Monthly Archives: September 2016

Town Center Moratorium dead, but growth issues heading toward Retreat

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Valderrama

Deputy Mayor Ramiro Valderrama unleashed a firestorm of opposition to a building moratorium when he suggested one for the Sammamish Town Center.

The Sammamish City Council decided Tuesday to not pursue a proposal by Deputy Mayor Ramiro Valderrama to undertake a 60-day study that could have led to a building moratorium for the Town Center.

The TC is already under construction, but there remains about 40 acres for which a building permit application has yet to be filed.

The Council considered Valderrama’s suggestion after nearly two hours of public comment, nearly all of it opposing a moratorium

But the issue isn’t dead. Continue reading →

Council rejects building moratorium, 60-day study–for now

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Tuesday, 11:05 pm: The Sammamish City Council rejected any building moratorium for the Town Center. It also rejected the idea of a 60-day study.

Council members favored full speed ahead for finishing development of the Town Center. They rejected the 60-day study but agreed that a longer-term study of key issues, such as transportation, infrastructure, trees, storm water issues and related topics that affect city-wide issues. Some kind of moratorium for some or all of the rest of the city at a later date might be considered.

Sammamish Comment will prepare a full report on Wednesday.

Moratorium runs into stiff opposition in Sammamish, especially for Town Center

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Sammamish Comment LogoA vast majority of resident speaking before the Sammamish City Council Tuesday opposed the possibility of imposition of a building moratorium, particularly for the Town Center.

Deputy Mayor Ramiro Valderrama surprised the Council last week by suggesting a 60-day study period to decide whether a moratorium should be adopted.

Opposition was particularly focused on the prospect of halting development of the Town Center. The plan for the TC evolved over 10 years. Development was then delayed by the Great Recession of 2008 and began only in 2015.

Much of the land is already under development, but there are still large swaths that have yet to reach the permit application stage.

A moratorium would threaten a $4m federal grant to reconstruct SE 4th Street and halt the addition of goods and services.

Ed Zercher, a property owner in the Town Center who was involved as a stakeholder throughout the planning process, argued in favor of continued development.

“I find it rather alarming,” he said of the prospective moratorium. “There was very thoughtful planning of the Town Center. There was a very dedicated planning commission that spent thousands of hours planning. The best way to keep Sammamish a bedroom community is to centralize residential development instead of residential sprawl. The Town Center does this. The Town Center has been more than a decade in the process.

Continue reading →

Leading environmentalist supports Sammamish building moratorium

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Wally Pereyra, the leading environmentalist in Sammamish, favors a building moratorium. Photo via Google images.

Wally Pereyra, the leading environmentalist in Sammamish, favors a building moratorium. Photo via Google images.

The leading environmentalist in Sammamish supports a building moratorium.

Wally Pereyra, who has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars restoring Ebright Creek on behalf on threatened Kokanee Salmon and similar amounts on other restoration and land use appeals, will miss tonight’s City Council meeting at which the subject will come up.

Pereyra issued a written statement, copying Sammamish Comment:

Continue reading →

Sammamish: Step up and take a position on ST3

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st3-map

  • ST3 will take money away from Sammamish taxpayers to fix local transportation issues. See below the jump.

The Sammamish City Council needs to step up and take a formal position on Sound Transit 3, the $54bn cost, $27bn in new taxes for a 25-year construction plan that gives our city less bus service and a one-half billion dollar park-n-ride–maybe.

A front page article in The Seattle Times on Sept. 19 details the effort–and opposition–to extend light rail to Issaquah.

An editorial in the same edition details Newcastle’s recent Council vote opposing ST 3 for the very same reasons Sammamish should: taxation without transportation, as Sammamish Deputy Mayor Ramiro Valderrama so eloquently put it. The Bellevue Chamber of Commerce also decided to oppose ST3, reversing its support given for ST2. It likewise points to the extraordinary cost with questionable benefits.

The Comment opposes ST3.

Continue reading →