HomeMy WebLinkAbout06/17/2014 09 Countywide Planning Policy CommentsBUSINESS OF THE CITY COUNCIL
YAKIMA, WASHINGTON
AGENDA STATEMENT
Item No. 9.
For Meeting of: June 17, 2014
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ITEM TITLE:
SUBMITTED BY:
SUMMARY EXPLANATION:
Countywide Planning Policy Comments
Steve Osguthorpe, AICP, Community Development Director
(509) 575-3533
Back in January 2014, staff brought to the City Council a draft comment letter to the Yakima
County Commissioners regarding the County's proposed updates to the Interlocal Agreement
(ILA) that implements Countywide Planning Policies (CWPPs). After reviewing the draft letter,
the Council referred it to the Built Environment Committee for more focused discussion and
recommendations. The Built Environment Committee (BEC) considered the letter on April 17,
2014. The only change the BEC recommended was to add language acknowledging the work
that had already gone into this issue by the Intergovernmental Committee back in 2010. A new
section titled "Previous Steps" was therefore added to the letter, and it is now ready for
Council's final review. If the Council is comfortable with the revised version, it may be signed by
the Mayor and staff will have it forwarded to the County Commissioners.
Resolution:
Other (Specify):
Contract: Contract Term:
Start Date: End Date:
Amount:
Ordinance:
Item Budgeted:
Funding Source/Fiscal
Impact:
Strategic Priority:
Insurance Required? No
Mail to:
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APPROVED FOR
SUBMITTAL:
Partnership Development
City Manager
RECOMMENDATION:
Authorize Mayor to sign letter in behalf of City Council and direct staff to forward letter to County
Commissioners
ATTACHMENTS:
Description
Draft Letter to County Commissioners
Upload Date
6/9/2014
Type
Cover Memo
June 17, 2014
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Board of Yakima County Commissioners
Yakima County Courthouse
128 N. 2nd St.
Yakima, WA 98901
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Re: Yakima County -wide Planning Policy / GMA Interlocal Agreement
Dear Commissioners:
As you know, Yakima County has been working with staff representatives from cities
throughout the county on a draft update to the Interlocal Agreement (ILA) between cities
and the County which implements Countywide Planning Policies (CWPPs). As we
discussed the draft update to the ILA amongst our own staff, we determined that before
finalizing any updates to the ILA, the City of Yakima and the County of Yakima should
collectively evaluate how effective the actual policies have been at achieving
coordinated development within the City's Urban Growth Area (UGA). There are six
areas where current policy implementation or interpretation can be particularly
problematic for the City, including:
1. Existing UGA Boundaries Do Not Reflect City's Likely Growth Areas
2. Lack of Sewer Facilities for New Development.
3. Inconsistent Sidewalk and Road Width Standards in UGA
4. Development Costs Are Passed On To Tax Payers
5. Policies Limit City's Ability to Define Its Own Land Use Designations
6. Limited Opportunity for City to Comment on Development Proposals in UGA.
Specific policies and associated challenges in these areas are more fully described
below:
1. Existing UGA Boundaries Do Not Reflect City's Likely Growth Areas
Currently, the City's UGA includes land that has low probability of ever being annexed.
The Terrace Heights area is included in the City's UGA as well as land north of Hwy 12.
It is not clear to what degree the City of Yakima has the projected capacity or interest to
provide urban services to these areas, and yet the city is required to account for
projected population for these areas in its comprehensive plan. We need to determine if
the UGA boundaries make sense and to what degree CWPPs allow opportunity to
reevaluate the City's UGA commitments.
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2. Lack of Sewer Facilities for New Development. The Countywide Planning Policies
call for Contiguous, Orderly Development with the provision of urban services occurring
at the time of occupancy of such development. (See Policy B). The presumed intent is
to have development occur in areas contiguous to existing urban services rather than
leapfrogging out to areas where services do not exist or cannot readily be extended.
That has apparently been difficult to implement. Much of the UGA area is being
developed on septic systems, meaning that as areas are annexed into the City, we will
have large areas within the City that are not served by sewer. To compensate for lack of
sewer, subdivisions have been approved in the UGA conditioned upon installation of dry
sewer lines. There is language in both the West Valley Neighborhood Plan and Title
15A of the County Code that supports this practice, but it is problematic for the following
reasons.
a. While the City and County have jointly installed dry -line sewers associated
with some road projects, the only dry -lines we are aware of being required by
the County for private development are service lines that extend from the
house to the street or right-of-way. These are private lines on private
property and do not constitute sewer infrastructure (wet or dry) for the
development.
b. Installation of dry trunk lines within the street is purely speculative in terms of
connection locations and required elevations of connections. Without an
adopted, engineered sewer plan for the entire area, the dry lines could cause
more problems than they solve when a system is eventually built.
c. Dry lines may not function when they are later connected because they can
fill with sediment and debris over time. (There are known instances when
property owners who were unaware that the dry lines were not connected to
an active system have illegally discharged into dry -lines.) Moreover, the PVC
piping that is used becomes brittle over time and the pipe's useful life may
have been expended before they are ever connected.
d. Dry -line installation does not eliminate the need for septic systems as an
interim measure for handling sewerage. Use of septic systems typically
results in development that does not achieve GMA-required densities due to
the amount of area needed for drain fields.
3. Inconsistent Sidewalk and Road Width Standards in UGA. The Policies
recognize that areas of the UGA will eventually be annexed into cities, and state that a
mechanism is needed to assure that planning and permitting decisions of the County are
consistent with the planning objectives and development standards of the City. (See
Policy E). The Policies therefore call for common and consistent development and
construction standards throughout that urban growth area, including standards for
streets and roads. (See Policy F.3.5) The stated intent is to minimize differences in
urban development regulations and standards between the County and the cities and to
facilitate the economical provision or urban services to development." The presumed
intent is to create a seamless network of infrastructure as the city expands into the UGA.
That has apparently been difficult to implement. Subdivisions have been approved in
the outer areas of the UGA that do not meet city standards. Some have substandard
road widths, substandard road bases, and have either no sidewalks or sidewalks on one
side only. Currently, Title 15A of the County Code supports sidewalks on only one side
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if the development or area has 30 or less housing units. This is problematic in terms of
long term efforts to develop a complete sidewalk network and to make Yakima a
walkable community. It is technically difficult and practically impossible to incorporate
sidewalks after the fact into existing development for the following reasons:
a. Right-of-way width may not be wide enough to install sidewalks without acquiring
additional right-of-way at the public's expense.
b. Streets developed without sidewalks are typically not graded to accommodate
future sidewalks. This is particularly challenging for streets on hillsides, where
the grade along the street pavement often drops abruptly, leaving no room for
sidewalks.
c. Once lots are developed, residents of those lots typically fight sidewalk proposals
along their streets because they don't want to take on the costs imposed through
an LID, and they don't want to take on required maintenance of sidewalks.
d. Subdivisions approved without sidewalks may not meet the "safe route to school"
requirement under RCW 15.17.110, which requires that local governments
approving subdivisions ensure safe walking conditions for students who only
walk to and from school. Moreover, the void in sidewalks along a particular
walking route created by approving one subdivision without sidewalks has a
domino effect on the city's ability to approve other subdivisions along the same
school walking route. It could leave the next developer on the hook to fill the
sidewalk void left by the previous developer.
There needs to be continued discussion on how to eliminate current contradictions
between County and City street improvement standards and the inconsistencies
between the Municipal Code and the West Valley Neighborhood Plan. While there was
discussion and perhaps informal agreement amongst Intergovernmental Committee
members to apply the County's standards to the UGA1, the discussion did not result in a
signed inter -local agreement between the parties to officially apply County standards to
the UGA. Accordingly, the standards of the City's municipal code still apply throughout
its jurisdiction, including areas of the West Valley Neighborhood Plan (WVNP) as it
becomes annexed.
While it has been suggested that the policies of the WVNP now apply, the WVNP is not
a regulatory document. It is a subarea plan of the Yakima Urban Area Comprehensive
Plan. Like all comprehensive plans, it must be enacted through separate implementing
regulations like zoning codes, subdivision codes, and similar adopted development
standards. Except for adoption of a zoning map to reflect WVNP land uses, no
development standards have been adopted to implement policies of the WVNP. So as
with all comprehensive plans, when there is a conflict between the plan and adopted
codes, the adopted codes prevail, meaning that current city standards apply to the
WVNP as it annexes into the City. It is therefore not difficult to see the problems
associated with approving a development proposal under County standards, and having
it fall under different standards as it annexes into the City.
4. Development Costs Are Passed On To Tax Payers. Policy II(F)(3)(b)(2) of the
current Interlocal Agreement states that "The costs of system extension will be generally
borne by the developer." This is consistent with CWPPs that anticipate urban services to
be in place prior to development occupancy. However, the allowance of septic systems
' See Intergovernmental Committee Meeting minutes of August 10, 2010.
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in the UGA defers installation of sewer infrastructure within the streets of a proposed
subdivision, thereby allowing the developer to pass sewer infrastructure costs on to the
general public. Costs are similarly passed on to the tax payers to install sidewalks
5. Policies Limit City's Ability to Define its Own Land Use Designations
Under the proposed ILA language, the County proposes to develop a list of land use
designations that would be used by all jurisdictions, including the County, in the urban
growth areas. This would allow the County to refer to its own development standards
when development is proposed in the UGA prior to annexation. This may have merit,
provided the County's zoning designations that would then be applied to that land use
designation coincided with zoning that the city would apply under the same land use
designation. The concern is that the County's list of permitted uses in a particular zone
could be different than what uses the city would permit in that same zone. In many
cases, the County's allowed uses could be more intense than what the city would
otherwise allow. But perhaps the bigger question is whether this language belongs in
the ILA or in the actual CWPP document. This is a significant policy statement that
should be considered for inclusion in the CWPPs before we attempt to implement it
through the ILA.
6. Insufficient Opportunity for City to Comment on Development Proposals in
UGA. The Policies state that interlocal agreements shall specify the process by which
affected local governments may review and comment on comprehensive plan
amendments, zone changes and development applications processed by another
jurisdiction within urban growth areas. (See Policy 5.3.4). A process to implement this
policy is not defined in the current ILA. The result is that development is approved in the
UGA with little to no opportunity to comment on many of the deficiencies described
herein.
Previous Steps: Efforts were made back in 2010 by the Intergovernmental Committee
(IGC) to address "urban area street standards". After several years of negotiation, the
Committee considered draft standards that would be applied in the West Valley
Neighborhood Planning area. These standards included required right of way widths for
the various street classifications along with requirements for sidewalks on either one or
both sides of selected streets, depending upon the number of housing units served.
Yakim County implemented thewse standards. Minutes from the IGC's meeting of
August 10, 2010 indicate that the Council representatives to the IGC voted to
recommend the Street Standards to the full City Council. A recommendation to that
effect was forwarded to the full council by Dick Zais on August 17, 2010. However, the
City never took formal action to adopt the standards; nor is there any interlocal
agreement between the City and County to implement or give direction on the
recommended standards.
While the IGC discussed and recommended proposed street standards, it is not clear
what standards would apply outside the WVNP but within the balance of Yakima's UGA
(i.e., Terrace Heights). More discussion is needed to address this apparent deficiency,
and to also determine if the recommendations of 2010 would still be supported today.
Also, it does not appear that the other issues described above were considered by the
IGC.
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Next Steps: The current CWPPs remind us that local governments within Yakima
County agree to strive to discuss and settle locally any planning differences that may
arise, and that any appeals to the Easter Washington Growth Planning Hearings Board
occur only when the local resolution process has been exhausted. It is important for the
City of Yakima to work with the County to find resolution to the above issues. This
should include a review of all CWPPs with County officials and an assessment of how
implementation of each policy is addressed in the ILA and/or carried out in practice.
Where contradictions between the ILA and CWPP's are identified we need to determine
if the ILA should be amended to reflect and implement language of the CWPP's, or if
identified sections of the CWPP's should be amended to reflect preferred outcomes.
In any event, it is helpful to remember the purpose of Countywide Planning Policies:
They are required under RCW 36.70A.210 in part to promote contiguous and orderly
development and provision of urban services to areas of the UGA. It should not be
assumed that the Interlocal Agreement supersedes and displaces the Countywide
Planning Policies; it must reflect and implement them.
As we approach the 2017 mandatory deadline to review and if necessary update our
comprehensive plans, it is imperative that we begin now to address any inconsistencies
in our current plan's implementation. This will help ensure that we are found fully
compliant with the Growth Management Act as we complete our 2017 update. The
Yakima City Council therefore requests that Yakima County defer any updates to the
Interlocal Agreement until we can jointly address the issues identified herein. The City
Council therefore suggests that both County and the City staff begin immediate dialogue
on how to best package these issues for discussion at a joint meeting between elected
officials of both the City and County. We look forward to working together to identify
mutually agreeable solutions to our common planning interests. We thank you for your
consideration and look forward to your reply.
Respectfully,
Micah Cawley, Mayor
City of Yakima
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