A guest editorial in the November 29, 2008 Everett Herald by Kristin Kelly addressed the issue of Fully Contained Communities (FCC). Ms. Kelly presented a compelling argument for at least a review of the development regulations that enable FCCs. The fact is that existing regulations for FCCs fill ten or twelve pages in the County Development Code and are very restrictive. The question is not “How do we regulate them?” but rather “Do we want to allow them under any circumstances?” I don’t think council members are talking straight with us. The decision to address FCCs could have been made a year ago or more, why now?
The part of the editorial that troubles me is the part that suggests that Snohomish County Council members were looking out for the rest of us when they voted for the moratorium. My experience has been that moratoriums are used to address emergencies. Is there an emergency here?
I doubt that county elected officials have much concern for our quality of life when you look at the types of development allowed by Snohomish County Zoning both inside Urban Growth Boundaries and outside.
Urban Zoning regulations adopted by Snohomish County facilitate the pillaging of undeveloped land inside Urban Growth Areas. Cities at the center of the UGAs will ultimately be responsible for providing services but will not have been a part of the planning process that created the development. The needs of the ultimate urban community will not have been factored into the plan because Snohomish County will have already filled the land with development.
We originally drew Urban Growth Boundaries to focus where cities could expand as population growth came to the county. Cities expected to plan for how the land would be used in ways that address a full range of land uses. The overall needs of the cities would be considered in the process.
In places where sewers exist inside an Urban Growth Boundary but outside city limits, Snohomish County has implemented the county plan and preferences rather than the city preferences. Take a look at Cavalero’s Hill along East Hewitt.
In places where sewers exist outside Urban Growth Boundaries, the county zoned the land for urban development and moved ahead with construction to capture the permit fees and sales tax revenue from construction in spite of the fact that no urban growth should be allowed. Period!
The Seattle Hill development area is not included in any city’s UGB. Silver Firs and all the other developments that have been popping up in that area are at a minimum in violation of the intent of growth management and possibly the letter of the law as outlined in the Growth Management Act. Urban development should have stopped in this area when the land was not included in any Urban Growth Area.
Currently the city of Everett is considering expanding its UGA further east to include fully developed neighborhoods allowed by county regulations. They aren’t doing it to be good guys, they are doing it to get a tax break from the state. The cost of providing services to the Hilton Lake/Eastmont will be greater than the revenue they collect. Maybe a different Comp Plan for the area might have provided a better result. What’s there now make little sense.
Mill Creek is the city closest to Silver Firs, but they have no desire to take on the responsibility for providing services to the area since there is little reward and a lot of liability. Where is the tax base that will pay for the services needed by those neighborhoods? How do the miles of subdivisions fit into an overall plan for the area? Where is the “comprehensive” part of the planning or do you call it something else?
In rural areas things are no better. The Cluster Subdivision regulations represent most of the bad characteristics of rural development. Except for the one part where open space is preserved, clusters do nothing to preserve rural character. Consider that the net density in areas where density bonuses are allowed is down to almost one dwelling unit per two acres rather than the one DU per five acres we normally associate with rural lands. The Growth Management Act suggests that rural development standards should include a variety of densities, but I doubt they meant less than five acre minimum site sizes.
If our goal is to reduce sprawl and excessive land consumption in rural areas, the current plan does not deliver. Add to that the urban character of the development and we find ourselves back where we began with growth management trying to rein in one and two acre building sites.
For the environmental community, securing large tracts of dedicated open space satisfies their needs. For the development community, getting enhanced lot yield satisfies their needs. How do the rest of us get what we need from our county representatives?
For the community of county residents left with the aftermath of development, we have increased the usage of the infrastructure through density bonus to exceed the level of service standards for rural roads and water systems but not added enough homes to spread the cost of improving the infrastructure over an economic number of payers? Who will pick up the tab for those improvements? Two acres per dwelling unit is the least efficient density for urban infrastructure maintenance and the property owners in the clusters are thinking they need maintenance on their arterial roadways.
I cannot think of one area where Snohomish County Council members have given us encouragement that they are looking out for the general population. They certainly have pushed a strong environmental agenda, but there aren’t too many wins for the average taxpayer. That troubles me.
No Loss for Words 
I’m Dreaming of a Dry Christmas!
by Steve DanaExcuse me for taking the past month off for the holidays. It is not like me to be at a loss for words. In spite of that, there is no doubt that things have been happening.
On the morning of December 13, 2008 we received a fresh blanket of snow that started a month of bad karma. Here in Snohomish County we received the longest and coldest snow storm in most of our memories. There were some of our customers that talked about snow fall in their yards a couple feet deep. Thankfully, in town the snow was only a foot or so deep. For those among us who wanted a White Christmas, their wish was granted. We had fresh snow for Christmas. For those who needed to get around for holiday functions with family and friends, the snow was a pain in the rear.
For the most part, the snow limited our mobility and restricted our customers’ ability to get to our restaurant and that left me cool. You know what happens when Steve’s customers cannot get to The HUB, Steve gets really cranky.
If the snow had been the extent of the bad news, we all could have been okay with it; there were not too many seriously adverse impacts from the snow. The unfortunate thing was that was only the half of it. The bad stuff was yet to come.
Everyone looks forward to the melt after a snow event. We can’t wait for the slush to clear and the roads to get back to normal. After snow plows and shovels moved great quantities of the white stuff around, there were some really big piles of if left. Even today, there are residual piles of snow from the last snowfall around Christmas.
I have been critical of Snohomish County in the past, but when the snow falls, our County public works crews are saviors. My friend Doug F works for the county in the equipment maintenance section and he works his butt off to make sure the snow removal equipment is ready if and when the snow comes. His work paid off this year. There is no doubt that the county equipment did a marvelous job during the snow event this year. My hat is off to all those workers who went out to face the storm to make life better for the rest of us.
Much criticism was leveled against almost every city for their failure to clear snow from city streets. It seems that citizens look for their government to solve every problem that comes up. Having been one of those city officials myself, I can tell you that budgeting for snow removal is a really low priority. When it happens at the end of a budget cycle, there is no spare dough lying around. In addition, most small cities have limited budgets at the start of the year and most don’t have capable snow removal equipment.
As a citizen, I was frustrated with the snow. As a former elected official, I understood that there were limited options. There were a couple times when I saw a city truck with a snow blade and a sanding box that wasn’t blading or sanding. Even if the truck is heading across town, blade the street on the way.
If we are lucky following a snow storm, the temperature stays low at higher elevations preventing the mountain snow from melting as well. This was not one of those years. Sadly, the warm rains that came following the thaw compounded the troubles of a normal melt.
Near record “snow pack” for us low-landers and wave after wave of huge warm rain systems assaulting our beaches set the stage for a real catastrophe. Flooding has always been our nemesis in our low lying areas. This year brought incredible amounts of rainfall in a very short time frame. Some areas were getting sustained rainfall of 1.5 inches per hour for eight to ten hours at a time. Some of the areas on the coast expect “rain forest” type numbers, but most of us are not prepared for them.
I have talked about flooding on a number of occasions. For many of us that have lived in this area for a long time, we can look back at different years and remember certain aspects of a flood event. In 1975 we had a flood that was devastating to a lot of people since the high water caused a catastrophic dike failure at the French Creek pump station. The breach blew out the dike around the flood control facility and so quickly swept across the valley to the east it allowed no meaningful warning to residents. The resulting flood killed thousands of farm animals and destroyed millions of dollars worth of property. In my mind I can still see what seemed like hundreds of dump trucks filled with dead cows in a convoy to the landfill. That was a tragedy!
In 1990 there was another catastrophic dike failure near Stockers farm on the south side of the river. The water level was record setting in height already. The dike had been built many years before and had not been properly maintained over the long term. Critters had burrowed through the dike over the years creating a network of small tubes. All it took was for a few of them to erode together to cause a small path with incredible pressure to quickly wash away the section of dike. The resulting flow of river water into the valley created a new river with devastating force as far west as the Bicycle Tree. Springhetti Road was washed out and SR-9 was nearly washed away as well.
There is no doubt that dike failures cause significant damage. The force of a great volume of water gushing into and through an area is perilous. The greatest fear during a flood event is a dike failure.
What we all hope during a high water event is that our plans and infrastructure improvements do their jobs.
For the flood of 2009, the Snohomish River overtopped the dike in a number of places, but it did not fail. Clearly thought, the Pilchuck River made a statement this year. The only tributary to the Snohomish River poured humongous volumes of muddy destruction down its’ course this year. Some residents had probably forgotten how surprising the Pilchuck could be. A good deal of the water filling the valley to the east came from Pilchuck river flows.
The Western Washington area in general suffered greatly during this years’ event. Urban flooding demonstrated how poorly prepared our cities are for flood. Rural areas being consumed by development aggravate the problem by reducing the natural systems that have historically protected us. Urban development along with poorly devised forest practices has created dangerous conditions for flooding in our drainage systems.
We need to use the information we gather to better plan for the future in our flood prone areas. That information might suggest that we ban development in the flood zones. It might also suggest that we look at better flood control measures.
One suggestion worth considering addresses two problems at the same time. Building a dam on the Snoqualmie River would create storage capacity for King County drinking water in one role and serving as a flood control device in another.
Since the Snohomish River is formed when the Snoqualmie River and the Skykomish River meet southwest of Monroe, this idea could play a big part in protecting investments in our area.
Sometimes we need to step back from devastating events like floods to look at the big picture. What are our priorities for the future? Should we be planning for future floods by banning development in floodway fringe areas and flood plains or should we be looking for ways to control flood waters before they reach the river valleys? Clearly the erosion control measures relating to development and forest practices need to be considered and improved regardless of the more controversial issues associated with a dam. My hope is that we can have a discussion about the larger issues to consider all the aspects of the choices.
Another thing to consider in our area is dredging. Failing to maintain flow capacity in rivers compound the problems when events occur. Dredging does not need to be a negative thing. We need to look at everything.
What do you think?
Posted in Environmental, Snohomish County Political Commentary | 1 Comment »