spent on code enforcement needs to be revised. Fred mentioned the Work Program deferring code amendments and special projects in 1993 . Unfortunately, this is not happening. There has been a number of people who have applied for regulatory reviews and the Department has not been able to say "no" . Special projects such as the annexation, planning, and zoning for the Chestnut Ridge annexation area have been deferred. This project will soon be coming to the Planning Commission. A new project team has been formed to develop a proposal to be taken to the Planning Commission and City Council. Under the Research and Policy Development Section in the Work Program, the Department is doing the best it can with the resources it has in completing the mandates for Growth Management. He mentioned two items on the City Council the evening of July 20th will help the City meet the mandates, i .e. Capital Facilities Planning funding and authorizing the Department to go forward with an RFP on the Environmental Impact Statement for the Comprehensive Plan. Fred summarized that the Planning Department is tight and trying to defray a lot of unanticipated projects due to lack of resources. Also, the Department is focusing attention in the Research and Policy Development area on accomplishing both a new comprehensive plan and Development regulations by this time next year. Jim Harris added he has been doing all of SEPA, but next week he will be relinquishing these duties to the planners, i.e. research, preparing reports, etc. He stated that Growth Management needs to be on the front burner. The Zoning code and Subdivision Code will need to updated too. Chair Orr said that the Council needs to be informed about the workload and if it is not possible to fit a project in, she would like us to speak up about the Department' s time and workload constraints. Mr. Satterstrom added that the GIS planner, Curt Ryser, left the City to work for the CITY COUNCIL PLANNING COMMITTEE MINUTES JULY 20, 1993 PAGE 3 City of Federal Way. Administration is studying whether or not GIS should be centralized or not. Planning Director Harris reported that another major project is the Chestnut Ridge Annexation. This involves implementing the zoning and comprehensive plan for this area by November 6, 1993 . Also, this involves a mapping project, a mail notification of proposals to all citizens that live or own property there, taking the Comprehensive Plan and rezone proposal to the Planning Commission, and then recommending this to the Council. This is an intensive project with 743 persons living in this area. Jim also mentioned the other major project is the potential annexation areas project that needs to be done very soon. This involves negotiating interlocal agreements with King County and seven cities that surround Kent. Jim stated this is why he will be relinquishing SEPA to the Planners so he can go on and do other things. CHESTNUT RIDGE PROPOSAL - (G. Kresovich) Attorney George Kresovich explained to the Committee that his clients have been working with King County for two years to build a development of attached single family homes on property that is within the Chestnut Ridge annexation area. The project is 48 units of attached single family housing consisting of 24 structures. Each unit would be 1, 800 square feet priced from $175, 000 to $200, 000 aimed at individuals in their late 40 ' s to early 50 ' s who what the benefits of owning a single family home but not the responsibilities of exterior maintenance and landscaping. Mr. Kresovich' s client has found this type of development to be extremely desirable in the market place. Mr. Kresovich' s client was unaware of the fact that the Chestnut Ridge area was being annexed into the City of Kent. They worked with King County for two years on this project and were vested under the County' s land use laws, however, it is not clear in the State of Washington what the annexation does to that vested right, and they cannot proceed with the project under Kent ' s laws. Mr. Kresovich and his client feel the practical way to solve the problem would be to develop a zoning ordinance that would allow this type of development. They discussed with Planning staff the concept of doing some type of contract rezone that would be site specific. Had there been knowledge of the annexation beforehand, this might have been the subject of an interlocal agreement where they would have been allowed to proceed under the County' s existing zoning given how far the client had gone in the County' s development process. In his meeting with Planning staff Mr. Kresovich said that staff suggested cluster zoning with appropriate stringent conditions would be appropriate. Based on his understanding of what staff said, he would like the Planning Committee to make a recommendation to the City Council authorizing Planning staff to undertake this project. Mr. Kresovich clarified for Chair Orr that attached single family housing is a term used in the development industry to describe what has been termed duplexes or townhomes. They are not stacked units like apartments and have only one common wall . He also clarified that his goal is to CITY COUNCIL PLANNING COMMITTEE MINUTES JULY 20, 1993 PAGE 4 create an ordinance that will allow appropriate development on difficult sites, not allow increased density, not change the nature of the existing neighborhood, and that will allow this specific project to go ahead as planned. He said he is not looking for the type of things you see in a planned unit development, density bonuses or very small units. Chair Orr clarified that this item was put on the agenda as an information item and stressed that she is not prepared to take action on the item at this meeting. She stressed that this type of project is staff intensive. If the Council decides to undertake this, it will take a considerable amount of time given the other priorities in the Planning Department' s work program. In response to Mr. Kresovich' s testimony, Planning Director Jim Harris stated that one of the reasons Planning staff brought the Planning Department work program to the Committee today was because of the Chestnut Ridge item. Mr. Harris acknowledged that he understands that Mr. Kresovich seeks a speedy resolution of this matter, but opined that this is the very thing that is going to get the City into trouble by going off on tangents while we are trying to set goals, policies and the implementation devices for the Growth Management Act. He stated if staff is working on this project at an early date while trying to craft the bigger picture for the Council, and if this project is done once we get to the rest of the housing element of growth management, it may not work when looked at with the bigger picture next summer. Next year may be too late for Mr. Kresovich and his client, but for the Planning Department this year is too early. Chair Orr stated she needs more information from the City Attorney's office and Planning staff in order to make a decision. She explained that the City of Kent is approximately 68% multifamily. She opined that attached single family housing is a nice way of saying multi-family housing. Doing something for the whole City will take a great deal of staff time, public hearings and Planning Commission time. She stated that Kent residents are not real excited about further opportunities for anything other than detached single family housing. There is an extreme shortage of detached single family housing, and people what to see more detached single family housing built. It is difficult for Chair Orr to ask staff to look at ways to accommodate other types of attached housing, whatever it may be called. Staff may know what obligations, if any, the City has in order to work with them site specific, and she needs this information before she can make a recommendation. Mr. Kresovich expressed surprised at Mr. Harris' s comments because the reason he came to the Council is at the suggestion of Planning staff. The reason they are proposing a cluster zoning concept (they started out with the idea that a site specific contract rezone would be the way to proceed) is because Planning staff said that a cluster zoning concept is something the City of Kent could usefully incorporate in its zoning code. He is taken back by the statement that he and his client are pressing this because their initial thrust was to look at a site specific contract rezone given the special circumstances in this case. That 's how this would have been taken care of during the annexation process. In annexation situations some type of interlocal agreement is commonly used. Mr. Kresovich said he has dealt with a number of interlocal agreements CITY COUNCIL PLANNING COMMITTEE MINUTES JULY 20, 1993 PAGE 5 and that' s what has been done with projects that are as far along in the review process as this project. He explained that this is an immediate problem for them and they want to work with the City of Kent in a cooperative way to solve this problem. They would be happy to focus on a site specific development proposal, contract rezone, authorizing this project to be reviewed. This would not be staff intensive and would not raise the issues that have been discussed at this meeting. It would call for a public review process that they would have had to go through anyway with King County. He prefers a site specific rezone which is what they originally proposed to the City. Chair Orr directed the Law Department to supply more information regarding a site specific rezone contract, how it works and what it means in light of the entire annexation picture. This information should be brought back to a future meeting. J. Sandlin, Attorney, representing the homeowners adjacent to the proposed development, stated that a notice of appeal has been filed with King County concerning the determination of nonsignificance (DNS) of the proposed modification of land use for this property. The County legal department learned that they do not have jurisdiction for this and forwarded it to Kent. A courtesy copy of the appeal has been submitted to the Kent Law Department. George Kresovich clarified for Chair Orr that the County issued a DNS, actually they were planning to issue a DNS and publish it on a Tuesday, and they were informed on the Friday before that the annexation had taken place and was final. No applications regarding this project have been submitted to the City of Kent. There is no law in the State of Washington regarding what happens to a vested right at the time of annexation, and decisions in other states probably do not apply because they do not have Washington ' s vested right doctrine. It' s an open question as to what rights they have to proceed with the project. They have discussed this with the Kent City Attorney ' s office, and this is one reason why they decided the best way to proceed would be to come forward to the City to see if there is a way to resolve this without going to court. J. Sandlin stated for the record that it is his understanding that there are no vested rights here. He opined that they are trying to bootstrap vested rights and acquire title that does not exist. He stated the vested rights in the vested rights doctrine are always subject to police power, fish and wildlife, the State Department of Wildlife and other environmental concerns. Therefore, vested rights is a relative term and not something cast in concrete. Bruce McTavish, landowner adjacent to the subject property, submitted detailed written opposition to any downzoning of the subject property based on the following nine points: 1. The proposed development is on land that has steep, erodible slopes. 2 . The hillside is filled with water seepage areas. Wetland areas and seeps have been noted on the hillside of the subject property. CITY COUNCIL PLANNING COMMITTEE MINUTES JULY 20, 1993 PAGE 6 3 . The area is habitat for numerous wildlife species. The area is upstream from documented and especially important coho salmon bearing Springbrook Creek. Garrison Creek, which would suffer from road washout and siltation, feeds directly into Springbrook Creek. The proposed development will have its ingress and egress at a critical point in the ravine above Garrison Creek. 4 . The existing land area, with its protective vegetation, acts as an effective noise and pollution barrier for the residential area to the east of Highway 167 . 5. The current zoning determined in the Soos Creek Community Plan is one unit per 7200 square feet. 6. This property has been noted as a landslide potential and seismic activity zone. 7 . Traffic for existing residents is difficult and especially dangerous during peak hours. 8 . The proposed development would put its residents at excessive fire risk. 9 . An additional population of children who move into this high density neighborhood would impact the schools considerably. J. Sandlin, representing the Chestnut Ridge Homeowners Association, stated the association has great concern regarding changes that are being proposed because there are a number of large, undeveloped areas in the Chestnut Ridge annexation area. Their concern is if a precedent is set for developing two unit homes, then four and six unit developments will be built escalating to apartments. Loopholes continue to be developed, and they are very concerned about any change away from single family residences in the area. Planning Manager Fred Satterstrom announced that as a result of the Chestnut Ridge annexation, the City is obligated to develop a zoning plan for the annexed area. The City is beginning the process of developing the zoning. Interim zoning between now and adoption of a new zoning plan is R1-20, single family residential, minimum lot size of 20, 000 square feet. This will not affect residents very much in permitting except if someone wants to subdivide. He reiterated that the annexation area is currently zoned R1-20 and will remain so until the annexation zoning process is complete. All residents will be notified of the process. Chair Orr assured all citizens that they will be notified of all public meetings that deal with the zoning process. SHORT PLAT AMENDMENTS - (J. Harris) Mr. Harris distributed a memo on his proposal for short subdivision modifications. He proposes to leave the Short Subdivision section of the Subdivision Code essentially as it stands today, except for the a few changes. The proposal is to still keep the Short Plat Committee; notify all adjacent property owners and residents within 200 feet of the CITY COUNCIL PLANNING COMMITTEE MINUTES JULY 20, 1993 PAGE 7 property to be short subdivided; post one notice of the application on or adjacent to the land to be short subdivided; permit the public to make a written response to the proposed short subdivision application within 15 days from the date of the mailed notice and the posting, whichever is later; and the Short Subdivision Committee will not take action on an application until after the 15 day period has passed. Chair Orr commented that she would like to see language added about notification of persons with larger lots or acreage. Jim said he would add that specific language that has been discussed at prior meetings. Chair Orr requested this item be brought back to the Committee on September 21 and forwarded to the City Council on October 5 , 1993 . ADJOURNMENT The meeting adjourned at 6 : 50 p.m. PC0720 .MIN