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Home My WebLink About02/05/2002 Adjourned Meeting 431 CITY OF YAKIMA, WASHINGTON FEBRUARY 5, 2002 - 7:30 A.M. ADJOURNED MEETING OF THE CITY COUNCIL AND COUNTY COMMISSIONERS 129 NORTH 2 STREET - COUNCIL CHAMBERS 1. ROLL CALL Present: Council: Mayor Mary Place, presiding, Council Members Clarence Barnett, Lynn Buchanan, Paul George, John Puccinelli, and Bernard Sims Absent: Larry Mattson (excused) Staff: City Manager Dick Zais (present after 8:08 a.m.), Assistant City Manager Glenn Rice, Assistant City Attorney Larry Peterson, Public Works Director Chris Waarvick, Director of Community and Economic Development Bill Cook, Code Administration Manager Doug Maples, Senior Planner Dan Valoff, Water and Irrigation Manager Dueane Calvin, Accounting Manager Cindy Epperson, and City Clerk Roberts Commissioners: Ron Gamache , chair, and Jim Lewis (absent after 8:35 a.m.) Absent: Jesse Palacios (excused) Staff: Planning: Dick Anderwald Public Works: Vern Redifer, Kent McHenry and Gary Ekstedt Bill Cook advised that the purpose of the meeting is to review joint planning issues with the City Council and County Commissioners. He stated that no action is needed on any of these issues today. 2. COMPREHENSIVE PLAN AMENDMENTS • Overview of the statutory review requirements Dan Valoff stated that within the Growth Management Act there is a deadline that by September 1, 2002 each county and city must evaluate their plan to make sure they are in compliance with the law. It is an opportunity for each county to review the urban area growth boundary. Annual housekeeping amendments have been done for the past two years so only minor changes proposed now. • Growth within Yakima County Dick Anderwald spoke about the population projections for the county, important for purpose of distributing state - shared revenues back to the local governments. By the end of February he will have the 20 -year forecast population number 432 FEBRUARY 5, 2002 — JOINT ADJOURNED MEETING completed and will take it to the County -Wide Policy Committee. The County encourages the majority of growth to occur around cities and towns. Urban growth boundaries, although assigned to the counties to ratify, are proposed by the cities. We expect that the Yakima urban area growth boundary area will be squared off and provisions will be made to expand opportunities to bring industry into the valley. Besides this process and the joint transportation planning issue, he stated there is a third issue that they collaborate on with the City. They plan to transfer the leadership on development of the West Valley Development Plan to the City. • Critical Areas Dueane Calvin reported that our consulting team continues to investigate and look at the critical areas and hope to bring something forward to be included in the Comprehensive Plan at the appropriate time. He gave an update on the status of the grant application under consideration by the Bonneville Power Administration, wherein the City requested $2.5 million per year for several years. • Transportation Chris Waarvick referred Council to the previous staff report dated October 8, 2001 that explains the recommendation to make minor modifications to the • Transportation chapter of the Comprehensive Plan. He reported that staff is gathering traffic data and will also coordinate traffic planning with the County as well as consider the impact of land use changes. Current significant transportation issues include: • Railroad grade separation of principal arterial streets • Terrace Heights arterial street connection to Yakima • CBD signal enhancement project improvements to intersection level of service and a travel speed of 40 mph on arterial streets • Arterial street classifications including 16 and 32 Avenues • Annexation of West Valley region and other Urban Area issues In reply to a question asked by Council Member Barnett, Don Skone, Executive Director of the Conference of Governments (COG), confirmed that COG has the capacity and technological ability to perform the tasks that the City needs. COG also has some federal funding to update that transportation model and then perform the modeling for the City. • Capital Facilities Plan Update Cindy Epperson stated that the Capital Facilities Plan Update they are working on identifies existing capital improvement projects and how to finance those projects. The Plan covers projects for six years starting with the year 2003. The three major elements in the Plan are water, wastewater and transportation. This portion of the Comprehensive Plan may not be completed by the end of this year because it cannot be finalized until after all the other plans have been developed. Even when we have a Plan, the annual budget determines what projects are completed based upon the priority and available funding. 2 433 FEBRUARY 5, 2002 — JOINT ADJOURNED MEETING 3. EAST -WEST CORRIDOR FOR TERRACE HEIGHTS WITH YAKIMA COUNTY Vern Redifer, Director of County Public Works, introduced staff members Kent McHenry and Gary Ekstedt. Mr. Ekstedt stated that his objective is to provide information on a project need that dates back to the development of the Terrace Heights Neighborhood Plan when it was recognized that additional capacity was needed to cross the river. He spoke about the housing development occurring in Terrace Heights that is bringing in 1,000 housing units and industrial /commercial development. This will have an impact on the County's adopted transportation level of service. Three options are available: 1. Do nothing 2. Widen Terrace Heights Drive 3. Evaluate new corridor County staff has spent the last year with a consultant developing options for a new corridor, with five objectives in mind. 1. Provide maximum connectivity 2. Utilize existing facility 3. Minimize environmental impact 4. Create other network connections 5. Be compatible with existing Plan Staff also looked at the possibility of making the new corridor contiguous to Fruitvale Boulevard. The idea is to have a four -lane east/west corridor with curb, gutter and sidewalks, a bike path on both sides of the street, a posted speed limit of 40 mph, and a new crossing of the Yakima River. The project timeframe will be driven by demand, most likely within the next ten to twenty years. Mr. McHenry and Mr. Ekstedt described a proposed route that would be from North 57th Street, to North 33rd Street, cross the river and then connect to Fruitvale Boulevard. They estimated the costs for the different phases of the project as follows: - N. 57 St. to N. 33 St. -- $3 -6 Million - N. 33 St. to Yakima River -- $24 -32 Million - Yakima River crossing -- $8 -20 Million - Yakima River to Fruitvale -- $9 -11 Million There was a brief discussion regarding the construction of the bridge. (Commissioner Lewis absent after 8:35 a.m.) The next steps of this project would be to request direction from the public officials on the routes, begin public involvement, and then prepare the environmental documentation. It was suggested that staff should contact Boise Cascade, and other property owners adjacent to the proposed routes, to advise them about this potential impact to their business. 4. RAMP -DOWN AGREEMENT WITH YAKIMA COUNTY FOR ROAD IMPROVEMENTS Bill Cook advised the public officials that the ramp -down (cost- sharing) agreement is not yet ready for discussion. 3 434 FEBRUARY 5, 2002 — JOINT ADJOURNED MEETING 5. ADJOURNMENT BUCHANAN MOVED AND SIMS SECONDED TO ADJOURN THE MEETING AT 8:50 A.M. The motion carried by unanimous voice vote. READ AND CERTIFIED ACCURATE BY:1 1Q a COU ' - IL MEMBER DA .% 3 (� /D 1/ COU CIL MEMB' R . ATE ATTEST: CITY CLERK MARY PLACE, MAYOR Minutes prepared by Karen Roberts. An audio and video tape of this meeting are available in the City Clerk's Office 4