Category Archives: Town Center

Valderrama, Howard sought a Developer Agreement with STCA without council authorization

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Sammamish City Council Member Ramiro Valderrama and City Manager Lyman Howard last year wanted to negotiate a Developer Agreement with Town Center developer STCA, without the required council approval, Sammamish Comment learned.

Ramiro Valderrama

The revelation is in an email (click to read it) dated Nov. 21, 2017, that the city manager designated “attorney client privileged.” The email was recently determined to be not privileged and released in a public records request.

The email was addressed to another city employee and cc’d to the city attorney and a second city employee. Howard’s labeling the email attorney-client privilege is intended to bar the email from public disclosure.

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New traffic concurrency model ignores congestion; city council caves to staff

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By Miki Mullor
Deputy Editor

Sammamish drivers hoped for traffic congestion relief when the City Council adopted an emergency building moratorium last year in order to take time to fix the traffic concurrency model.

What they are going to get is a new model that’s worse than the old one and worse traffic.

The new model suggests that traffic in Sammamish has improved between 2014 and 2016 and it is better on Sahalee Way, which is notoriously backed up during the morning rush hour.

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Sammamish’s Town Center-concurrency dilemma

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By Scott Hamilton

Editor

The Sammamish City Council faces a complex set of issues interconnecting the Town Center and efforts to revise its traffic concurrency policies.

At stake is whether the Town Center proceeds per the 2009 plan adopted by the Planning Commission and City Council or, as some desire, the plan is reopened with the goal of down-sizing it.

Reopening the plan also allows the possibility of some advocating an up—zoning of the TC.

The city is under a building moratorium adopted last October. The council and staff want to lift the moratorium in July, but controversy over how to proceed with revisions for concurrency casts doubt over whether revisions may be ready by then.

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Ace Hardware signs LOI for Sammamish Town Center: STCA

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Ace Hardware signed a Letter of Intent to be one of the anchor tenants of a new portion of the Sammamish Town Center, developer STCA announced today at the Sammamish Chamber of Commerce lunch.

STCA rendering of its Sammamish Town Center project.

Matt Samwick of the company said details must be negotiated; no timeline has been set for a firm contract.

Samwick told Sammamish Comment after the lunch that other companies are lined up as anchor tenants, but no announcement is imminent.

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Why I don’t support the Town Center exemption from moratorium

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Debbie Treen

By Debbie Treen

Guest Contributor

I want to offer a counterpoint to Jason Ritchie’s reasons for exempting the Town Center from the current development moratorium. His reasons for lifting the moratorium are that the City will hold the developers accountable, the Town Center saves the environment, residents are getting the best deal, the Town Center accommodates growth, and that he will work to be sure growth is responsible.

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