Work on Covington’s downtown plan revision is in the home stretch, according to Planning Manager Richard Hart.

“The consultant completed their study in September,” Hart said. “We took all of the policy recommendations out of that document and put those into the new downtown plan element of the comprehensive plan.”

That downtown element was one of a handful of changes to the comprehensive plan that were adopted in December.

Covington’s downtown plan, which was adopted in 2005, has served primarily as a big picture document.

In 2009 the Covington City Council realized the plan needed more detail so that developers could help the city create the kind of downtown the council envisions.

City officials have said the goal for the revised downtown plan would be to encourage the kind of development the City Council wanted to fulfill the vision of mixed-use development as well as being a leader in transportation.

Now community development staff members are working to implement the changes in the downtown plan element “through writing new zoning, development and design regulations.”

“It is about an eight to nine month process,” Hart said. “We started it in mid-December.”

With the help of a consultant, staff now has a first draft which went to the Covington Planning Commission in March, which has gone through a draft review and a second draft was delivered by the consultant to the city on April 1.

“What we have now coming up is a public input process that will take us two and a half months,” Hart said. “During that time we’re going to have three important meetings. The first two are what we’re calling public input forums. They will be held April 15 and May 6.”

Both of those public input forums will be held during Planning Commission meetings.

“We’re trying to invite as many people as we can who have expressed interest to come to those meetings,” Hart said. “Then on June 3, the Planning Commission will hold its public formal hearing. For that June 3 hearing, we’re also required to send written notice to property owners in downtown and within 500 feet of downtown. We’re going to do that about a month early so we can include that second public forum (on May 6) on that notice.”

Hart said they’ll take the comments from those three meetings then the Planning Commission will “pass on a final recommendations to the City Council in July” with the Council tentatively scheduled to hold its public meetings on the topic in July with the goal to adopt the new regulations by the end of August.

A key part of the revisions to the downtown plan is the city is going to take the existing 12 downtown zones and consolidate them into four new commercial zones.

“It’s easier to understand,” Hart said. “There was just too many of them. That was one of the recommendations … to consolidate the zones.”

The four zones are Town Center, Mixed Commercial, General Commercial and Mixed Housing and Office or MHO.

“Mixed commercial, that’s sort of the remainder of the commercial areas downtown,” hart said. “General commercial, that’s the automobile dealerships out along Highway 18 and Covington Way.”

And the MHO zone is the area of single family residential areas such as Covington Firs along Jenkins Creek.

“Those are considered a transitional area from residential to a higher density residential and office district,” Hart said. “There is a little zone that used to be called DN7c that we’re recommending as a site for multi-family apartments and condominiums. That was the most limiting of those old downtown zones where they only allowed limited residences and office uses. A lot of that area doesn’t even have sewer yet today, which really limits what you can do.”

Coming back to Town Center, which is the combination of the previous DN1 and DN6 zones, which will have a focus of being pedestrian friendly buildings that will bring structures closer to the street as well as encourage “tall, mixed use buildings with retail on the ground floor and residential above.”

Height restrictions will be 75 feet, which would allow five or six story buildings, while under the old regulations buildings could have been as tall as 90 feet or nine stories tall, Hart explained.

“It follows the example that Burien did with their Town Center,” he said. “It follows what is being down on Mercer Island, Kirkland, Mill Creek and a number of other suburban communities that are encouraging and have had mixed use buildings. That’s basically the model and the vision and the template that Council wants to follow.”

Hart added none of the new regulations are significant changes “from the wide range of commercial and office uses that are allowed in the downtown today.”

“We’re talking about where they should be located, how they should be sited on the property, what their relationship should be to the street,” he said. “And raise the bar for design and quality of the buildings. The new regulations are a lot more user friendly. They’re shorter in length. It’s a lot easier to understand for both the public and the developers. That’s an important change.”

The primary focus is to provide a walkable downtown that is pedestrian focused with buildings that are oriented toward the street, the sidewalk and “public realm.”

Hart encourages residents to attend the meetings and provide input, or provide written input, and if anyone has questions they can call him at City Hall, stop by for documentation or check the city’s Web site for more information.