The Greater Maple Valley Unincorporated Area Council met for its regular monthly meeting July 12. Several major topics discussed were joint unincorporated area council forum, Black Diamond master planned developments and King County code change recommendations.
The council serves as an all volunteer, locally elected advisory body to the King County Council representing all rural unincorporated area residents living in the Tahoma School District.
Joint unincorporated area council forum
The council will co-host the annual joint unincorporated area council forum. This forum brings together the King County executive, King County department directors and key staff members, all area councils chairs and citizens to discuss both common and unique issues faced by the area councils and their citizens.
King County Executive Down Constantine will speak, followed by brief presentations by each of the six area councils on the issues of greatest concern to their communities. A question-and-answer session closes the program. Information and brochures about King County services will be available.
The forum will 7-930 p.m. Monday, July 26 at the Hobart Church located at 27524 SE 200th St.
Doors open at 6:30 p.m. All rural area residents are invited to attend and participate.
Proposed master planned developments in Black Diamond
YarrowBay has proposed two Master Planned Developments in the city of Black Diamond. A total of 4,530 single-family and 1,520 multi-family units have been proposed on nearly 700 acres. Over 1,100,000 square feet of commercial and office space also has been proposed.
The council has been involved since the beginning of the year. Letters of concern were sent to both the state Department of Transportation and King County requesting each agency provide comments on the Final Environmental Impact Statements, which they did on January 25 and February 9, respectively. Each agency also testified during FEIS Appeals Hearings held in March.
Many council members attended those hearings and concurrent MPD application hearings, both before Hearing Examiner Phil Obrechts, as well as the ongoing closed record hearings before the Black Diamond City Council.
Area Council Chair Steve Hiester and members Beverly Tonda and I provided both public oral testimony and written comments during the MPD application hearings and the ongoing closed record hearings, where no new evidence could be introduced. I also has served as an area council liaison for concerned Black Diamond citizens and nearby rural area residents throughout the process.
Specific area council concerns remain the impacts of urban development both directly and indirectly on the Rural Area and its citizens. The area council contests the inadequacy of the traffic analysis conducted and the dearth of mitigations proposed; siting of a large retention lake in the rural area west of the property; and the siting of up to seven new schools in the rural area. The council remains steadfast in the belief, also held by King County, that the rural area shall not be used to enable urban development.
In May, the hearing examiner recommended approval of the YarrowBay MPD applications. While recommending approval, the hearing examiner also recommended several conditions on the applications. These included:
(1) transportation – development and validation of a new traffic model, route and intersection analyses using the new model and the resulting identification of needed mitigations;
(2) construction noise – additional study and mitigation, unfortunately, there is no way to soundproof a home against the 90 decibel noise levels expected, which is 300 times higher than recommended human hearing thresholds and
(3) fiscal impacts – additional analyses to address the projected annual and overall shortfalls in jobs created and revenue generated.
During the ongoing closed record hearings, which commenced on June 21, the Black Diamond City Council has heard form both city staff and YarrowBay on why the applications should be approved. In addition, there were five nights of public testimony, about 50 speakers, which ended on July 7. Following city staff and YarrowBay closing statements July 14, the City Council will begin open public deliberations, which will lead to a final decision to accept, conditionally accept or reject the applications. All sessions have been held at the Black Diamond Elementary School between 7 and 9:30 p.m. and are open to the public.
Should the City Council decide to accept outright or conditionally accept the MPD Applications, work will begin on the development agreement. Here, YarrowBay will prepare their plan to meet any conditions placed on the MPD applications by the City Council. This plan will be negotiated with city staff. Once the development agreement is complete, open record hearings on the development agreement will be held. These will be open to the public and testimony will be taken from any members of the public who wish to speak.
The timing on the development agreement is somewhat dependent on the breadth of any conditions placed on the MPD applications. Members of the public can check the city of Black Diamond website for hearing dates.
King County code change recommendations
As the area council’s Growth Management Committee chair, I described the three month effort just completed by the growth management and transportation committees. That effort consisted of a comprehensive review of the King County code to address potential rural area impacts from large urban developments. This was precipitated by the YarrowBay proposed 6,000 home master planned developments in Black Diamond which are expected to have major effects on all of southeast King County including the Rural Area.
The objective of the effort was to provide specific code change recommendations to the King County Executive and King County Council to protect the rural area from massive urban development and its overflow, intentional or not. As part of the effort, the committees also reviewed applicable King County Comprehensive Plan provisions and the state’s revised codes of Washington (RCWs).
The committees met jointly seven times and developed a set of recommendations and supporting rationale of those code titles deemed most applicable. Specific areas were identified that need better clarity, stronger language, or more emphasis and execution. In general, the committees recommended King County enforce the code, as many code provisions are well structured to protect rural area citizens from the impacts of adjacent urban development, but in many cases meaningful or timely enforcement is lacking. The full code can be found at www.kingcounty.gov/council/legislation/kc_code.aspx.
More detail will be available once the full area council votes on a set of final recommendations at its Aug. 2 monthly meeting. However, in general, the committees recommended the following listed by code title:
• parks and recreation: combine school needs with park needs to create multipurpose parks;
• surface water management: strengthen surface water runoff policy to protect Rural Area property rights; maintain consistency with the KC Surface Water Design Manual; fund east King County Groundwater Protection Committee and appoint a rural area representative.
• solid waste: ensure rural area representation on King County Solid Waste Advisory Committee;
• water and sewer systems: no recommendations;
• Roads and Bridges: eliminate transportation concurrency’s 6 year lag time for completing required transportation infrastructure mitigation, state requirement;
• building standards: no recommendations.
• fire code: no recommendations;
• planning: no recommendations;
• zoning: eliminate loopholes that could site nonrural facilities under permitted Uses; eliminate fire sprinkler requirement for new structures on land more thant 2.5 acres; broaden home occupation total area allowed and
• agriculture and open space lands: there is insufficient funding available to purchase open space now at a time of historically low prices.
Area Council final recommendations will be presented to the King County Executive, King County Council, and the King County Code Committee later in the summer to coincide with the County’s annual budget cycle and planning efforts.
The next regular monthly meeting of the area council is 7-9:30 p.m. Aug. 2 at the King Sheriff’s Precinct No. 3 Headquarters, 231st Street and state Route 169, across from fire station.
The area council meets the first Monday of each month, except on legal holidays. Each meeting begins with a public comment period to provide local citizens with the opportunity to voice issues of concern to members and King County or state officials in attendance.
Comments on area council business may be submitted to gmvac_chair@hotmail.com or GMVAC, P.O. Box 101, Maple Valley, WA 98038.
Visit the council website.
