Tag Archives: Town Center

BREAKING NEWS: City denies Town Center STCA Phase 1 application for 348 homes

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By Miki Mullor
Editor

The City of Sammamish Friday denied the permit application submitted by STCA LLC, the larget landowner in the Town Center.

The year-long review is a major blow to STCA and development of the central core of the city. The city staff rejected the application for 300 apartments and 48 townhomes over a multitude of issues. The Community Development Department said the application failed to comply with the development code, ignored environmental requirements and key design elements of the Town Center Plan.

The department had communicated with STCA repeatedly to correct deficiencies, extending the review period several times. STCA still failed to meet requirements, the city said in its decision.

A second STCA application, for 44 homes adjacently, also suffers similar deficiencies, however, STCA was granted 60 days to remedy it. 

This is the same project that was the subject of a controversial approval of a concurrency certificate in August 2019. 

The denial is subject to appeal to the Hearing Examiner. It also won’t prevent STCA from submitting a new redesign of the project in the future but it is not clear whether STCA can reuse its 2019 concurrency certificate. 

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Staff disputes Council Member Treen on stormwater standards but evades explanation; stalls action

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By Miki Mullor
Editor

For the second time, staff from the City’s Public Works department promotes official statements that contradict the public record.  

Back in August, the City was forced to issue a rare retraction after a traffic planner in the Public Works department said in an email that was widely published that “there was no manipulation of data to favor any type of development.”  The City claimed the email was taken out of context. 

Kent Treen

Now, another Public Works staffer has publicly disputed Council Member Kent Treen’s bombshell conclusion, in his guest op-ed, that in 2013 the City relaxed a critical stormwater standard in the Town Center to ease development costs and that in 2016 that standard was dismantled altogether.  

Treen’s effort to restore the old standard in a special legislation has been stalled by staff.

The public record shows that staff’s public dispute of Treen is inconsistent with City’s own past positions on the issue.  

For two weeks,The Sammamish Comment attempted to interview staff on the issue to address the inconsistency. Staff, who were very quick to dispute Treen in public, now are unable to find time to answer questions by email on the issue. 

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A tsunami in Sammamish – unless we act

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Guest Op-Ed 
By Kent Treen 
Sammamish City Council Member  

Kent Treen

The debate about the negative impacts of development mostly focuses on what we all see and experience, like the pain of traffic, overcrowded schools, and the loss of trees and wildlife. But development triggers a more powerful force, that unless properly mitigated, can be the most destructive of all: stormwater.   

When development does not handle its stormwater properly, its runoff will cause permanent damage to our creeks, our endangered kokanee salmon, our drinking water, our lakes and to our neighbors living downhill (just ask the residents in the Tamarack neighborhood). 

To my shock and disbelief, I learned recently that in 2013 the City Council relaxed the strict storm water regulations that were in place for the Town Center development. 

Why? 

As the public record shows, they put the financial interests of development in the Town Center ahead of our environment, explicitly for the developers’ financial gain.

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Ritchie calls city council racists, white privilege over Town Center opposition

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By Miki Mullor
Editor

  • Ritchie calls council members who oppose the Town Center racists, classists, white privilege.
  • Charges manipulation of the City’s Comprehensive Plan.
  • Casts  some opponents to Town Center as standing with Trump against fairness and equity.
  • Unrelated, King County initiates an inquiry into Ritchie’s residence status over his voter’s eligibility and whether he vacated office.

The controversy over the Town Center development project took a new turn with Council Member Jason Ritchie invoking racism and white privilege language against some City Council majority members.  He did not name names.

Ritchie posted his message on his campaign Facebook page, which Council Member Pam Stuart supported by giving it a “like.” 

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Controversial 400 homes Town Center project moves forward – reaches a critical milestone

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By Miki Mullor
Editor

  • STCA filed a permit application for Town Center Phase 1 on Nov. 4, revealing more details.
  • This project was issued a controversial certificate of concurrency in August.
  • City Council ordered an audit of the certificate of concurrency – that has yet to start.

STCA LLC’s first project in the Town Center area has been granted a “complete application” status by city staff. The significance of the status is that this particular project is now legally “vested, meaning any future change to the development code, such as density, design limitations or concurrency, will not apply to it.

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