The Sammamish City Council extended the building moratorium to allow staff and the 
council to complete a revised traffic concurrency plan by July. The Town Center was not exempted.
The vote was 7-0.
Council member Jason Ritchie said STCA, a developer of the Town Center, “will be fine either way.”
But he expressed concern about the individual homeowners being prevented from building.
By Miki Mullor
Guest Contributor
Miki Mullor
During the recent moratorium deliberations by City Council, the Town Center neighborhood plan was brought into the conversation. The issues with traffic planning in the city, exposed during the concurrency debacle, were feared to also impact the Town Center plan. Calls to review the plan were answered with a response that the plan was done 10 years ago therefore it’s too late to review. This implies a “statute of limitation” argument that if indeed there were issues with the plan, those should have been raised at that time and cannot be argued now.
However, recently surfaced documents from the time of Town Center planning in 2007 reveal just that – that serious problems do exist in the plan and those problems were raised timely – yet ignored by the city.
By Harry Shedd
Special to Sammamish Comment
The Sammamish City Council appeared indecisive during the council retreat about future growth in the city.
Should the “bedroom community” vision continue into the future or will future generations demand change in our vision?
Should the Town Center receive more of the city’s future growth or should the city continue with current “throughout the city” plans?
Should council members seek out resident input or go with their “best understanding”?
Editor’s note: This is the inaugural article of occasional Guest Contributor columns from Sammamish residents. See this post for details about contributing to Sammamish Comment.
How to attain sustainable housing affordability, create vast community wealth and improve driver experiences.
Paul Stickney
By Paul Stickney
Guest Contributor
Article One of Three
Disclosure: I have, since 1997, had an interest in a five-acre parcel on the Plateau with Richard Birgh, who has owned the land since 1968. In 2008, this property became part of the Town Center.
In Sammamish we, as a community, are facing many important issues, including:
Several of the above issues are symptoms of two fundamental root ailments.
The Sammamish Town Center plan was about seven years in the making, controversial throughout. Then development was held up by the 2008 Great Recession. Ground was finally broken in 2015. The first store, Metropolitan Market, opened this year. And now the Town Center is again at the center of controversy over the building moratorium.
By Scott Hamilton
There has even been a call to revisit the plan.
Here’s why doing so is not a good idea and why the Town Center is needed.
Sammamish Comment 