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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCity Council Committees - Public Works/Planning - 05/05/1993 0 rt' PUBLIC WORKS COMMITTEE MAY 5, 1993 PRESENT: DON WICKSTROM JIM BENNETT GARY GILL PAUL MANN ED WHITE SCOTT ROSE ROGER LUBOVICH JOHN KIEFER TOM BRUBAKER MR. & MRS. RUST Note: City Attorney, Roger Lubovich, was not able to stay for the duration of the meeting, so Councilman Jim Bennett suggested that Items 6 and 7 be discussed first. Civil Violations, Enforcement and Abatement Ordinance Lubovich explained that this draft ordinance came about as a result of a number of problems the City has had dealing with basically junk and/or garbage in residential yards and the inability of our codes to deal with it. The basic premise behind the ordinance was to provide a structure for obtaining compliance for the civil violation rather than prosecuting a criminal misdemeanor. A "Notice of Violation" would be issued by the applicable Department of Head if a voluntary agreement between the owner and the City could not be secured. The notice automatically triggers a Hearing Date. However, if the person complies before that date, the Hearing is not held. If he does not comply, the case will be presented and the Hearing Examiner will issue an order assessing ' penalties, compliance dates, required action, etc. Appeals to the Hearing Examiner must be submitted no sooner than 10 days and not more than 45 days after the notice is issued. The Director can extend the time frame at his discretion. If the party in question is not satisfied with the order, he can appeal to the Superior Court 30 days after the decision has been made. However, if the voluntary agreement is not complied with or the person did not comply with the Hearing Examiner's order, then the City can go in and abate the nuisance and/or violation and assess the individual landowner the penalty as well as the cost of abatement through either a court process or an alternate process. Lubovich explained further that State Statues also provide another mechanism ghat would allow the City to lien a property for 1 Ilk abatement measures, after the Hearing Examiner' s findings and conclusions, if the Council passed a resolution or an ordinance requiring a clean up. Mann felt that although everything could be put in the code books, the fact remained that we still need code enforcement. Lubovich noted that while issues like weeds & vegetation would be under the responsibility of certain Department Heads like Don Wickstrom and zoning violations under Jim Harris, public nuisances and junk vehicles would probably be under some Code Enforcement or Building Office. He was not sure where this ordinance would fit in the permit process. However, he stated that the resources for code enforcement would be most critical. Mann inquired whether it would be necessary to increase personnel. Lubovich explained that while he was not suggesting this, the City does have a Code Enforcement Office which only deals with building and fire codes and is not comprehensive. This department has nothing to do with junk vehicles, garbage in yards or public nuisances. Mann questioned if all this was brought together under one umbrella, would the ordinance have to be revised at all. Lubovich noted that they have not actually drafted any ordinances for it, that it was still a concept that has to be adopted. Bennett stated that he was one of the supporters of this idea because there was language in the codes but no way to enforce it. Committee unanimously agreed to recommend that Council adopt the Civil Violations, Enforcement and Abatement Ordinance. Mrs. Rust inquired where the noise abatement fit in. Lubovich stated that that was actually a separate ordinance and that they considered including noise abatement, but it was a more complicated, cumbersome process because half of it is dealt with by the Police Department and the other half is dealt with by our Building Officials because they use decimal readings on certain types of commercial/industrial noise infractions. The Police Department does on-the-spot, visual/audio noise infractions such as boom boxes and loud, amplified music. Weeds and Vegetation Lubovich explained that the purpose of this particular ordinance is to require the landowner to maintain vegetation around his property. Wetlands are exempt from this ordinance and also designated official street trees because they are City-maintained. Committee unanimously agreed to recommend that Council adopt the Weeds and Vegetation Ordinance. 2 Sidewalks at Sequoia Jr. High Scott Rose, Construction Manager of the Kent School District #415, reported that the school is off of Kent-Kangley and 110th Avenue SE and is at the dead-end of the street. He explained that currently students are walking in the street or in the drainage ditches back ' and forth to school and that it has gotten so bad that during main traffic hours the two-lane road virtually becomes , a one-lane road with kids on both sides of the street. Rose said that the School District proposes to have sidewalks built on both sides of the street so there no longer is a safety problem. Rose brought up the fact that there was a sidewalk fund for the City of Kent and expressed the desire for some of those funds to go towards the construction of sidewalks at least on the east side of the street, if not both sides. Bennett noted there was a signal light for those coming from west to east who could cross 111th Avenue to get to the sidewalk. Rose confirmed that there was a light at Kent-Kangley and 110th Avenue and an existing crosswalk across the street. Mann moved to form an LID for sidewalks on both sides of the street. Wickstrom, however, stated there were enough covenants to put the sidewalks in and mentioned that money, at Council' s discretion, could be added to this project from the sidewalk fund. Wickstrom explained that the City would estimate the cost of the improvements and determine how it would be distributed to the affected properties. An informal public meeting would then be held to go over the project, the costs, how it would be paid for, and ` get input from the property owners as to whether they want to proceed or not. The information formulated would then come back to Public Works Committee for more direction as to pursuing the LID. Bennett inquired about the time element. Wickstrom stated that it would be at least 60 days before we could actually get the notices out for the public meeting. He explained that this process takes time to put together and figure out how to distribute the assessments. Mrs. Rust mentioned that when the School District built the junior high, it seems no consideration was given to the age group. She further questioned why the District did not put sidewalks in to begin with and why it didn't come to their attention that the kids would no doubt be using the street. Rose agreed and stated that the school was built in 1965 and he did not know what their intentions were at that time. He stated that this issue had been raised three times previously but there was no money currently available and the sidewalk improvements were not included in a bond issue. Consequently, it was not able to be funded for at that time. Rose further explained that what is triggering the 3 improvements now are the students voicing their concerns at PTSA meetings. This organization, in turn, brought the need to the School Board and Councilman Jim White's attention. Rose went on to say that the School District is anticipating a 1994 School Bond which would go to the voters in February 1994. Assuming that it passes, and the improvements are included, the earliest the District would be able to entertain doing the sidewalk improvements would be over a year from now. Wickstrom stated that under the LID process, the school would be assessed for their share of the project over a 10-year or 15-year period. Committee unanamiously agreed to proceed to the formation of an LID. Guardrail Along Green River Bennett stated this was brought about at the last meeting by Paul Mann regarding cars exiting into the river with people in them. Mann stated that the cost first had to be considered and if it will be effective. Wickstrom noted that a cost analysis could be worked up that would include several scenarios. Parking Restriction Resolution Brubaker stated that at the previous meeting, Chief Crawford agreed that on-street parking restrictions were well and good but created additional enforcement problems for the Police and felt that this would be a "loose-loose" situation for all parties involved. Brubaker noted that under the ordinance, the Zoning Code has parking requirements established which basically set up minimum requirements. However, certain high-density or multi-family buildings may in fact need additional parking spaces to meet their actual on-site, regular, long-term parking needs. Brubaker went on to say that in those situations when there isn't enough parking, you get an over-flow situation which impacts the City streets and causes an enforcement or regulatory maintenance and operation problem for the City. Brubaker stated that the ordinance states a policy that encourages those property owners that have high-density or multi-family projects to be realistic about their parking needs, at the time they go into construction to avoid -over-flow impacts on City streets. Bennett stated that with the Commuter Trip Reduction, a good number of parking spaces would be reduced. However, he questioned how on one hand we could make the developer put adequate off-site parking to meet one goal and also meet minimum requirements to meet the Commuter Trip Reduction agenda, Jand then ask a citizen or user to accept parking restrictions. On the other hand, Bennett noted that 4 the citizens of the City of Kent pay for Police, Tire and things of this nature to be done. Bennett said there were a lot of issues here that he was not comfortable with. Ed White clarified for Bennett the Commuter Trip Reduction legislation. He explained that CTR was not meant for residential areas, but for employers, and was mainly designed to reduce the trips of. single-occupancy vehicles going to and from work on a daily basis. White noted that the requirements that are set for residential developments really do not fall into this commuter trip legislation. Brubaker added that if the citizens aren't allowed to drive in their cars, they would have to have a place to park at home. White explained that as we get more multi-family development, we will also be getting into a situation where more people have vehicles, i.e. boats, RV's and families with more young drivers that have cars. White stated that the current Zoning Code is set up for parking and only allows minimum requirements. He noted that once a developer comes in and meets the minimum criteria, he can tell potential renters whatever he so chooses with regard to parking. However, once the renter is in, the occupant is caught in a situation where that promise is sometimes not fulfilled, but the City, however, is left to deal with the problem in terms of illegal parking or parking that uses up spaces that single-family residences need. Bennett felt that decals were somewhat logical to him but admits he has lost that logic. Mann questioned the fact that if you had visitors, they could not park because they would not have a decal on their vehicle. Brubaker stated that that was �the enforcement problem; Police are not in a position „to know whether the person who is parking without a decal is a guest or a violator. Brubaker stated that one compromise position would be to re-phrase the resolution, perhaps by adding a statement encouraging the City SEPA official (when reviewing the Environmental Checklist) to consider over-flow traffic and to mitigate it to the extent if possible. White mentioned again that the Zoning Code says that there is a certain minimum parking allowable. Brubaker added that if they could realistically identify the problem in the Checklist, then maybe we could require some additional on-site parking. Brubaker also said that it really was only a policy statement and doesn't have any enforcement. Mann suggested that Brubaker come back to committee with another resolution encompassing changes. White added that the City should try to send a message to the general public and the developers that we want to try and develop parking requirements that allow for over-flow parking to be accommodated on site. The City is not in the business of supplying 5 t + over-flow parking because it creates a legal, health, safety and welfare problem for the City and the streets are designed for the effective and efficient movement of traffic. Hill Building 80-A Bill of Sale Committee unanimously agreed to accept this bill of sale. Commuter Rail System Resolution (This resolution was added to the agenda by Jim Bennett for discussion. ) Bennett stated that he sees a cumbersome regional transit plan; although he somewhat agrees with the concept, he is not sure it is realistic in these economic times to spend 6. 9 billion dollars. Bennett said that being this is one leg of the plan and we have people that are ready to step forth to put it into play (BNRR, UPRR, Amtrak and other suppliers) , he felt that we could bring it to the forefront as a resolution and bring it to the Council to see if they would adopt his feelings. Bennett went on to read sections of the resolution describing in detail some of the more important points, i.e. : "Section 4 . All agencies with jurisdiction in the King/Pierce/Snohomish County region are urged to expedite, in every way possible, the development and implementation of the proposed commuter rail project in the Green River Valley as a first step toward implementation of a regional mass transportation network designed to reduce the use of single-occupancy vehicles throughout the tri-county region in conformance with the City's Commuter Trip Reduction program. " Committee unanimously agreed to recommend that Council adopt the Commuter Rail System Resolution. Meeting adjourned at 6: 30 PM. 6