At the request of Edmonds Mayor Dave Earling, and following concerns expressed by the Port of Edmonds and the Edmond Senior Center, the Edmonds City Council at its meeting next Tuesday, Jan. 26, is scheduled to reconsider amendments passed Dec. 15 to the city’s critical areas ordinance. The item is on the council’s work session agenda, with no action scheduled.

The ordinance – which has been discussed numerous times at previous city council meetings and also underwent Edmonds Planning Board review – is aimed at protecting the city’s critical areas, which include wetlands, streams and geologically hazardous and frequently flooded areas. The State Growth Management Act requires jurisdictions to review, evaluate and, if necessary, revise their critical areas ordinances every 10 years. The last time Edmonds’ was updated was in 2005.

The council approved eight amendments to the ordinance at its Dec. 15 meeting; of those, the mayor said in a memo to council last month that he has concerns about five of them:

• A new requirement that the City’s Development Services Director make all decisions related to critical areas, which last year involved a total of 428 separate decisions. For example, in 2015, staff issued 120 critical areas determinations related to whether critical areas are located on or adjacent to a subject property, and which involve a review of GIS information and a site visit to every property.  Additionally, there were 298 building permits that involved some ground disturbance activity that requires a critical areas review, plus 10 subdivisions that also required critical areas review.
• Deletion of a provision that would allow restoration projects to have reduced buffers by 50 percent – which effectively would require redesign of the draft Marina Beach Master Plan. The deleted provision was modeled after a Shoreline Management Act provision, and was offered to encourage critical area restoration projects.
• Removal of a provision that would have allowed development in “physically separated/functionally isolated” areas that are separated from a critical area in some manner – such as by a roadway.
• Changing the required diameter of deciduous (leaf-bearing) replacement trees from 1 inch to 1 ½ to 2 inches, with staff noting that larger trees “are not necessarily better” due to smaller root balls that are more difficult to become established.
• Deleting an update of two provisions related to development within city’s coastal flood hazard zone. One of the provisions was aimed at protecting waterfront buildings from future projected changes in sea level rise due to climate change, and required structures to be built two feet above base flood elevation.  The second recommendation was to have height of structures measured from two feet above base flood elevation, but does not change the allowed zoning height.  For instance, in the Commercial Waterfront (CW) zone, the allowed zoning height is 30 feet.  The change to the height definition would have allowed the starting point for measuring the zoning height to be 2 feet above base flood elevation as opposed to the average existing grade, which is the current requirement.

In his Dec. 30 memo, Earling noted he was on vacation Dec. 15 when the eight amendments were passed but received a briefing on them from city staff when he returned. “I cannot accept the dramatic changes provided by the amendments, which in my opinion neuters the work staff and the Planning Board intended and agreed to,” Earling said. “In current condition, I would be forced to veto an ordinance which would include amendments made by the council.”

During the council’s Jan. 26 work session, councilmembers will have an opportunity to review and discuss two versions of the critical areas ordinance: one with the eight amendments as passed by the council Dec. 15 and the other – favored by the mayor – which retains three of council-approved amendments but eliminates the five indicated above.

You can see both proposals as well as documentation and background as part of the Jan. 26 agenda memo here.

The mayor is not the only one who has expressed concerns about the critical areas amendments passed by the council. Edmonds Port Commissioners have taken a stance to oppose some of the changes, and the Executive Director of the Edmonds Senior Center said one of the amendments would negatively impact plans for a new senior center building now being designed for the waterfront.

In remarks during the Jan. 11 Port Commission meeting, Port Executive Director Bob McChesney said that commissioners are particularly bothered by “changes in flood plain and how that affects building heights.” The effect would be an overall reduction in total allowable building height from 35 feet to 33 feet when the new modified grade is taken into account, he added.

The port is also concerned about the amendment to remove a provision that would allow projects that are “physically separated and functionally isolated” from critical areas, McChesney said. “I think the best example we can give in terms of how that works out in real life is the Jacobsen project,” said McChesney, referring to the new structure built by Jacobsen’s Marine on Admiral Way. “Here we have a project on this side of the railroad tracks from the [Edmonds] marsh. Clearly it would pass the test of being physically separated and functionally isolated. This project had no measurable impacts to the marsh, yet because of the existing critical areas ordinance lacks an exemption for these types of projects,” he said.

Under the city’s current critical areas ordinance, the port was required to pay $11,000 in mitigation to the city for the Jacobsen project, McChesney said.

On Jan. 15, the port sent a letter, signed by Commission President Bruce Faires, to the City Council and Earling summarizing their concerns about the two above amendments, plus a third that would eliminate inclusion of compacted gravel in determining a development footprint. “The port believes this to be overly restrictive without measurable benefit,” the letter said.

“The ability of Edmonds to accommodate expected job and population changes in the next decade is challenging,” Faires wrote. “The Port and the City need to be partners in this regard going forward for the benefit of the community. These particular amendments, should they be adopted, will certainly have a negative effect on Port properties and many others as well.”

In addition, the Edmonds Senior Center, which is in the design phase for a new 22,000-square-foot building to replace its current facility on the Edmonds waterfront at 220 Railroad Ave., has its own concerns about the council’s critical areas proposal.

During the public comment period at the Jan. 19 city council meeting, Senior Center Executive Director Farrell Fleming said the senior center opposes the council’s Dec. 15 amendment governing building height measurements along the waterfront.

“The amendment concerning where to measure building height from, has the net effect…of reducing the building height by 2 feet,” Fleming said. “It is particularly important to both the senior center, and we believe the city and its residents, that this amendment…be not included in the final critical areas ordinance,” adding that the change from the staff recommendation would present “design challenges” for the planned building.

Noting that the building architect is nearing the completion of Senior Center’s conceptual design, which is on track for the end of January, Farrell urged prompt council action “in order that our design and project schedule not be adversely impacted.”