Those electric cars like the Nissan Leaf, the Chevy Volt and the SMART Car are going to need to plug in somewhere.
Eventually there will be electric vehicle charging stations throughout Washington state, including Covington and Maple Valley, as the state legislature’s deadline to adopt ordinances for such stations is looming. Covington staff will present an ordinance to the City Council at its Dec. 13 meeting.
The ordinance, explained Community Development Director Richard Hart, needs to reference that electric vehicle charging stations are permitted and information about how they’ll be governed.
“Puget Sound Regional Council put together a model ordinance that cities could use,” Hart said. “Some cities used it and just plugged in their name and other cities totally ignored it and wrote their own.”
Hart said Covington staff took parts of the model ordinance then wrote some of their own language to develop guidelines for the charging stations.
Salina Lyons, senior planner for the city, explained that the state legislature passed a bill in 2009 that required cities within major corridors had to have an ordinance for charging stations in place by the end of this year.
“We’re taking to (the council) the final proposed ordinance that the Planning Commission has been discussing since May,” Lyons said. “It’s more catered to our downtown.”
The idea is that as new development comes into the city’s downtown core, particularly the area the council envisions as its town center, electric charging stations will be one of the details in the plans. Lyons added that business owners could add it to existing enterprises if they so wish as an accessory use and would simply have to meet the city’s design requirements as well as be accessible per the American Disabilities Act.
“A lot of the new public buildings put these out in front,” Hart said. “It’s a little stand with a base that might be 10 inches square that looks like a gas pump that’s about five feet high. There’s a cord and you plug it in. We’re doing it because Washington state said we had to because we’re a (Growth Management Act) planning city. We’re not the only ones doing it.”
In fact, Hart said, there are charging stations at city halls on the Eastside.
According to information on the Puget Sound Regional Council’s website, cities across the country are passing similar ordinances from Houston, Texas, to Minneapolis, Minn., to San Diego, Calif., as well as Canadian cities such as Toronto, Ont., and Vancouver, B.C.
“To create a consistent regulatory framework that would help this industry grow across Washington state, the legislature required the Puget Sound Regional Council and Department of Commerce to develop guidance for local governments,” stated a July 2010 PSRC report.
Hart said he had a theory about why the state legislature wanted cities to embrace electric vehicle charging stations.
“I think Washington has always been on the cutting edge of green and sustainability issues and they saw the demand out there for electric vehicles,” he said. “They figure if people want to start using them for their daily use… they wanted to make sure at some of the major shopping centers they had the next level of charging station where if you park your car you could recharge your battery.”
Because electric cars have a range of about 150 miles on a single charge, it’s important to make it possible for owners to plug in while traveling, or even just running errands. Charging at home overnight on a regular outlet would take about eight hours, but, the electric vehicle charging stations could provide a full charge in about two hours.
“There are some major retailers like Fred Meyer who are trying to get out in the forefront,” Hart said.
