Audience applause greeted the Edmonds City Council Monday night after councilmembers passed an interim ordinance prohibiting removal of large trees on private property, and withdrew Comprehensive Plan amendments related to potential city property sales, including Hummingbird Hill Park and the Frances Anderson Center.

The council’s actions on both matters — before the approximately 150 meeting attendees — came three weeks after community members crowded into the council chambers to express concerns about three main topics: the possible sale of some city-owned properties to offset the city’s budget deficit; the removal of Big Red, the historic 102-foot redwood tree; and how future zoning changes could impact the North Bowl neighborhood.

Those themes continued during the public comment period at Monday’s council meeting, held a day earlier than usual to avoid a conflict with Tuesday’s Regional Fire Authority annexation vote. Nearly 50 people offered testimony. Some expressed support for the interim ban on cutting down large trees as way to prevent the future removal of trees like Big Red. Others reiterated their belief that city-owned properties like parks, the Frances Anderson Center and the Wade James Theater belong to the community and should not be sold. There was also a contingent of residents from the Medical District Expansion Neighborhood Center, located near Swedish Edmonds Hospital, opposing the zoning plans for their neighborhood.

The Medical District Expansion is one of the neighborhood centers and hubs created as part of the Edmonds 2024 Comprehensive Plan update. The city created the four new neighborhood centers and five new neighborhood hubs to accommodate the city’s allocated growth targets to ensure compliance with the state’s housing bills and the mandatory Comprehensive Plan elements, and to align with multicounty and countywide planning policies.

Residents living in the Medical District Expansion Center told the council Monday night they were surprised to learn — during a city-sponsored walking tour of their neighborhood in late March — about the zoning changes, which they said would lead to increased density and traffic and loss of green space. They created and circulated a petition, signed by 79 residents, opposing the council-approved growth strategy for the Medical District.

“We’re not opposed to development,” said resident Margo Radovich. “What we ask is for thoughtful, appropriate growth that fits the scale of our community space.” The level of development proposed, she added, will result in “significantly increased traffic and further compromise pedestrian safety for future generations of children and families.”

North Bowl residents have raised similar concerns at past council meetings about the impact that the neighborhood hub designation would have on their quality of life. In response, councilmembers included further evaluation of the North Bowl Hub as one of two top priorities for 2025 Comprehensive Plan amendments. The second top priority was to establish and study a critical areas program.

The Comprehensive Plan is a document that guides the city’s decisions over a 20-year time period, serving as a blueprint for development. It is also meant to reflect the vision and priorities of the city and residents, while meeting the requirements of state and federal law. While the city’s latest update was passed in December 2024, governments can amend their Comprehensive Plans annually.

However, Interim Planning and Development Director Shane Hope in the past has cautioned the council that — given the reduced planning staff due to furloughs and layoffs — her department may not have time to consider more than two amendments this year.

With the North Bowl Hub and critical areas study making the final cut (minus the removal of one North Bowl amendment idea as requested by Councilmember Chris Eck), here is the status of the other amendments based on council action Monday night:

– Removal of future land use options for Hummingbird Hill Park, Frances Anderson Center, Meadowdale Clubhouse, City Hall and Wade James Theater. Planning Director Hope explained in a separate interview Monday that the City Hall property could come back separately for consideration because unlike the other properties mentioned, it doesn’t need to be designated as a “future land use option.”

– Removal of the following amendment topics after staff suggested they would be better addressed by city code updates: allowing hotels on port and waterfront properties, allowing neighborhood cafes/stores in hubs/centers, considering displacement in centers and hubs, including requirements for more commercial in hubs and centers.

– Tabling indefinitely the remaining items on the list, including amendments related to changes in Lake Ballinger and International District height limits, modification of land use element and establishment of land use goals. The decision to table those items, proposed by Councilmember Jenna Nand, was approved by a 4-2 vote (Councilmembers Will Chen and Michelle Dotsch voted against. Councilmember Vivian Olson was absent from Monday’s meeting). “My motion to table is…a reflection of the fact that we are in a fiscal crisis presently,” Nand said. “Because this is a hair-on-fire year, I think that that would be a better use of staff time, taxpayer money and city resources, especially for the very, very busy and very competent and very scheduled planning department.”

In a related matter, Council President Neil Tibbott proposed a resolution that would summarize the council actions regarding the North Bowl and critical areas, but it failed due to a 3-3 tie vote. Tibbott said Tuesday morning that the resolution “was an attempt to summarize our support for the planning process and capture the discussion about how broad the CAO (critical areas ordinance) will be for the city.” This doesn’t change the outcome of the council’s previous actions to move the North Bowl and critical areas forward for study, Tibbott added.

The interim ordinance banning the removal of landmark trees passed unanimously and followed comments from several audience members requesting its passage. One of them was Lora Hein, who brought with her a drawing she created when she was 9 years old.

“I had the good fortune to grow up in proximity to 1,000-year-old and older redwood trees,” she said. “This is the only drawing from my childhood that I retained and valued enough to frame in my adulthood. My hope is that today’s 9-year-olds will have trees to inspire them, as the redwoods inspired me as a 9-year-old, and that today’s 9-year-olds may live to see future 9-year-olds enjoy similar inspiration.”

The interim regulation approved Monday is designed to provide temporary protection for existing trees while the council works on a permanent regulation governing the removal of landmark trees. The ordinance defines a landmark tree as having a diameter of 30 inches or more at breast height, which is 4.5 feet above the ground. It would provide exemptions for trees which have already been vested through the permitting process, along with trees that have been deemed hazardous or a nuisance.

The council passed an emergency six-month ordinance in March 2021 that prohibited the removal of landmark trees — at that time, such as tree was defined as greater than 24 inches in diameter at breast height — from any private property unless those trees were deemed hazardous. The idea behind the ordinance was to give the council time to work on additional, more detailed tree regulations to be included in city code. However, that temporary ordinance expired before work was completed.

Also during the meeting, Mayor Mike Rosen took the opportunity to address the community directly about the city’s finances and recent discussions about possible city property sales. Referring to a TV news report in which city officials were reported as saying the community “had been misinformed” about such sales, Rosen said, “You were not misinformed. For over a year, I personally have been stating on a number of occasions that everything must be on the table. Absolutely everything must be on the table because we have a very bad financial crisis.

“And it was really an unfortunate choice of words, and I’m going to say it again…you’re not misinformed.

“I personally love our parks. I love our trees,” said Rosen, who is in year two of his first term as mayor. “When I was envisioning myself as a mayor, I thought, wouldn’t it be nice if we could actually acquire land and reserve it for green space? Even if we couldn’t do anything with it now, at least we could hold it, because once it’s gone, you can’t get it back, and it’s never going to be cheaper. And that was that was me in my happy place.”

However, due to the city’s budget deficit, “we are not in that place currently,” the mayor added.

“I wish that we were not in this survival place, that we could focus on the city that we want and identify what does that look like? And agree on that, and then say, OK, how do we fund that? What is it going to take to fund that? What are we willing to pay for that? What are the different revenue streams we have for it? It’s all about choices. We live in this amazing place and we have a financial crisis, but I absolutely believe together — and it’s going to be together — that we’re going to get out of this.”

In other business, the council held a public hearing on permanent city code governing STEP housing. HB 1220 – passed in 2021–  amended Washington’s Growth Management Act to require all cities to change their codes and 20-year comprehensive plans to make way for housing affordable to all income levels.

To meet housing needs at the lowest income rates, the law requires emergency and permanent housing – also known as STEP housing – to be allowed in all residential zones and zones with hotels. The city council passed an interim STEP housing ordinance Jan. 28, giving councilmembers additional time to solidify details and offering the public another chance to weigh in on the issue.

This item was discussed during the council’s April 15 Committee of the Whole meeting. The interim ordinance includes provisions that nuisances and criminal behavior are subject to enforcement to the full extent of the city’s code. It also states that evictions of residents for unsafe actions are not precluded by city codes. The Edmonds Planning Board, however, recommended eliminating these provisions — and the one resident who testified during Monday’s public hearing asked why that was being considered.

Councilmember Chris Eck addressed that STEP question later in the meeting, noting that the provisions in question would already be enforced under current city codes, “so the language is actually unnecessary.”

Finally, the council honored the 55th anniversary of the first Earth Day, which occurs April 22, and heard a report from Planning Director Shane Hope on the city’s climate resiliency efforts. Among the items mentioned were converting the city’s vehicle fleet to low- or zero-carbon models, using electric landscaping tools instead of gasoline-powered tools when possible, providing transit passes to city employees, adopting development codes that incentivize green building practices and energy efficiency, requiring local food service businesses to use compostable products. adopting land use codes that encourage walkability and constructing bike lanes for community use.