Blaine: Define Front
The Blaine City Council did a nice job with a closed record appeal last week. Blaine’s height restrictions rely upon the building having a “front.” In this case, though, the lot had three street edges. Since the code did not define the front of the building for corner lots, the Director (Administrator? The decision is unclear.) had the duty to select which part of the building was the front based upon the information in the application.
The tricky issue here was the city’s internal division of authority. The council worked with an entirely closed record, but the planning commission was also working with a partially closed record. The discretion to review the application and select the front of the house is an administrative decision outside the public process. Working with an unclear code, as was present here, its hard for the different layers of review to establish what parts of the project are reviewable.
Source:
Update: Spokane Gets The Pool
See my earlier post about the governmental effort in Spokane to build a new aquatic center (with water slide and lazy river) just outside the city’s UGA.
The city and county have come to an agreement and construction should begin soon. The county did not meet any of the city’s original conditions, but it did agree to bind future owners of the facility to cooperate with any annexation efforts.
The council voted unanimously Monday to provide sewer and water service to the pool without an annexation covenant or an agreement on developer fees. . . .
Commissioners did agree to require any future owner of the pool site to cooperate with annexation, and they agreed to enter a joint planning agreement for the Moran-Glenrose urban growth area with the city within three months. Also, commissioners agreed to accept a city application to expand the area.
Source:
- Water park gets go-ahead, (Spokane) Spokesman Review, Mar. 28, 2007, Page B1.
Redmond Accepts Tent City
The Redmond City Council accepted Tent City 4’s presence in the city through a 5-1 vote last Tuesday. The council was reinstating the permit issued by its planning director and overturned by the hearing examiner. The council’s move was a smart one, but I wouldn’t be surprised by an appeal.
Tent City 4 has been in Redmond since February 11th, but the permitted process began considerably earlier. The timeline for these permits needs improvement statewide.
The most contentious point, though, remains in dispute:
The council’s decision to uphold the permit does not resolve one disputed condition whether the required background checks will be conducted by the King County Sheriff’s Office, as Tent City 4 has proposed, or by Redmond police, as some Redmond residents have insisted.
[Harmon] said council members may have to determine whether the land-use code extends to this type of permit condition.
Source:
- Tent city may stay at Redmond church, Seattle Times, Mar. 28, 2007, Page B3
From the April 1, 2007 Seattle Times.
CORRECTION:
Comments in this story Wednesday about Tent City’s stay at St. Jude Catholic Church in Redmond were incorrectly attributed to planning director Rob Odle. Rod T. Harmon, attorney for St. Jude, was the one who said the City Council may have to make a determination about land-use code. He also said the church will not have to pay fines for hosting the encampment without a valid permit. But that has not yet been determined.
West Richland Zoning
The City of West Richland (think Tri-Cities) is currently updating its zoning ordinance and is still accepting public comment. Instead of just posting a blanket request for public comment, though, they have a fairly target survey online in both Word and PDF formats.
The survey is interesting in how it steers public comment to focus on the issues that will actually be addressed in the zoning ordinance and the request for quantitative feedback. While the development community is likely geared to think in terms of zoning terms, forcing citizens to evaluate how many people should be allowed to live in an ADU forces the difficult questions.
Apparently, though, the city has only received thirty responses.
Here’s are the options the city provides to promote urban density:
- Subdivisions must provide for a minimum of 2, 3 or 4 dwellings per acre.)
- Require all residential land divisions within the City to be served with City sewer and water, or the development cannot occur. (Does not directly impose a specified maximum lot size—relies on financial impacts to encourage urban-sized lots.)
- Require a minimum lot size of 5/10/20/40 acres (Underline choice), when new development is not served by City sewer and water. (The idea being to preserve the area for future development, when city utilities are available.)
- Require any land division that does not represent urban density to include a “shadow plat”, for further division of the lots in the future. (Example: In the sample drawing below, four one-acre lots are created now, with each one-acre lot set up to be divided into three lots in the future, for a total of 12 lots. The home and outbuildings are limited to one of the three designated building sites within the 1-acre lot. The other two building sites remain vacant until the lot is divided again. See drawing below.)
Sources
- West Richland Land Use Survey
- Briefs, Tri-City Herald, Thursday March 22, 2007, Page B1
Woodinville and Bellevue Loosen Up, Ferndale Considers It
Redmond has allowed a moratorium on R-1 development to lapse. Bellevue has extended a moratorium, but hopes to complete the associated planning process more quickly than originally scheduled. Ferndale is meeting to discuss a moratorium on new big box stores.
Olympia Officially Allows Unofficial Tent City
Olympia has reached an agreement with the church hosting a 30 person tent city. Under the agreement, the tent city will wrap up May 19th, be subject to health inspections, and will not be required to seek a permit.
County Pools for City Kids
Spokane county is working with the city to build an aquatic facility within walking distance of the city, but outside the designated urban growth area.
Where's the potato train?
I wonder how they’ll work out this produce situation. My 1L brain asks if they can recover damages for reliance on the BNSF representations, but my former freight-clerk brain asks: Is it really that much more expensive to get a few 53’ trailers out there?
West Faces Recall
Spokane’s troubled mayor will potentially face a recall. The Washington Supreme Court issued notice today that it will uphold a Spokane Superior Court’s ruling on the matter. It is still unknown if the auditors can verify the petition’s signatures in time. More interesting was the degree to which the presiding judge had rewritten the citizen petition – tripling its size to about a paragraph. I’m interested to see where the Surpemes place that line between arbiter and participant.
Article at the Spokesman-Review.
When General Rule Meets Unintended Result
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/237239_navywife19.html