Category Archives: City Politics

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.

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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:

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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.

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City to discuss moratorium prospect tomorrow

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Kamp Property

The Kamp property at 228th Ave. SE and SE 20th shortly after clearing and grading was completed. A building moratorium wouldn’t have stopped this project. It would have been delayed. It was vested to rules and entitled to build to those existing at the time any moratorium might have been adopted. Potential new, more restrictive rules wouldn’t apply.

The Sammamish City Council will discuss the prospect for a building moratorium tomorrow at its meeting beginning at 6:30 pm.

After the topic first came up a week ago, a reader of The Comment posted the following in response:

  • We must come up with viable solutions to stop this madness! Once a property is developed, IT IS PERMANENT! Let’s promulgate zoning laws and rules that make sense in terms of safety, footprint, aesthetics, environmental and erosional impact, infrastructure funding such as for schools, roads, etc. After which, let’s have a qualified, committed, and properly-staffed government to enforce the wish of the PEOPLE! This should not become a race between property owners and developers cashing in, versus government’s unpreparedness to manage it, in accordance with the wish of the people!

In advance of the meeting tomorrow, a little review might be worthwhile as members of the public prepare to comment.

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