Notes from Shoreline City Council Meeting February 24, 2020

Shoreline City Hall and Council Chamber
Photo by Mike Remarcke

Shoreline City Council Meeting 

February 24, 2020

Notes by Pam Cross

Mayor Hall called the meeting to order at 7:00pm
All Councilmembers were present.

Report of the City Manager Debbie Tarry

ICHS held a successful well attended Lunar New Year Run/Walk 5K. The City was one of the sponsors of this event. ICHS (International Community Health Services) is a non-profit medical center offering care for medical, dental, behavioral health, substance abuse and more. Services are provided on a sliding scale. A location is located in Shoreline at 16549 Aurora Ave N.

Tuesday, Feb 25 Sound Transit Drop-In session from 9am to 6pm at the Spartan Recreation Center. They will be sharing information about construction impacts around the NE 185th St & 4th Ave NE area. Learn more, provide input ,and find out about the construction schedule. There will be another session on March 6.

Thursday, Feb 27 Census 101 Workshop from 3:00-4:00pm in the Shoreline Council City Hall Chamber. Learn about the 2020 Census and how you can help be a champion in our community to help ensure a complete count. An accurate count of all Shoreline residents helps our community get our fair share of federal funding and representation.

The workshop is free but RSVP is requested. Visit shorelinewa.gov/calendar for more information and to RSVP.

Public Reminders

The PRCS/Tree Board will meet on Thursday, Feb 27 at 7:00pm in Room 303

Council will hold its annual Strategic Planning Workshop on Friday and Saturday: Feb 28 at the Edmonds Yacht Club from 8:00am to 4:30pm, and Feb 29 at Shoreline City Hall Council Chamber from 8:15am to 12:30pm.

Council Reports

Deputy Mayor Scully reported that the Continuum of Care Board (regional homelessness) is transitioning to a different structure. The new executive committee is looking for three recruits who are currently homeless, or recently experienced homelessness or housing instability. The application is available at allhome@metrokc.gov

Councilmember Chang attended the King County Regional Transit Committee meeting. The work plan for the year will address how to improve the mobility framework.

Also remember to give your feedback on local transit changes. Many buses will be going to Northgate’s Light Rail station instead of to downtown Seattle. More information and a link to the North Link Connections Mobility Project Survey is available on shorelinewa.gov.

Mayor Hall advised that Council had dinner with Seattle City Council member Debora Juarez. They talked about various items including the 145th Corridor Project, and issues surrounding homelessness.

Also last week there was an Association of Washington Cities Mayors Exchange in Olympia. The State legislature passed a law that preempts local authority to regulate accessory dwelling units (ADU) in certain ways. Shoreline will have to update its regulations.

Public Comment (2 min each)

Speaking in favor of saving trees in Shoreline:

Suzanne Grant of Seattle, 

Michele Moyes of Shoreline, 

Isis Charest of Shoreline, 

Bergith Kayyali of Shoreline, 

Anne Siems of Seattle, 

Barbara Johnstone of Shoreline, 

Derek Blackwell of Shoreline.

Janet Way of Shoreline, wants landmark status for Fircrest Chapel on the Fircrest Campus.(Item 8(a) on the agenda)

Frank Cable of Shoreline is bothered by Harley Davidson noise by his house. Shoreline needs a stronger noise code and traffic enforcement.

Laethen Wene of Shoreline spoke about the uncertainty of where he will be able to catch a bus once the changes are made (referencing Councilmember Chang’s comments)

Mike Rettmann of Shoreline spoke against having the Coronavirus quarantine site at Fircrest.

At Council’s request, Debbie Tarry, City Manager, commented on the above concern: 

The Department of Health has opened a site adjacent to the Department of Health on the property DHSH leases from the DNR. This is a site for individuals who cannot self quarantine and are not displaying any symptoms of the Coronavirus but may have had some exposure to it. A Temporary Use Permit was approved by the City. Notice wa sent to SAN, Neighborhood Associations and others. See SAN Feb 8th article at this link

The agenda was approved unanimously.
The Consent Calendar was approved, without discussion, unanimously.

ACTION ITEM

8(a). Adopting Ordinance No. 882 Amendments to Master Development Plan and Special Use Permit Decision Criteria

Andrew Bauer, Senior Planner, made the presentation

This proposed Ordinance was discussed by the Council on February 10 and is back tonight for adoption. Fircrest is the last campus zone without a Master Development Plan (MDP). Their proposed MDP may include the potential siting of an Essential Public Facility. This would require an update to the Master Development Plan decision making criteria to correct inconsistencies. It would clarify the relationship between Master Development Plans, Essential Public Facilities, and Special Use Permits. It would define behavioral health facilities, identify mixed business zones for this new use, and continue to support current goals and vision for the City. Special Use Permit language addresses the siting process and equity, adequate emergency services, and neighborhood impact and mitigation.

New standards for campus Master Development Plans require a community benefit, compact campus growth mindful of the surrounding area, and incorporated design standards. The approval process has been extended from 10 to 20 years.

Move and second to approve Ordinance.

Discussion

Is there an area in the text that saves trees and another where this is deleted? Reply: Apparent discrepancy is a reference to “all trees” and a later reference is to “healthy trees”.

Motion and second to replace “healthy” with “non-hazardous” trees. “Healthy” is not defined in the code but hazardous is. We should stay with defined term which provides consistency and eliminates confusion.

This motion passed unanimously.

Does landmark designation of a building on a campus create a problematic impact? (see Janet Way’s public comment). Reply: they can co-exist and be presented concurrent with the MDP or come up separately. The City’s separate landmark rules will apply to the specific structure.

The Department of Health may define the overall facility as residential treatment. But the individual beds an be licensed as residential treatment, evaluation and treatment, or enhanced serves. These definitions are a little more detailed. From a land use perspective, we think the detailed definitions make the occupancy less murky and clarifies the intensity of the services provided.

DSHS wants lessees permit control for the property they lease for 20 years. But the permit goes with the land so the owner has to obtain any permits. This is standard practice, otherwise a lessee could get a new permit for the land and affect the landowner’s ability to re-lease or sell the land. This Ordinance applies citywide, not just to the Fircrest campus, so we have to be careful not to tailor the rules just for it.

The campus designation allows the City some control. But we have little control over essential public facilities. This nice thing about this ordinance is it allows the City to have some input in how the State uses their land. For example, we get to ask for public benefits like the 20 year lease.

Ordinance 822 as amended passes unanimously


8(b) Appointing the 2020 Members to the Planning Commission and Shoreline Landmarks and Heritage Commission

Steven Szafran, AICP, Senior Planner

Of the 28 impressive applicants, and after careful consideration, Council unanimously agreed to appoint Julius Rwamashongye, Pam Sager, Andy Galuska, and Janelle Callahan to the Planning Commission for four-year terms that will run from April 1, 2020 through March 31, 2024. 

The subcommittee also unanimously recommended that Andy Galuska also serve on the Shoreline Landmarks and Heritage Commission that will run from April 1, 2020 through March 31, 2024. Copies of all applications are available online.

Move and second to appoint as above.
Vote: passed unanimously


Study Item 9(a)Neighborhood Traffic Safety Program (NTSP) policy revisions

Kendra Dedinsky, City Traffic Engineer, did the presentation

Developed in 2001, the Neighborhood Traffic Safety Program (NTSP) was designed to work cooperatively with residents to address concerns such as speeding, cut through traffic, and pedestrian safety on local streets. In 2019 Traffic Services staff initiated a reevaluation of the program and tonight will be discussing three options for program administration moving forward for Council to consider:

Existing Neighborhood Traffic Safety Program

Benefits:

• Very customer service oriented – the program provides residents with the opportunity for meaningful interactions with staff to understand the data and conditions associated with the subject street. The existing program structure provides an avenue for local street traffic calming that otherwise may not occur based on collision history alone.

Tradeoffs:

• Any local public street is eligible. There are no data-driven criteria to enter the program, which means that significant resource is spent regardless of relative need.
• The existing structure prioritizes funding for traffic safety projects on local streets over arterial streets despite collision data which suggests the opposite relationship.
• Over the last 10 years, very few NTSP projects have met criteria for engineering treatments like speed bumps.
• The program is demand-driven / first-come-first-served, which can delay efforts that potentially have more safety value than those ahead in line.
• The program is phased, with educational methods preceding traffic calming devices, leaving residents frustrated as their main goal is typically to obtain physical traffic calming devices.

Alternative 1 - Entry Criteria and Prioritized Projects

Benefits:

• Retains a program specifically for local streets.
• Provides a moderate to high level of customer service and allows for personalized communication and education opportunities with staff.
• Compared to existing, more reliant on data to inform project decisions, resulting in more valuable and equitable outcomes.
• Sets delivery schedule for consistency, more efficient use of staff time, and reduction in contracting costs. Calming devices batched and implemented every other year.

Tradeoffs:

• Qualifying projects will still require significant resident time which may deter some from participating.
• The existing structure prioritizes funding for traffic safety projects on local streets over arterial streets despite collision data which suggests the opposite relationship.
• Significant resources will be spent collecting traffic data on local streets.
• Residents not eligible for the program will likely remain frustrated and concerned.

Alternative 2 – Annual Traffic Report Process

This alternative would eliminate a program exclusively for local streets and would instead rely on the existing Annual Traffic Report process.

Benefits:

• Relies on data to inform safety project decisions, resulting in more valuable and equitable outcomes.
• Sets clear expectations – provides a methodology that is transparent, understandable, and fair.
• More efficient use of staff time and more consistent and timely delivery of safety projects compared to Existing and Alternative 1 structures. Allows staff time to be redistributed to other underserved and priority workload.
• Allows for needed safety improvements to be implemented without a heavy demand on resident participation and time.
• Increased flexibility for being responsive to emerging issues or opportunistically pairing with other active Capital Improvement Project efforts.

Tradeoffs:

• Eliminates program exclusively for local streets
• Less in-depth customer-staff interaction and education.
• Some residents will remain frustrated by the lack of a path to their desired results.
• Will likely result in fewer improvements to local streets.
• Phase 1 tools such as the radar speed cart and educational yard signs will continue to be available for use by all residents.
• Recognizing that redevelopment can result in significant changes to travel patterns, including impacts to local streets, staff will continue to utilize Shoreline Development Code and the Transportation Impact Analysis process to condition development related traffic calming measures.

Staff recommends Alternative 2.

Discussion

In the post I-976 budget, we need to be careful with allocating expenses. Data driven makes the most sense economically. But how will we be empathic to residents with legitimate concerns about non-arterial issues. They would be so low on the list. Accidents do occur on arterials. With the number of accidents on arterials, when will we ever get to neighborhood streets? Wasn’t NTSB supposed to be about neighborhoods?

Reply: Provide them with perspective. We will review your concerns and get back to you. We may provide use of yard signs and radar carts, but need to stop letting people think they will get more. We should track location of where the complaints are coming from to determine if it just one or several households in a certain area.

We need a path for the neighborhoods. Do speed bumps even work?

We need more police enforcement but we are still an officer short.

The data is good to share with everyone and helps with outreach. But how often do we monitor speed on local streets? Infrequently. We don’t know where the high speeds are except on arterials. People will feel they have less access to city services.

Meeting adjourned at 8:40pm