Part 1 may be found here. Part 2 may be found here.

• How to attain sustainable housing affordability, create vast community wealth and improve driver experiences.

By Paul Stickney

Guest Contributor

Article Three of Three

 Statement:  As you have been reading these articles, you have seen me use “we” and “our” quite often. This refers to either The City, the Community or both.

For over four years, I have attended nearly all City Council meetings, Planning Commission meetings and Transportation Committee meetings plus others. I am definitely NOT a Politician. I see myself as a citizen “Statesman”–bringing a bedrock of principles that are right, to benefit the members of our community, with a vision of long-term housing affordability and sustainability.  I am working to build consensus for achieving that vision.

Housing balance

I am attaching seven pdf documents pertaining to Housing Balance. There is much information for your evaluation. The seven documents, along with Articles One, Two, and Three, support the City making “Housing Balance for Sammamish” a reality.

There is more Housing Balance information available, in fact much more.

These are the Seven Attached Documents:

It’s Mighty Healing Powers. 1-page document that lays out the practical results of Housing
Balance and asks a crucial question at the end. 1. Mighty Healing Powers

Advantages of Housing Balance.  8-slide presentation that outlines a combination of over 40 ‘Positive Decreases’ and ‘Positive Increases’ that are all beneficial to our Community. 2. Advantages of Housing Balance

Jubilance and Well-Being with Housing Balance.  27-slide presentation that begins with a recap of the “What’s Why’s and Wherefores of Internal Housing Balance.”  Then, several specific examples in each of 4-Sectors of Wealth.  Social Merits; Environmental Benefits; Financial Gains and Advantages; Positive Transportation Effects. 3. Jubilance and Well Being

Housing in Sammamish, Rethinking Stewardship and Community Legacy.  4-page Policy white paper on Housing by ECONorthwest. How City leadership and policy must lead the way for Equitable, Balanced and Sustainable Housing within Sammamish. 4. Housing in Sammamish

Fehr and Peers Town Center Trip Generation Study – 15-page memorandum called
“Analysis of Sammamish Town Center Trip Generation Rates and the Ability to Meet Additional Economic and Demographic Housing Needs Without Resulting in Additional Traffic Generation and Traffic Impacts.” 5. Fehr and Peers Traffic Study

Housing Balance by the Numbers. 19-slide presentation about fully planning for Internal
housing numbers for all recurring Economic and Demographic Housing and ‘Wants and Needs’. Discussion of currently planned housing numbers without Housing Balance and changing them into housing numbers with Housing Balance. Analysis of two sets of policies and action steps. 6. By the Numbers

Making Sammamish a Better City Through Housing Balance. 8-page document with Points of View; Introduction to Overviews; and three two-page sequential Overviews. Includes “The Positive UPSIDES from Housing Balance in Sammamish” (Page 8 of 8). 7. Making Sammamish Better City

Viewpoints and Recommendations

Three Fundamental Truths:

1. The earth is round, it is not flat.
2. The earth is not at the center of the universe, it is but a small part of just one galaxy.
3. Adding 4,000 to 8,000 smaller and different homes in our Centers is in the Lower 1/3 of the optimal range for Sustainable Housing Balance for Sammamish and is positive.

Initially, Housing Balance is perceptively challenging, emotional and counter-intuitive, mainly due to its realities about increasing smaller and different housing units in our centers.

At the same time, its realities are beneficial, desirable, genuine and the foremost holistic,
temporal solution to remedy the two fundamental ailments in Sammamish – and in so doing, creating long lasting, extraordinary benefits and positive outcomes for our community:

• Enrich the Lives of all those living and/or working in the City.
• Becoming inclusive with housing supplies for “our own” throughout Cycles-of-Life.
• Attaining what our Comprehensive Plan Vision Statement calls for, to meet “housing affordability through balanced, sustainable housing.”
• Immense Wealth – for the Environment, Transportation, Financial and Social.
• Alleviating or remedying several significant issues, that are challenging our community.
• Unrivaled connectedness and contentedness for our residents.
• Establishing enduring consensus on Community Character.

Belief in community

It is my belief that the community, with near unanimity, will support where Housing Balance
starts based on its merits, might and advantages. There will be differences of opinion and
varying ideas, however, on where Housing Balance ends, especially in these three arenas:

• How much do we, as a community, lessen oversupplies of single-family housing citywide, based on the absolute zoned build-our capacity of R1, R4 and R6 lands?
• How much do we, as a community, increase housing supply of smaller and different sustainable housing in our Centers, based on Internal Needs and Wants through time?
• How do we, as a community, direct the massive one-time wealth ($$$) created, and the notable, renewable, annual revenue increases ($$$) to our general budget?

Heightened duty

As a residential community, we have a heightened duty to fully plan for housing for all those living and/or working within our community in sustainable, holistic and temporal ways.

Now is the time for the City of Sammamish to resolve to make Housing Balance a reality for our community and move it forward at “Light Speed.’

At the present time, it is appropriate to pause the ‘future’ portions of two major planning efforts that are underway, the Transportation Master Plan (TMP) and the Housing Strategy Plan.

Focus on fully planning for all three kinds of Housing numbers, on how these three different numbers are unique and how they interrelate. Then make changes to our Comprehensive Plan.

Once the Comprehensive Plan has been amended with fully planned Housing Balance, start back up the ‘future’ portion of the TMP and the Housing Strategy Plan. These plans, that rely on land use assumptions, will then be correctly rooted in two fundamental land use changes – fewer single-family homes citywide – and more housing in Centers – attaining Housing Balance.

I respectfully ask each and every reader of these articles and the attached documents to set aside your current positions about Housing in Sammamish.  Objectively study and fully understand what Housing Balance will holistically do for our community, then, reassess your prior position. Does it still stand, or does it change?

The question to answer is … “Do you support Housing Balance for Sammamish?

The action to take is:  Let the City Council know your position on Housing Balance.

“The time is always right to do what is right”

– Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

My Conclusion:

 Housing Balance is not Suicide for the community –just the opposite, it’s our Salvation.

Paul Stickney

stick@seanet.com

425-417-4556

Paul Stickney grew up in Southern California. Stickney attended the Wilderness Survival School near Georgetown Lake Montana in 1969. He has a Bachelor of Science in Resource Conservation from University of Montana (Missoula) School of Forestry in 1976 and has been a residential real estate broker since 1977. He moved to the Seattle area in 1990, specializing in the Eastside markets. 

 Editor’s Note: The views and opinions of the writer do not necessarily reflect those of Sammamish Comment. This column was edited for spelling, style and grammar content but otherwise appears as it was submitted. The content and conclusions are solely the product of the author of this column.