City of Lake Stevens hopes for land to add to their UGA

BY PAM STEVENS | COPY EDITOR City of Snohomish may have other ideas Back in 1992 the City of Lake Stevens’ Comprehensive Plan included a large parcel of land that sits just west of Highway 9 and north of US 2 that they wanted to add to their Urban Growth Area (UGA) in the future. However, SR9/US2 LLC, a Bellevue developer, has asked the city of Snohomish to include the land in its UGA.

The land could someday be developed with over 3,000 homes and a large commercial district. It is also being considered as a site for the future four-year university.

Lake Stevens city officials feel that the area is a natural place for the city to grow and the sewer district is prepared to expand into this area while the city of Snohomish sewer may not have the capacity to handle it plus other areas they have earmarked for sewer expansion, according the Corbitt Loch, Director of Planning for the city of Snohomish.

“It is an important piece and the study is not complete so we don’t have answers yet,” Loch said.

Loch also stated that they a ren’t sure yet if they even want the land in their comprehensive plan.

“We haven’t decided we want it. It was brought to us by the property owner, it is worth studying at this time,” Loch stated.

The developer filed a petition against the City of Lake Stevens on Feb. 9 stating that the city “failed to hold a public hearing when it adopted certain amendments to its comprehensive plan.” However, public hearings did take place in June and July 2006.

“We think it has no merit,” Jan Berg, Lake Stevens City Administrator stated when asked how the city felt about the petition.

The Journal tried to reach Michael Reid, Managing Member of the property owners and representative of the developer but never received a return call.

Both cities would gain considerable tax dollars but Lake Stevens feels that they are better prepared to handle the growth and have been actively working on adding it to the City’s UGA.

“The whole area needs to be looked at in its entirety for the benefit of those residents,” Berg said.

Both the city of Snohomish and the city of Lake Stevens would like to work this out before going to the county.

“Our council, mayor and staff want to sit down with the City of Snohomish and master plan the entire area together,” Berg stated.

“The city remains open to collaborating with Lake Stevens city and the county. - what is the best future use of that land, whether it should go into one city’s UGA or another, we will try to figure it out,” Lock said.

Neither city can add the property to its UGA without approval from the county. The County Council may not even decide on the issue until next spring.

blog comments powered by Disqus