The Maple Valley Planning Commission is in the middle of discussing and revising the city’s comprehensive plan. Required by the state’s Growth Management Act, the plan is a set of policies that outline the future land use and the overall look and feel of the community.

The Planning Commission updates the comprehensive plan about every seven years with their recommendations, but the City Council has the final say whether those changes get adopted or not. Changes can also be made to the comprehensive plan on an annual basis.

There are several major changes proposed by the commission in this plan update so far. Included in that is the potential rezoning of the back nine of Elk Run Golf Course from public use to residential.

In future issues of the Reporter, more of the suggested changes in the comprehensive plan will be addressed.

Elk Run

The Elk Run Golf Course closed in mid-October 2014 when nine of their 18 holes – that the owners were leasing at the time – were sold by King County to the Tahoma School District.

With nine holes still owned by the course owners, Ray Humphreys and Daryl Connell, they decided to close up shop.

Now, single family homes and town homes could be making their way onto the greens.

Steve Clark, the Public Works and Community Development director for Maple Valley, said although there have been no official development proposals or plans made, “The property owner has indicated they would like to develop the property.”

Attempts were made to contact the owners, but they were not immediately available.

Senior Planner for the city, Matt Torpey, said the owners have estimated only about 16 of the 85 acres are actually developable.

The limitations exist because of two Bonneville Power Administration power lines running through the property and with easements, and Cranmar Creek that also runs through the property. The creek is salmon-bearing which increases the setbacks on it. Not only that, Torpey said the wetland associated with the creek also has its own setbacks.

Still, despite having only about 19 percent of their land available for development, residents in the area are still concerned.

Robert Young, who has lived near Elk Run for 10 years said he doesn’t want to see any more development.

“The area is getting so congested as it is,” he said in a phone interview.

Instead, he said, he would like to see a community dog park on the site.

Young also said he thought the city wasn’t considering the impact more housing developments would have on school enrollment.

The current enrollment for Tahoma High School is 1,600, which includes grades 10 through 12. Tahoma Junior High has about 1,230 students for grades eight and nine. Both schools are at or over their capacity.

Kevin Patterson, the district’s spokesperson, said the new high school will have a capacity of 2,400 students for grades nine through 12.

“We anticipate that enrollment at the new school will be at or near 2,400 when we open,” Patterson wrote in an email.

However, he added, some students will be doing running start and won’t be on campus full-time because they will be taking college classes.

Superintendent Rob Morrow echoed Patterson’s assessment and said all 2,400 students will likely not be on campus at one time.

Patterson also said at the time the construction plans were created for the new high school, they were based on demographic data that was dated prior to November 2013 – when the bond was passed.

“At that time, there were no plans for rezoning areas of the city to create additional housing,” he said.

Patterson said the school board and the district do not take positions on community development and they will need more information about proposed residential construction to assess what the impact to student enrollment will be.

Based on the number of acres available for development at Elk Run and the residential density, Torpey said the owners are requesting R6 – six units per acre – the number of homes is not likely to exceed 100.

However, there are also other properties in the city the Planning Commission is considering recommending be zoned for development into medium and high-density residential. One is about 35 acres on the northern end of town. The other chunk is behind Safeway at Four Corners and is about 5 acres according to King County Assessor records. A more in-depth look at those properties will be featured in an upcoming issue of the Reporter.

In general, new developments could affect enrollment, Morrow said.

“Any additional development… certainly has an impact on enrollment,” Morrow said.

The rest of Elk Run

So what is the plan for the rest of the Elk Run property? Because a large majority of the land is not developable, according to the owners, there’s still going to be a lot of open space.

Elk Run owners are in communication with South King County Food Coalition about putting in a 4-acre community garden to supply local food banks with approximately 60,000 pounds of fresh produce annually when the garden gets into full production. Read more on this in an upcoming issue of the Reporter.

Reporter Rebecca Gourley can be reached via email at rgourley@maplevalleyreporter.com, by phone at 425-432-1209 ext. 5052 or via Twitter @rebeccalgourley.