By Miki Mullor
Editor

The City of Sammamish is moving toward a plan that could more than double the size of its Town Center — from roughly 2,000 units to as many as 4,000 — but the path to that decision is raising questions of transparency and integrity.

Under Washington’s Growth Management Act, Sammamish is required to adopt growth targets for future housing. After initially setting a modest 700-unit target in 2021, the number was abruptly removed by the regional Growth Management Planning Council under disputed circumstances. The City Council later was forced to adopt a higher target of 2,007 units, of which only 560 were earmarked for the Town Center.

Despite this, city leaders are now advancing a proposal that would double the Town Center’s density, to 4,000 units.

Records obtained via Public Records Requests filed with Sammamish and King County show councilmembers held private meetings with the project’s developer, while a final vote was quietly scheduled for December 2025 — after local elections but before the new council takes office. Following public outcry, that vote date was quietly deleted from the city’s schedule without explanation. There is nothing to prevent the council from reestablishing a December vote, however.

The lack of transparency, coupled with inconsistent justifications, has left critics arguing that the Town Center expansion is less about meeting legal housing obligations and more about a tainted process.

Growth Targets Under State Law

Washington’s Growth Management Act (GMA) requires cities to plan for a minimum number of new housing units, known as “growth targets.” These targets are negotiated by the Growth Management Planning Council (GMPC), a regional body of city and county leaders, and then adopted by the King County Council through an update to the Countywide Planning Policies (CPP).

For Sammamish, this process took several unexpected turns.

Sammamish Adopts 700 Units

On March 16, 2021, the Sammamish City Council voted to adopt a modest growth target of 700 housing units through 2044. According to city minutes:

“MOTION: Deputy Mayor Christie Malchow moved to direct staff to reduce the target to a range of 700–750. Councilmember Ken Gamblin seconded. Motion carried 6–1 with Councilmember Pam Stuart dissenting.”

Council member Pam Stuart recently claimed on Facebook that the growth targets were “rejected”:

Yet, this number was forwarded to the GMPC, which in June 2021 adopted Motion 21-2, affirming Sammamish’s 700-unit target as part of the regional allocation.  The Motion was ratified by King County Council by ordinance 19369 in December 2021, accepting Sammamish 700 units growth target.

Growth Target Suddenly Removed

Just six months later, however, the GMPC reversed course. On Dec. 1, 2021, under new chair King County Councilmember Claudia Balducci, the body adopted Motion 21-4, removing Sammamish’s target and sending it back for reconsideration. Sammamish was the only city that had its growth targets rejected.

The motion justified the reversal by citing a sewer capacity dispute, the expiration of a development moratorium, and public testimony received by the King County Council on Sammamish’s growth targets. 

Yet a public records request later found that no such testimony existed in the record.

But in a November 2022 King County Council meeting, Balducci herself acknowledged the unusual nature of the reversal. She said the push to reopen Sammamish’s numbers “was brought forward by a Sammamish City Council member in a partnership with a Burien City Council member” — even though the Sammamish council had taken no vote authorizing such a move.

At the time, the only Sammamish city council member on record opposing the 700-unit figure was Stuart. 

Public financial disclosure data shows Stuart contributed $3,050 to Balducci’s campaigns since 2023, the most Stuart ever contributed to one candidate. 

Balducci did not respond to a request for comments on the identity of the council member she referenced.  

A public record request to the City of Burien is pending as Burien says it needs “two months” to review emails. A request for comments from current and former Sammamish council members on the identity of the council member who asked to review the growth target was not responded to, except for Council member Kent Treen who denied being that council member. 

A New, Larger Target

With its target vacated, Sammamish was required to revisit the process. In March 2022, the council adopted a far larger number: 2,007 units through 2044. Of that total, 560 were designated for the Town Center area.

But city records show the Town Center already had capacity for 1,284 remaining units at that time. Critics argue that this meant there was no need to expand the Town Center footprint to meet the new growth target.

Despite this, city leaders are now advancing a proposal to double the Town Center’s capacity to 4,000 units — a move currently under review following a publication of an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) supporting the expansion.

Private Meetings With the Developer

Public records obtained by The Comment show that Stuart met privately with Town Center developer Matt Samwick on multiple occasions, offsite and without city staff present. The meetings occurred on Jan. 23, 2023; Feb. 2024; Feb. 21, 2025, Mar. 21, 2025 and July 22, 2025.

(Source: Sammamish Public Records Request #6655) 

At similar times, Samwick also met privately with Mayor Karen Howe and Deputy Mayor Amy Lam. 

No notes or documentation of those meetings exist, according to the city’s public records office. Lam later confirmed on Facebook that she met with Samwick but declined to say what was discussed. Howe, Lam, and Stuart did not respond to requests for comment.

There were no records of meetings with any other council member since 2023. 

Historically, developer meetings in Sammamish have occurred with staff present and typically with multiple council members in attendance, not in one-on-one, offsite sessions.

While there is no evidence of wrongdoing, the lack of transparency has raised concerns among residents who note that these meetings coincided with the city’s approval process for doubling the Town Center’s capacity.

Developer Always Pushed for More

Documents and past reporting show that the push to enlarge Sammamish’s Town Center is not new.

In 2017, developer Matt Samwick and his group, STCA (Sammamish Town Center Associates), drafted a proposal to add 1,000 to 1,500 more housing units to the Town Center. A draft slide deck — later annotated by city planning staff — framed the expansion as necessary to “accommodate anticipated growth mandates and to achieve the density envisioned for the Town Center core.”

(source: STCA draft presentation to city council, September 12, 2017)

By early 2018, The Sammamish Comment reported that the City Council had reviewed the expansion idea but ultimately rejected it behind closed doors, before it could reach the public. Coverage at the time highlighted the tension: while the city was struggling with traffic congestion and infrastructure strain, STCA sought to increase the Town Center’s density far beyond what had been originally planned.

Developer Money in the 2019 Elections

The Town Center developer has tried to influence the political balance of Sammamish since 2019.

In 2019, The Comment reported that STCA and its affiliates poured tens of thousands of dollars into local elections through political action committees (PACs). The developer ultimately covered more than $70,000 in PAC debt, one of the largest outside financial interventions ever seen in Sammamish elections, in addition to $44,000 contributed by RD Merril, its development partner. 

The spending, routed through a PAC controlled by former Mayor Don Gerend, was widely viewed as an effort to tilt the council toward candidates more favorable to Town Center expansion.

But the attempt failed. On election night in November 2019, Sammamish voters delivered a landslide win to Christie Malchow, Karen Treen, and Ken Gamblin — a result that temporarily derailed STCA’s political influence and reaffirmed local opposition to aggressive upzoning.

Vote Scheduled — Then Quietly Removed

A city-published schedule from June 2025 originally showed that the City Council was set to take a final vote on the Town Center plan and code amendments in December 2025 — just weeks after the November council elections, but before newly elected members would take their seats.

Calls from residents to reschedule the vote until after the new council was sworn in went unanswered. The current council did not respond to requests for comment.

Shortly after those calls were made, the city quietly revised its schedule and removed all dates and details. The December 2025 council vote was removed entirely, without explanation. No new date was provided, leaving uncertainty about when — or if — the Town Center doubling will be decided. The original schedule showing the planned December 2025 vote is shown here:

Numbers Don’t Match the Justification

City planners have defended the Town Center expansion as necessary to accommodate the 2,007-unit growth target. But critics argue the logic does not add up:

• The 2,007-unit target adopted in March 2022 assumed just 560 new units in the Town Center.
  
• Even without expansion, the Town Center already had 1,284 available units — enough to meet and exceed that portion of the growth requirement.
  
• By doubling capacity to 4,000 units, the city appears to be creating an oversupply unrelated to the official growth targets.
  

A Process Tainted

For some observers, the central issue is not the size of Sammamish’s growth target, but the way the process unfolded — including the unexplained reversal at the GMPC, the involvement of an unidentified councilmember without a public vote, undocumented meetings between councilmembers and the Town Center developer, attempts to sway local elections with developer money, and now, a mysteriously disappearing council vote.

Until those questions are answered, critics say, the Town Center expansion will remain overshadowed by doubts that the process has been tainted.

References:

• King County Ordinance 19369 – Sammamish 700 units growth target
• STCA Draft Presentation to City Council
• Email exchange between city staff and STCA manager Matt Samwick

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