Letter: LS always shortchanged by County
OtR friend and all-around good guy fired up the computer and produced the following letter, also published in tomorrow's Herald:
I have lived in the Lake Stevens area my entire life and have yet to understand the logic of Snohomish County with regard to planning for growth management. It is almost as if they are looking for a way to keep Lake Stevens a bedroom community for the benefit of everyone else.
In 2000-2001, the county adopted a subarea plan for Lake Stevens. This plan eliminated the potential for commercial development along Cavelero Hill. In 2005, they upzoned properties to create more dense residential development in Lake Stevens, while giving Marysville the land adjacent to Lake Stevens for Marysville to obtain commercial and retail development along Highway 9. Ironically, they also approved a site-specific rezone for property adjacent to this area (the former Hewlett Packard site), which was in the Lake Stevens urban growth area, to convert it from commercial to residential. Looking back on it, I'll bet everyone involved is proud of that ridiculous move.
Now the County Council is entertaining a proposal by a developer and Snohomish to take the land to the south of Lake Stevens and add it to the city of Snohomish for commercial and industrial development. Am I missing something here? Oh, yeah, I am: a job in my community.
How can the county keep giving Lake Stevens the short end of the stick? Don't they know we'd like to have some jobs and services in our town so we aren't driving everywhere all the time? The fact is that county buildable lands figures show that Lake Stevens ranks near last among all the county's cities in jobs per household at 0.42. Until the county and stakeholders can produce a sensible plan to handle the growth in the Lake Stevens and Snohomish urban growth areas, I am pleading with the council to hold off on approving any expansions at this time.
Brent Kirk
Lake Stevens
Labels: uga
posted by Kevin Hulten at
1:06 AM
1 Comments:
This rings very true. after thinking a little more about this issue I am left to wonder if Mr. Reid will sue Snohomish or Snohomish County or the City of Lake Stevens yet again when things don't work out his way. In my humble opinion it is one of the main reasons that there have not been serious discussion between the two cities. As a planner by training and a developer by practice and as a resident of the area it is tough to see when politics and land grabs get in the way of good planning that will benefit the area, no matter which City you call home, for the long run. I was recently polled by Hebert research as to what I would like to see in the area. I can't wait until the pull selected results from that poll out to bolster their arguement. The first thing I would do is challenge them to publish their entire poll all questions and answers and make it available for everyone to analyse for themselves. Its pretty intersting that they would poll someone like me that lives in the City of Lake Stevens when they themselves are saying that we should have no say in what goes on down there. I am not really sure what kind of logic that is but it seems pretty fuzzy to me. I testified at council sometime back encouraging to submit and go forward with the docket proposal to ensure their seat at the table and to continue to work the issue. I am glad to see that they have followed through on this and that the Council, Mayor and staff have all made it a priority.
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