HomeMy WebLinkAbout2003-05-05 Special Minutes - Cascade Glen Subdivision Public Hearing TranscriptTUKWILA CITY COUNCIL MEETING
PUBLIC HEARING
May 5, 2003
Tukwila, Washington
BYERS ANDERSON, INC. COURT REPORTERS VIDEO
2208 North 30th Street One Union Square
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1 BE IT REMEMBERED that on Monday, May 5,
2 2003, at Tukwila City Hall, Tukwila, Washington, before
3 Katie A. Eskew, CCR, RPR, Notary Public in and for the State
4 of Washington, the following proceedings were had, to wit:
5
6
7
8 MAYOR MULLET: The public hearing is on
9 the agenda tonight. This is a quasi- judicial hearing and
10 before I ask open that up and ask Bob to explain what
11 that means to you, I would ask that in lieu of the fact that
12 our mic system is at best not very good, we do have a court
13 reporter here tonight so we can produce a verbatim hearing,
14 but we would ask that everybody please clearly state their
15 name and address so we can catch it in the mic system as
16 well as Katie can catch it, and I may have to ask people to
17 slow down a little bit if she tells me that she can't keep
18 up, but I'm sure she can. So with that I will open the
19 public oh, one other thing.
20 If you wish to testify at the public hearing, there is
21 a sign -up sheet over there and I wish you would put your
22 name on it so that I have something to call on people as we
23 do that.
24 And with that, I will open the public hearing on the
25 Cascade Glen Subdivision final plat approval, and Bob, would
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1 you give us a little explanation of what a quasi judicial
2 process is?
3 MR. NOE: Sure. Robert Noe, city
4 attorney's office here in the city. This proceeding this
5 evening is a quasi judicial proceeding which means that it's
6 run similar to that of a court. People wishing to testify
7 will be sworn in to either swear or affirm that they are
8 telling the truth.
9 The way that it is run is the applicant bears the
10 burden on the application, so what we'll have first is a
11 staff report, then the applicant will go forward and then
12 after that the proponents or opponents of the project to
13 make their statements and the applicant will have a period
14 of rebuttal and then we'll open it up for council questions
15 for anybody that basically testified. That's it in a
16 nutshell.
17 COUNCILMAN DUFFIE: Would you explain to
18 the public that they after this meeting they can no
19 longer speak to us about this, that that's what a
20 quasi judicial is?
21 MR. NOE: Yes. The nature of a
22 quasi judicial proceeding is that the council sits in the
23 role of a judge, so if you've tried to speak with them prior
24 to this hearing, you may have noticed that they won't talk
25 to you about the issue. They have to be impartial. Until
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1 they make a decision, they can't really speak with anybody
2 other than through this forum. That's why we are having the
3 hearing tonight so we can gather the evidence.
4 For all those people wishing to testify, I'll have you
5 all stand now and raise your right hands.
6 (Public speakers sworn in.)
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8 MAYOR MULLET: Thank you, Bob. With
9 that we'll start out with the staff report. Mr. Lancaster
10 or Carol, are you going to do that? Who is going to start
11 us out?
12 MS. LUMB: Thank you. I'm Carol Lumb,
13 city planner with the department of community development,
14 and you folks received a week or so ago a rather large
15 notebook that hopefully has everything you could ever want
16 to know about Cascade Glen final plat.
17 On the wall behind you are a couple of large pieces of
18 paper. On the far left is the approved preliminary plat and
19 you have that as an attachment I believe under Attachment N,
20 as in Nancy, in your notebook.
21 The middle plat sheet is the proposed final plat for
22 Cascade Glen, and then on the right is the proposed
23 pedestrian pathway, and both those items were in your
24 notebook, but I put them up so you might find it easier to
25 look at rather than drag a bunch of paper out.
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1 I'd like to maybe just at the beginning talk a little
2 bit about the process and how we've kind of arrived here
3 tonight for the final plat hearing. Subdivisions under the
4 city's code are what we call a Type 5 decision which means
5 that the city council is the decision making body, not the
6 planning commission on this type of land use activity, so
7 the city council holds a public hearing on the preliminary
8 plat and then holds a public hearing on the final plat when
9 it comes in.
10 The council held a public hearing on the preliminary
11 plat July 17 of 2000 and after that, you approved that
12 preliminary plat with a series of conditions. After that
13 the owner of the subdivision applied for a permit to
14 construct the infrastructure and that permit came in in
15 November of 2000 and we issued the permit to actually begin
16 the construction of the infrastructure in May of 2002. So
17 for about the last 11 months along 40th Avenue there has
18 been a bevy of activity with roads, sewer lines going in,
19 storm water and actually you have probably seen two houses
20 go up on the two existing legal lots, and so the owner
21 applied for and received a building permit for two new
22 houses.
23 So the final plat came in to us on February 3rd of
24 this year, 2003. Our code requires that we hold a public
25 meeting prior to the end of the public comment period. What
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1 happens is we send out a notice to property owners that live
2 within 500 feet letting them know we've received a land use
3 application for review. That notice was sent out to
4 everybody within 500 feet along with notice to the
5 individuals who became parties of record for the preliminary
6 plat, individuals who had come to either the public meeting
7 or had testified, somehow indicated an interest in the plat
8 and so we notified them as well if they weren't already
9 within that 500 -feet radius.
10 The public meeting was held March 10th and we had six
11 individuals, I think, who attended who lived in the area and
12 were interested in the subdivision. Pages 3 and 4 of the
13 staff report discussed the issues that came up and I'll come
14 back to those a little bit later on.
15 The next steps are that we finish our internal review
16 of the subdivision, prepare a staff report and schedule this
17 public hearing. If you should approve the final plat, then
18 the next steps would be that there will be some signatures
19 that are placed on the mylar, the city clerk, the mayor, the
20 public works director and then that will be recorded. Once
21 that's recorded, then the owner can come in and apply for
22 the building permits for the new lots, the remaining 18 lots
23 that will be created.
24 In Attachment N in the notebook in addition to the
25 approved plat map, there is the notice of decision from your
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1 preliminary plat hearing and that lays out the decision
2 criteria, or part of the decision criteria for the final
3 plat. One of the major things that is before you tonight is
4 whether or not the plat the final plat meets the
5 conditions of the preliminary plat approval.
6 So we move on a little bit with the speak a little
7 more about the conditions of the plat. On Page 7 of the
8 staff report that begins to lay out the there are nine
9 conditions of the preliminary plat and I'd like to go
10 through those. Of these, there is one in particular that
11 there was a lot of time spent at the public hearing
12 discussing and that relates to the storm water pond, but I'd
13 like to just go through quickly the other conditions of the
14 preliminary plat approval.
15 The first one is related to the design of the homes.
16 Because at the time the subdivision was in the process of
17 being sold, the council asked that the new owner be given
18 the opportunity to revise the design of the homes and gave
19 the director of the department of community development the
20 authority to review those and make sure that they
21 de- emphasized the garages which was a concern at the time so
22 that they'd look a little better in terms of how they were
23 placed on the site, so in Attachment K we received those
24 designs, we reviewed them and the director indicated his
25 approval of those designs and two of those designs that were
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1 submitted are now under construction at the plat.
2 The second condition related to the recommendations of
3 the peer review. The City had hired Shannon Wilson
4 Engineers to review the geotechnical reports that were
5 presented along with the preliminary plat and we wanted to
6 make sure that those recommendations were actually carried
7 forward as the infrastructure was put in on the site, and we
8 received from the applicant's geotechnical engineer
9 affirmation that the conditions have been met or that the
10 recommendations that the Shannon Wilson peer review have
11 been met.
12 At the time the preliminary plat was reviewed by the
13 council we did have a final tree replacement plan in hand so
14 the third condition just required that we have an approved
15 tree replacement plan by the department of community
16 development before any clearing took place on the site, so
17 that was actually we reviewed the landscaping plan and
18 that was part of the miscellaneous permit that was issued
19 for the infrastructure was the approved landscaping plan
20 along with the replacement of the trees.
21 Fourth condition related to the pedestrian path that
22 is going to connect the subdivision with 38th Avenue South.
23 We wanted to make sure that it was distinguishable from the
24 surrounding terrain. Right now the piece of property that
25 the pedestrian path is going to go across is undeveloped and
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1 so the pathway will be constructed of asphaltic concrete so
2 it will be clearly distinguishable and will be the paved
3 surface not gravel as originally proposed during the
4 preliminary plat approval.
5 The fifth condition also related to pedestrian
6 walkways. The preliminary plat has one the final plat
7 has one public street, one street that will become a public
8 street, 132nd Place South, and then there are several
9 private access tracts and we wanted to make sure those
10 access tracts clearly separated the pedestrian walkway from
11 where the vehicles will be and that has happened. The
12 sidewalks are cement concrete and then there's curb gutter
13 and sidewalks so they are clearly raised up from the
14 travelway of cars and trucks.
15 The sixth condition relates to requiring a split rail
16 or other type of fencing be installed to separate the open
17 space tract from the private property and those have been
18 installed.
19 The seventh condition relates to the storm water pond
20 and I'll come back to that.
21 The eighth condition relates to the landscaping plan,
22 revising just some of the street trees and so the final
23 landscape plan removed the use of the birch and the ash
24 trees and maintained the flowering pear trees and internal
25 streets and trees are used along 40th Avenue South.
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1 The final condition related to making sure that any
2 construction that was going on on 40th Avenue South take
3 into account consideration for the people who were using the
4 road and not to tie up the road for lengthy periods of time
5 with construction activity and the need for either kind of
6 staying in place with a one -lane road for waiting your turn
7 or closing the street off, so most of the construction has
8 been completed by now.
9 There's only one small piece that remains and that
10 will take place later on this summer after the when the
11 department of fisheries allows work to take place around a
12 stream because this work involves along the tributary south
13 creek at the north end of the subdivision.
14 On Condition No. 7, the final design of the storm
15 water detention pond, the resulting discussion at the
16 preliminary plat hearing yielded a condition that had three
17 different aspects to it.
18 The design of the pond was required to meeting the
19 following objectives: Designed to be aesthetically
20 pleasing, preferably with a curvilinear shape, planted with
21 appropriate planting at the detention pond and around it and
22 designed for ease of maintenance and nuisance control.
23 So when we received the application for the
24 infrastructure permit, we spent quite a bit of time working
25 with the applicant on the pond and the design of the pond.
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1 At the time that after the hearing we requested that the
2 applicant look at designing the pond in a curvilinear shape
3 rather than the square rectangle, but as the final
4 engineering moved along, it became clear that given the size
5 of the property that the applicant had to work with and the
6 amount of water that was going to be needed to be detained
7 that we were ending up with an inability to change the shape
8 of the pond, and so we then focused our attention on at
9 least making this as aesthetically pleasing as possible in
10 terms of the landscaping, so the landscaping plan was
11 revised a number of times over the 18 months that we had the
12 permit in -house and were working with the applicant on
13 getting final approval of the miscellaneous permit.
14 I misplaced my page here. And the owner has
15 actually during the course of this review of the
16 miscellaneous permit, the subdivision was sold and so at the
17 end of the process, once we issued the miscellaneous permit,
18 the new owner took over and he actually added landscaping to
19 what was originally approved to screen as best as possible
20 the not the subdivision, but the storm water detention
21 pond and the fencing that goes around it and within about
22 two or three years the arbor planted will completely obscure
23 the fencing, and as you approach it, at least from the
24 north, all you see is it on the right.
25 The final prong of the condition related to designing
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1 the pond so that access would be readily available for
2 maintenance purposes and so we worked with public works
3 staff in the design of the detention pond. We moved the
4 location of the access ramp so that it wouldn't be as
5 visible that was proposed originally on a more visible
6 location and moved it to the south side of the detention
7 pond and we made sure that maintenance staff had the ability
8 to get around the pond which is why you see kind of a
9 gravelled walkway around it. There's an area left free
10 there for maintenance staff.
11 A secondary issue that was discussed at the
12 preliminary plat hearing and has since then become more of a
13 concern that's been raised is whether or not the detention
14 pond will be a place that mosquitos might possibly breed and
15 the public works staff has attended some training on
16 mosquito breeding and how to prevent that, and at this point
17 we're looking to stock the city's detention ponds with
18 stickleback fish which evidently like to eat mosquito larva
19 and they also are a fairly hardy fish that can survive in
20 some rather difficult living conditions, so they don't seem
21 to mind whether it's a nice clean stream or a detention
22 pond.
23 So that's what I wanted to make sure that we
24 addressed that particular issue. The applicant has provided
25 several performance bonds and also a maintenance bond to the
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1 city and I'd like to go over those because one of the
2 criteria of approving the final plat is whether or not the
3 applicant has installed the improvements or is bonded for
4 them.
5 The city has received a bond for curb gutter sidewalks
6 and overlay at 40th Avenue South and that's the work that
7 can't proceed until later on, early summer after the salmon
8 spawning season has passed. There's a bond for the
9 construction of the pedestrian pathway. That construction
10 has been deferred until we get into a little bit dryer
11 development conditions.
12 There's a performance bond for the final lift on the
13 paving and cleaning of the detention pond. The final lift
14 on the new street, 132nd Place South as well as the little
15 side access tract can't take place until final construction
16 of the homes occurs and all the heavy equipment is kind of
17 going to be moving around on the streets.
18 And then today we received one additional performance
19 bond and that relates to repairs of a couple of places in
20 the storm water pipe system and the final bond that we have
21 is for maintenance of the infrastructure, and that takes
22 effect two years from acceptance of the infrastructure by
23 the public works department.
24 At the public meeting there were a number of issues
25 that came up and I'd like to address those at this time, and
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1 you'll find first the comments that came in in a written
2 form in Attachment I in the notebook and interspersed in
3 those comments are copies, they are color copies of pictures
4 that were provided by the people that made the comments, and
5 then in Attachment J is then a staff response to the
6 comments that came in.
7 I kind of grouped the issues on a couple of larger
8 categories. One of the major issues that we talked about at
9 the meeting related to the pedestrian path and safety of the
10 pathway for both users as well as vehicles that might be
11 crossing the path, and we have actually had the applicant
12 design the pathway so that there will be four -foot high
13 chainlink fence that is along the east side of the pathway
14 that will come down a maximum of 2 to 1 slope from the top
15 of the subdivision down and connect to 38th Avenue.
16 The chainlink fence is to make sure that anybody using
17 it doesn't inadvertently tumble over the side or somehow
18 manage to fall over and then possibly then fall on to
19 adjacent property where there is a retaining wall, and
20 actually the pathway was moved to the west to avoid or to
21 move far away from as possible this retaining wall that's on
22 the adjacent property.
23 The issue was raised about vehicles crossing the
24 pedestrian pathway because the pathway kind of merges at
25 38th Avenue South where two adjacent driveways will be
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1 crossing as vehicles back out, and so I guess it was the
2 determination that similar to areas other areas in the
3 city where you would have driveways that cross sidewalks,
4 this is going to be a public or an accessway for use by the
5 public.
6 And the pedestrian pathway issue related also to an
7 ingress /egress easement that has been granted by the current
8 owner of the property that the pedestrian pathway crosses to
9 the adjacent properties that are on the east, and in
10 reviewing the easement language, it didn't appear that the
11 easement language was solely for the use of this adjacent
12 property but it just granted them the use of that area as
13 well as the use for the private property owner.
14 There was an issue raised about clearing of the site
15 and also drainage from the subdivision impacting the same
16 piece of property on the east. And when we reviewed the
17 permit to clear the site we had the applicant place certain
18 areas of the subdivision in open space tracts, the steepest
19 portions that were not to be touched and then the areas that
20 were cleared for future development that also were in a
21 steep slope. The applicant has placed replacement trees and
22 these were required to be a certain size or actually age
23 limit, three year -old trees and then a mix of 75 percent
24 Douglas fir and 25 percent western red cedar.
25 The issue about storm water from the subdivision
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1 possibly impacting the adjacent property, the applicant's
2 geotechnical engineer took a look at that and provided an
3 analysis for staff, and his response is also found in
4 Attachment J from a Mr. Coglicin; he's a geotechnical
5 engineer.
6 His review of the site did not indicate that there was
7 an impact from particularly Lot No. 8 on the property just
8 to the north. He did state that there appeared to be some
9 water from the parcel where the pedestrian pathway is going
10 and so he suggested that an interceptor ditch could be used
11 to collect the water from that piece of property and channel
12 it away from the adjacent property.
13 What we've actually had the applicant do is design the
14 pedestrian pathway so that it is sloped approximately one
15 percent to the west to have any water on the pathway then go
16 onto the away from the adjacent property and then there
17 will be a catch basin installed at the end of the pedestrian
18 pathway to collect any water from that piece of property
19 that the pathway is on and to which will then divert it
20 from the adjacent property.
21 There was concern expressed about need for a street
22 barrier and that there would possibly be people who would
23 mistake access Tract F as a through street, and what the
24 applicant is going to be required to do is install a sign at
25 the entrance to 132nd Place South that indicates this is a
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1 dead -end street and not a through street.
2 There was also concern about the foundations for the
3 new homes and whether or not the soils had been prepared in
4 such a way as to have these houses constructed safely, and
5 the building permits for the houses will all have a
6 condition that required that the geotechnical engineer be
7 on -site and also review the foundations for each individual
8 home to ensure that the original geotechnical
9 recommendations are kind of carried forward through to the
10 end with the construction of the homes on each individual
11 site.
12 What I'd like to do now is there were a couple of
13 questions that came up just before the hearing that I would
14 like to address. One of them relates to there was some
15 confusion about the public hearing date, and I think you had
16 some folks come to a public hearing thinking on I think it
17 was April 7th that that was going to be the night of the
18 public hearing.
19 And what happened was when we sent out our notice of
20 application, it looks a little bit bigger than this but it
21 provides what we hope is enough information to kind of pique
22 the interest of surrounding property owners. It provided
23 this was mailed out on the 25th of February and it provided
24 a date for when comments were due on the final plat which
25 was March 18th. It provided a date for the public meeting
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1 which was March 10th, and our code requires that we hold a
2 public meeting prior to when the close of the public comment
3 period is so that people have an opportunity to come and ask
4 questions, get information from us and think about it a
5 little bit before the deadline to get comments into us, so
6 that's why there's a gap of when the comments were due and
7 when we have our public meeting.
8 And then the final information that we try to provide
9 is when the public hearing is tentatively scheduled and in
10 this the notice of application said that the hearing was
11 tentatively scheduled for Monday, April 7th, so unbeknownst
12 to us, we had a citizen who mailed the notice of application
13 to a number of individuals who had signed a petition that
14 was presented to the council that relates to storm water and
15 so when we found out that there were people out there that
16 had been told that the hearing was on April 7, we sent a
17 notice to them on April 3rd trying to notify them that the
18 hearing had been postponed, and unfortunately, I guess we
19 missed a couple of people because you had several
20 individuals who came to the meeting on April 7th.
21 Our public hearing notice was sent out on April 18th.
22 We sent that notice to the individuals, property owners
23 within 500 feet, all parties of record, and then the
24 individuals who had signed the storm water petition, and
25 when we sent out the notice of the postponed hearing we sent
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1 it to the individuals who had signed the petition and to the
2 parties of record who had been in contact with us about the
3 plat, and I've got this is a handout if you're interested
4 in seeing it.
5 The other question that came up related to how do we
6 tell if a modification is major or minor and the zoning code
7 which has incorporated all the definitions from our
8 subdivision code into just one section of definitions
9 provides two definitions, one of them is more helpful than
10 the other.
11 The minor adjustment definition reads "Minor
12 adjustment means any change which is not determined by the
13 director to be a major change," so you look at major change
14 or major adjustment and that is defined as "An adjustment
15 determined by the director as a major change and a final
16 development plan which changes the basic design, density,
17 open space or other substantive requirements or provisions."
18 So that's we looked to that as if there are changes
19 in a plat that occur over a period of time between
20 preliminary and final plat approval, we kind of reference
21 this definition in terms of trying to figure out is this
22 something that kind of goes beyond being a minor change,
23 which then leads me to the three revisions or modifications
24 to the plat that have occurred, and those are found on Page
25 10 of the staff report.
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1 The first one related to the configuration of Lots 19
2 and 20, and in your Attachment G in the notebook you'll find
3 an illustration of how those two lots were originally
4 proposed to look and then the applicant's proposed revision,
5 and we included the justification from the applicant.
6 Basically it was they wanted to make the lots a little bit
7 more rectilinear which would then mean that they would have
8 a little less grading to do on the site which would impact
9 the slope a little less. It also shortened the road so it
10 meant there was a little less impervious surface. We
11 determined that one was a minor modification.
12 There was an adjustment to Lot No. 14. That occurred
13 as a result of the development that is taking place right
14 now on that property and there was an encroachment into the
15 side yard setback by the fireplace and so the applicant
16 moved the property line about two feet to the west to make
17 sure that the house that's being built meets the setback
18 requirements and it also did not affect the buildability of
19 the adjacent lot. It is still plenty big enough for a house
20 to be sited on there and still meet our zoning setbacks.
21 And then the final modification resulted in the fire
22 department review of the cul -de -sac and the landscape
23 island. We had originally required a landscape island be
24 placed in the middle of the cul -de -sac to kind of offset the
25 fact that the cul -de -sac is fairly large.
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1 When the fire department took their largest vehicle
2 which is the ladder truck to do one last check, they
3 discovered that they couldn't negotiate the cul -de -sac
4 without going across where the landscape island is going to
5 go, so it didn't seem appropriate to put in a landscape
6 island when in all probability at some point there would be
7 a fire truck that would run across it and damage or kill a
8 good bit of the vegetation that was in there, so we
9 determined that it wasn't possible to put that in there and
10 allowed it to be dropped out.
11 So, what I'd like to do now in conclusion is run
12 through quickly the factors that are being considered by the
13 council in reviewing and approving or denying the final
14 plat. There are six criteria. First that the proposed
15 final bears the required certificates and statement of
16 approval. You'll find those in Attachment A. The plat
17 sheets bear all the required certificates and statements and
18 we've reviewed them for the language.
19 That title insurance report furnished by the
20 subdivider confirms the title of the land and the proposed
21 subdivision is vested in the name of the owner whose
22 signature appears on the plat certificate and they have done
23 that. It confirms it is Dream Catcher Homes and Washington
24 Mutual Bank; that the facilities and improvements required
25 to be provided by the subdivider have been completed or
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1 alternatively that the subdivider has submitted the proposed
2 final plat, a performance bond or other security in
3 conformance with the subdivision code, and as I discussed
4 earlier, the applicant has provided us with five bonds, four
5 of them performance bonds and the final one is a maintenance
6 bond for the work that still remains to be done.
7 The majority of the work has been completed in terms
8 of the other infrastructures, the streets, the storm water
9 and the sewer and water lines. That the plat is certified
10 as accurate by the land survey responsible for the plat, and
11 this has been met, the surveyor's stamp and signature is on
12 the face of the final plat.
13 That the plat is in conformance with an approved
14 preliminary plat. This is the condition where you have to
15 determine whether or not the nine conditions that were
16 applied at the preliminary plat approval stage have been
17 met.
18 And finally, that the plat meets the requirements of
19 Chapter 58.17 RCW and other applicable state and local laws.
20 RCW 58.13 is reflected in our subdivision code for the most
21 part. We mirror the requirements of the state law. The
22 plat was reviewed for conformance of the state law at the
23 time of preliminary plat approval and the minor changes that
24 have occurred in the interim don't affect its conformance
25 with those laws and regulations, and the three minor changes
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1 I'd like to just reiterate for this condition, the three
2 minor changes that were made are the following: A change to
3 the lot line between Lots 19 and 20 to make the lots more
4 rectilinear and require less impervious for the access road.
5 The adjustment to the property lines between Lots 13
6 and 14 to accommodate an encroachment to the setback and the
7 elimination of the cul -de -sac island because the fire
8 department ladder truck would go over the landscaping in the
9 course of turning around, and the plat meets the requirement
10 that the final plat application be submitted within five
11 years of preliminary plat approval.
12 So with that, the staff's recommendation is that the
13 plat be approved as presented, and if you have any
14 questions, I'd be happy to try to answer them.
15 MAYOR MULLET: Question? Joan.
16 COUNCILWOMAN HERNANDEZ: I understand
17 that no new conditions can be imposed during final plat
18 review so we either approve or reject; is that right?
19 MS. LUMB: Yes.
20 COUNCILWOMAN HERNANDEZ: And as part of
21 that approval or rejection, do we approve the covenants and
22 restrictions at the same time?
23 MS. LUMB: Actually, the covenants and
24 code and restrictions, CC &Rs, they are provided so that you
25 can see that the applicant has made provision for
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1 maintenance of the common open spaces in this case. Other
2 than that, it's my understanding that there isn't any real
3 role of the council in reviewing, approving or denying the
4 CC &Rs. You want to make sure they have addressed the common
5 open space areas and they will be maintained by a
6 homeowner's association.
7 COUNCILWOMAN HERNANDEZ: Okay. And I
8 know that you addressed the issue about the catch basin that
9 needed to be installed at the end of the pathway on 38th
10 Avenue South, but I didn't hear you mention whether that was
11 one of the performance bonds.
12 MS. LUMB: I'm sorry. Yes, it is
13 included and there is a performance bond for construction of
14 the pedestrian pathway. That performance bond is in the
15 amount of 19 thousand dollars and eighty $19,080 and that
16 includes the pathway as well as the fencing and the
17 construction of the catch basin.
18 COUNCILWOMAN HERNANDEZ: They are all
19 included together?
20 MS. LUMB: Yes, it's together.
21 COUNCILWOMAN HERNANDEZ: Thank you for
22 clarifying that.
23 MAYOR MULLET: Pam Carter.
24 COUNCILWOMAN CARTER: Yes. One of the
25 conditions you said was we required that the ped path be
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1 concrete, and it says here it's going to be asphaltic
2 concrete. What is asphaltic concrete?
3 MS. LUMB: That's the black stuff as
4 opposed to the white cement concrete.
5 COUNCILWOMAN CARTER: Then how does it
6 fit the requirement that it's supposed to be concrete?
7 MS. LUMB: It was my lack of precise
8 terminology. What I was thinking was it would be in some
9 way distinguished, and I said concrete, and asphaltic
10 concrete works in terms of making sure it's a durable
11 surface and it's clearly identifiable as a pedestrian
12 pathway.
13 COUNCILWOMAN CARTER: Okay. And then
14 this parcel where the ped path will be, it's on an easement
15 on that parcel, right?
16 MS. LUMB: Correct.
17 COUNCILWOMAN CARTER: Is that ownership
18 outside of this subdivision? It's a different owner than
19 the subdivision?
20 MS. LUMB: Correct, it is.
21 COUNCILWOMAN CARTER: Okay. I had been
22 a little confused on that. And then I had a question on the
23 bond for the final lift on the paving. It says that the
24 length of that bond is until April of 2005. What
25 happened normally you put the final lift after you'd
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1 constructed all the homes. What happens if all the homes
2 aren't constructed by then, because I know that's how it
3 usually works but we've had a circumstance where it's taken
4 many years for homes to be built and with the economy being
5 so shaky, there's always the possibility they might not all
6 be built within two years.
7 MS. LUMB: I'm going to defer to Jim
8 Morrow.
9 MR. MORROW: For the record, I'm Jim
10 Morrow, director of public works. The bond would have to be
11 renewed for a longer period of time to cover that period in
12 which either the houses would have to be completed or the
13 final pave put on.
14 COUNCILWOMAN CARTER: Would there be an
15 end to I mean, I'm trying not to be ridiculous but let's
16 say ten years down the line the neighbors are going to be
17 that are living there are going to be a little upset that
18 there is no final pavement. Do we have any way of
19 controlling that?
20 MR. MORROW: Yes, we do. We can either
21 set it for a finite period of time and then what we would
22 do, we would work with the individual house builder such
23 that the final lift would be put on. If there were any
24 damages made to the final road surface during the
25 construction of one or two houses that might be left, they
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1 would have to repair it.
2 COUNCILWOMAN CARTER: Okay. Okay. And
3 then certainly the homeowner's association would be weighing
4 in and letting the city know how they felt, I'm sure, if
5 that were the case.
6 MR. MORROW: I'm sure they would. I
7 would also point out that if it is on the main street, that
8 will be a city street so the city will also have a vested
9 interest.
10 COUNCILWOMAN CARTER: Okay. Thank you.
11 MAYOR MULLET: Pam Linder.
12 COUNCILWOMAN LINDER: You sort of
13 answered this or touched on it, and Joan brought it up, on
14 Page 3 of the staff report regarding the pedestrian path
15 safety, the last sentence says "The Cascade Glen Homeowner's
16 Association will be responsible for the maintenance of the
17 pedestrian pathway." How do we know to what standards and
18 how do we know that's going to go on forever? I mean,
19 because that is not their ped path. Anyone can use that ped
20 path, right? It's a ped path like a sidewalk in our city,
21 so somebody else in the city could also use it.
22 MS. LUMB: Correct. I guess we would
23 rely on either our own observations as we have inspectors
24 out doing other things who might notice if the pedestrian
25 pathway is falling into disrepair and then we would be in
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1 touch with the homeowner's association. Other than that, I
2 don't know whether homeowners read their I'm going to let
3 Steve it looks like he knows.
4 MR. LANCASTER: Steve Lancaster,
5 community development director. I actually had a
6 conversation with the city attorney's office about that
7 specific question today and I was reminded that the standard
8 we would use for maintenance would be the same standard we
9 use in our nuisance code for other private property
10 maintenance, in other words, grass that's six inches tall or
11 walking surfaces that are uneven and could be considered a
12 nuisance or a hazard, we do have the ability to take
13 enforcement action on those situations.
14 COUNCILWOMAN LINDER: Okay. I trust we
15 wouldn't have to do that.
16 MS. LUMB: Hopefully not.
17 COUNCILWOMAN LINDER: Okay. Thanks.
18 MAYOR MULLET: Mr. Fenton.
19 COUNCILMAN FENTON: Thank you,
20 Mr. Mayor. My first question is: Does anybody know the
21 reason why the original developer sold the property?
22 MS. LUMB: I don't.
23 COUNCILMAN FENTON: Okay. On the
24 pedestrian walkway paths, could you tell me how many homes
25 will actually be where they are backing out, apparently
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1 they back out of their driveways. How many homes are there
2 that actually will be crossing that path in one form or
3 another, two, three?
4 MS. LUMB: Currently there are two. The
5 owner of the piece of property where the pedestrian pathway
6 is located does have plans to develop that site, and so at
7 some point in the future there would be a third house that
8 would share that accessway.
9 COUNCILMAN FENTON: But no more than
10 that; is that correct?
11 MS. LUMB: Not that I can think of, but
12 I'm hearing something in the back and I might get corrected
13 during public testimony.
14 COUNCILMAN FENTON: That's all I had,
15 Mr. Mayor.
16 COUNCILMAN SIMPSON: The only question I
17 had is why did the guy sell and he asked that.
18 MAYOR MULLET: Joe?
19 COUNCILMAN DUFFIE: Yeah, I had one
20 question. I'm a little confused. You said concrete. To
21 me, to my knowledge, there is either concrete or asphalt.
22 Now what is this other thing you are talking about? You
23 didn't say asphalt. What is that?
24 MS. LUMB: I understand it's called
25 asphaltic concrete and it's a mixture that looks pretty much
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1 like asphalt, has some components of concrete and it
2 provides a it's like the roads for the most part are
3 asphalt and concrete as opposed to just cement concrete
4 which is mixed up in those mixing trucks and poured.
5 COUNCILMAN DUFFIE: What's the lifespan
6 of it?
7 MR. MORROW: Again, Jim Morrow.
8 Depending on the usage and the thickness of the asphaltic
9 concrete, it could last anywhere from 10 to 50 years.
10 MAYOR MULLET: Mr. Fenton?
11 COUNCILMAN FENTON: Asphaltic concrete,
12 is that put down with vapor barrier that you see major
13 roadway repair jobs where there's that film?
14 MR. MORROW: We sometimes put that sheet
15 of cloth down if we have underlying problems such that if
16 there are cracks in the existing surface we put that cloth
17 fiber down such that those cracks won't then transfer
18 through the new pavement that we may be putting down, but in
19 this instance, if the sub base is prepared correctly,
20 there's no need to put down a cloth barrier.
21 COUNCILMAN FENTON: I think that's one
22 of the important parts of this is as it moves forward, the
23 preparation of that, because of the sloping of that whole
24 area, having that done correctly is, I think, a vital
25 importance, so...(Pause.)
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1 MR. MORROW: We agree and that's why
2 that throughout this entire project, including the
3 construction of the homes, one of the requirements that you
4 have brought forward is that their geotechnical expert must
5 be involved in all of the construction given the slope of
6 the surrounding ground.
7 COUNCILMAN FENTON: That was a good
8 move. Thank you very much.
9 MAYOR MULLET: Any other questions for
10 staff? Okay. Thank you.
11 COUNCILWOMAN LINDER: Could I have a
12 clarification? If I remember right, when we first had our
13 public meetings in '99, the issue came up we had a policy
14 that we would like to have through streets whenever possible
15 and we wanted to have 38th be a through street to improve
16 traffic and we heard from neighbors on 38th that
17 vociferously said and that was about the only comment we
18 got was that "We don't want that street opened," and so the
19 ped path was put in instead of having that be a through
20 street; am I correct?
21 MS. LUMB: You are correct. Thank you.
22 I had that in my notes to bring out and I forgot. We did
23 there is a plan policy that directs that wherever possible
24 we provide through- street connections to build
25 neighborhoods, continuity, that kind of thing, and where it
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1 isn't possible then at the staff level we try to look for
2 that core pedestrian connection that would join
3 neighborhoods in lieu of the through street, so that's
4 what that's where this pedestrian pathway connection
5 emerged.
6 COUNCILWOMAN LINDER: Okay. Thanks.
7 MAYOR MULLET: Anything else? Remember
8 we do have a presentation from the builder or owner at this
9 time. Okay. Thank you, Carol. We'll move on to the
10 applicant at this point in time.
11 MR. HIGHERS: My name is Larry Highers;
12 I'm with Sitts Hill Engineers in Tacoma and with me here
13 today is Brian Cunningham who is representing the contractor
14 and developer for the subdivision, Ray Coglice who is the
15 geotechnical engineer who was on -site at the project and Jay
16 Cruse is also here who is the project architect and the
17 developer.
18 Carol did an excellent job in reviewing the staff
19 report and covering the project in depth and I'm not going
20 to bore you by going through the same items that she did.
21 You are going to hear testimony from the neighbors.
22 One of their major issues is that they are not in
23 favor of having the pedestrian path, and the developer and
24 the applicant of this project also is not in favor of having
25 the pathway there, although, if it's a condition of the
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1 staff, we are willing to build it. We designed it and we'll
2 go ahead with it, but we have no interest in having that
3 path either. We feel like it's an infringement on the
4 neighborhood as far as a safety issue and that's kind of the
5 developer's position on that, just a statement of that.
6 On the storm water detention pond, the applicant, as
7 Carol has said, has made a big effort to screen that pond
8 off and screen it off in such a way that it's screened off
9 immediate, as you can see if you've driven by the project,
10 that there is very good growth on the vegetation around the
11 pond and it's fairly well screened now and I'm thinking it
12 looks pretty good. He has planted approximately 350
13 additional trees on the site to make up for the trees that
14 have been removed during the grading of the site.
15 That's about all I have to say about the project.
16 Like I said, we feel that Carol's covered it pretty well and
17 I'm willing to answer any questions or Ray the geologist or
18 the applicant will answer any questions at all.
19 MAYOR MULLET: Council, any questions of
20 the applicant?
21 COUNCILWOMAN HERNANDEZ: I'm curious how
22 many presales you've had on the property.
23 MR. HIGHERS: Six is the answer.
24 COUNCILWOMAN HERNANDEZ: Have any of
25 them had concerns about the ped path or the detention pond?
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1 MR. HIGHERS: No.
2 COUNCILWOMAN HERNANDEZ: Okay. Thank
3 you.
4 MAYOR MULLET: Any other questions of
5 the applicant? Okay. Thank you, Larry. We are going to
6 open it up to the audience now, and I don't really have a
7 feeling for the pro and con of this so I'm going to take
8 them in the order of sign -up and whichever way you have to
9 speak, state your peace. We'll have three to five minutes.
10 We're not going to keep a formal clock unless you start
11 going way over, so try to keep it to three to five minutes
12 if you can. First up is Brad White.
13 MR. WHITE: Good evening. My name is
14 Brad White; I live at 13429 43rd Avenue South and I'm here
15 to talk about the suitability of the detention pond as
16 habitat for mosquito larva. As most of you are painfully
17 aware, I'm an entomologist employed by the Washington State
18 Department of Agriculture. My agency regulates virtually
19 every aspect of mosquito control in Washington state,
20 therefore, I cannot provide you in this capacity any
21 specifics with concerns about mosquito control, but I'm here
22 tonight as a resident to offer my opinion and observations.
23 Five weeks ago I noticed the first adult mosquito in
24 my yard and at that time the detention pond had a
25 significant amount of water in it. I'm not saying that that
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1 mosquito came from the detention pond, but it does point to
2 the biology and the timing is right for standing water. In
3 my opinion, this detention pond will provide suitable
4 mosquito habitat in the spring and the fall. I assume it
5 will dry out during the summer period when you don't have
6 any rain, but I haven't watched it up to this point, so the
7 concern about mosquito is based on whether or not West Nile
8 Virus is going to become a significant public health concern
9 in this region, and I don't know whether it will or not.
10 What I can tell you is that that detention pond and
11 most likely the detention ponds that you find all over in
12 Tukwila are suitable mosquito habitat, so that's my primary
13 message.
14 I also wanted to let you know that King County is also
15 working on standing water, open water as an issue with
16 mosquito habitat, so I wanted the council to be aware that
17 if the situation comes about that mosquitos have to be
18 controlled or dealt with in Tukwila that there's a lot of
19 people already doing the work for you, so if it comes about
20 that we have to control mosquitos, you don't have to invent
21 the wheel yourself.
22 The Department of Health is working on a West Nile
23 Virus response plan in and of itself. The Department of
24 Ecology is working on the permits that will be required by
25 anybody who wants to do mosquito control work in Washington
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1 state, whether that's a private contractor or municipal
2 employees.
3 Carol's brought me along a little bit on what some of
4 the plans are for potential mosquito control options.
5 Personally, I'm a little skeptical about the fish for
6 several reasons but we won't go into that here. I would
7 encourage you that whatever process or treatment you choose
8 if mosquito control becomes necessary that, one, the results
9 are monitored. If fish are used, are the fish doing the
10 job? Are the fish staying there? We have blue herons on
11 the corner of 131st Place South, they fish that South Gate
12 Park Stream. I have watched these heron fish out at the
13 pond at UW, so the stickleback are give them good luck,
14 guys.
15 So whatever choice you undertake, monitoring is going
16 to be important and I also think that perhaps Tukwila, if
17 you haven't started already, an inventory of open water
18 sources is going to be important. So if a detention pond's
19 in the future, maybe you ought to look towards the design
20 and construction that would mitigate mosquito breeding
21 habitat. It's very difficult to do, but I think that future
22 developments, that might want to be something that's at the
23 top of the list.
24 Again, all of these observations are based on whether
25 or not West Nile becomes an actual health issue that the
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1 Department of Health is concerned about or not. I can't
2 tell you that. All I can tell you is that mosquitos are
3 going to breed in detention ponds. So do you have any
4 questions that I can answer without stepping over the line?
5 I'm here.
6 MAYOR MULLET: Any questions? Thank
7 you, Brad. Next up is Denise.
8 MS. OMETH: I'm Denise; I live at 13264
9 38th Avenue South, and the only thing I really wanted to
10 address is the issue of the pedestrian pathway. I live in
11 the house that's going to be most effected by this, and my
12 understanding of an easement is it's the right of one
13 property owner the use of the land for another for the right
14 of passage, and that's what that easement was developed for
15 and we have we have actually a 25 -foot easement.
16 It goes 25 foot over and 265 feet back and the purpose
17 for that was so that we have the option to subdivide our
18 property, and if we do, then the house that sits there now
19 is going to need an ingress and egress and that's what that
20 easement was for.
21 By putting in the sidewalk, if you notice, I don't
22 know if you have the sidewalk drawing up there, if you look
23 up there, right where they want to put the sidewalk takes
24 out three quarters of our easement and comes right across
25 our driveway, and once they put that in there, we will lose
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1 all rights.
2 It's a safety issue. There's we've already got
3 people cutting through there coming up that development and
4 cutting down through our easement and it's not even
5 developed yet, and if, you know, there's a safety issue with
6 kids playing, somebody getting hurt, we've got there's
7 three driveways that would be that back out of there
8 constantly and there's probably a total of nine to ten
9 people within those three homes and we all work different
10 hours, people are going to be backing in and out of there at
11 different times. It's clearly an accident waiting to
12 happen.
13 If any of you have ever driven down 38th Avenue,
14 there's absolutely there's no sides of the road
15 virtually, so anybody that uses that sidewalk, once they hit
16 38th, the only place they have to walk is right down the
17 road. There are no known sidewalks on that road nor is
18 there really any room for them, so that's just our main
19 concern is that it's safety, you're taking away the
20 easement, and that is an easement is just that.
21 You can't according to my understanding, and I've
22 actually had to go to court on this before for my landlord
23 at another home. You cannot take away the rights of an
24 easement of another party, and by putting in that sidewalk
25 you are virtually taking away our rights for ingress and
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1 egress should we decide to subdivide, and I don't know that
2 you've studied that sidewalk, but we've outlined it in
3 highlighter tonight to show our actual easement, and that
4 sidewalk is clearly right down the center of it.
5 And then the fence is only coming halfway down to the
6 telephone pole and they've taken away the vegetation out
7 there and the drainage problem is terrible. You're going to
8 put a sidewalk in there and I wouldn't give that sidewalk
9 two or three years before you're going to have problems with
10 it.
11 COUNCILMAN DUFFIE: Jim, whoever, can we
12 ask, if there was a question about the sidewalk? Can I get
13 that answer?
14 MAYOR MULLET: Let's why don't we
15 hold it.
16 COUNCILMAN DUFFIE: Okay. We'll wait
17 until they finish. All right. Good. Thank you.
18 MAYOR MULLET: Thank you, Denise. For
19 the record, Katie, her last name was Ometh, O- M- E -T -H. Now
20 we'll have Pam Longshore.
21 MS. LONGSHORE: I'm Pam Longshore. I
22 reside at 13264 38th Avenue South. This is the map you have
23 up there of the sidewalk and the easement and I highlighted
24 the areas to show you a little clearer, turn it so the
25 council can see it. The yellow is our property line. The
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1 green and this is made to scale the green is the
2 easement line. This is 38th Avenue South right here, this
3 is the existing driveway on to the property. This is
4 actually where we come through.
5 They could have taken this sidewalk if they really
6 wanted to put it in out on this side of the easement and we
7 wouldn't be here with a lot of this stuff going on, but it
8 starts up here, comes down, and actually cuts across the top
9 of our driveway. Our water main is over here. If we ever
10 had to get to this water main, we would have to go through
11 here and we'd be the ones at the expense picking up the tab
12 to fix this driveway.
13 And I drive a concrete truck and I'll tell you what,
14 PSI asphalt is not the same as concrete and we intend on
15 paving the driveway, so if we bring any equipment in there,
16 we damage your sidewalk, who's expense is that going to be
17 at?
18 We have lived here for 18 years and kept this easement
19 up. We've had grass bulldozed, we kept it mowed and we've
20 had no problems with other owners. We bought this piece of
21 property because it was at the end of a dead -end street. We
22 wanted privacy and now we are going to have people walking
23 past our house within 20 feet and it would be like if the
24 house next to you was taken out and they decided to put a
25 walkway in there. You wouldn't like it too much.
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1 And the thing about the easement is that Carol has
2 made quite clear to me that we do not own that easement and
3 we don't and that's why the word easement is in the property
4 papers because it is attached to the property. It is not
5 part of, which means we also have the right -of -way, and if
6 the government comes in, which is Tukwila, and puts in a
7 sidewalk here, we don't have a chance of using our part of
8 the easement.
9 And I spoke to the county and a fellow by the name of
10 Benard told me that we have the right -of -way on the easement
11 as much as he is the director of the permitting of the
12 right -of -ways and the easements and he told me that we have
13 just as much right -of -way living there because we do not
14 have street -front property at all, so you would be taking
15 away part of our street -front privilege of getting in to and
16 exiting from our home.
17 Besides the fact that is a tight little street there
18 and I have a three quarter -ton Dodge pickup and I'm backing
19 up their driveway in order to turn around to get out of the
20 street. There isn't even enough room to back up in the
21 street and pull out, and then you're going to exit people
22 down into that street where there's no sidewalks, and if
23 it's kids and they are just coming down the street, you
24 know, you're going to back out, you look one way and you
25 look back and there's a kid back there.
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1 About five years ago I was coming down our street and
2 a little kid I'll tell you, it scares you to death. I
3 had a little gal run out from a fence in one of the yards
4 and the fence was real close to the street and I just
5 happened to catch her out of my peripheral vision and I was
6 doing maybe about 10 miles an hour and ails I saw was about
7 a little six year -old girl and I was standing on my brakes
8 and she hit the front of my truck and luckily I just bumped
9 her, but you know, those things happen really quick.
10 And you get kids out there on skate boards and bikes,
11 and you know, you know how kids are. We were all kids. I
12 was one of them. I didn't really care. I rode around on my
13 bike. I don't want to have the hassle. And you know what?
14 I'm not even sure how this our names are on this easement
15 property. Whoever actually owns this piece of property,
16 their name's on it. Suddenly the Dream Catcher Home
17 Association, they are going to maintain this.
18 Now, if something goes haywire, something goes wrong,
19 somebody gets hurt, there's an accident, if the ground busts
20 up we have an earthquake or whatever, who are we supposed to
21 get ahold of and who is going to maintain it? And quite
22 frankly, there's been three owners of this property since I
23 lived here or bought it 18 years ago and this easement has
24 always been an issue.
25 And I understand trying to merge your community, but,
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1 you know, also let it be our choice. We bought on an end of
2 a dead -end street for a reason. I'm not really big on
3 through traffic, but I didn't want to be 60 miles out of
4 Seattle and commute to work. That was my choice. Let the
5 people in the Dream Catchers make their choice that they
6 live on a cul -de -sac.
7 And I'm just really tired of battling this and I'll be
8 glad when it's done, you know. I've had a good rapport with
9 these contractors, but it seems like this garbage keeps
10 coming up and we have to discuss it and of course, I live
11 there and I'm going to be the one who becomes the hot head
12 and the idiot and the ass because I'm kind of territorial.
13 I don't want people walking through my yard. Anyway, thanks
14 for your time.
15 MAYOR MULLET: Thank you, Pam.
16 COUNCILWOMAN LINDER: Could I ask you a
17 question before you go? You've owned your property for 18
18 years? How long have you had the easement?
19 MS. LONGSHORE: 18 years. It was
20 written in that piece of property in 1945. It's attached to
21 the property.
22 COUNCILWOMAN LINDER: Okay. Thanks.
23 MAYOR MULLET: Next up is Janis Larsen.
24 MS. LARSEN: I also reside at 13264 38th
25 Avenue South. I may not be a geotech, but Pam has worked in
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1 concrete, I've worked in concrete, I've also worked in sand
2 and gravel for 16 years for Glacier Sand Gravel and
3 formerly Loan Star, but we are having a real huge water
4 issue coming down with where that sidewalk is going to be
5 coming.
6 I don't know, what is it, in your Section I of your
7 book there's some pictures. You'll see water just on a very
8 rainy day. Actually, it was after the rain, and you can see
9 it streaming down the path where they are going to where
10 they would like to put the pedestrian pathway, and it is
11 streaming down because there's underwater streams all over
12 that area. And if you see some of the vegetation that's
13 still there, you can tell that it is a wetland, has been a
14 wetland, and will stay a wetland.
15 And on those pictures you can actually see the water
16 coming off what they've cut out as easement. They threw
17 some straw in there for the winter and then it comes down
18 towards 38th Avenue South and it cuts back into the property
19 and you can actually see in the pictures that it's flowing
20 down our driveway, goes another 50 feet down the driveway,
21 down into the second part of the driveway, there's two
22 driveways there, and basically flooding around the house.
23 Now, once they've already cut in there and
24 disrupted the streams because the water pipe that is down
25 the middle, in the middle of the pedestrian pathway, so
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1 they've already disrupted the stream to begin with, and the
2 yellow on this picture is actually that's concrete that
3 Carol's got on that, but Pam put that in and we put that in
4 because of the water problems we had around the house from
5 the natural springs from '99 all the way down there and we
6 put 40, 50 yards of inch and -a -half rock behind those rocks
7 to keep the water from forming a mote around the house. So
8 water is a huge issue coming off that land, and the same
9 thing is happening over on No. 8.
10 Pam had a letter 24th somebody came out, a
11 technician. I don't know if it was a geotech, but said he
12 couldn't determine at this time the water issue, but as you
13 see, they are dated on that on those pictures that the
14 water is flowing and the day he was there it was dry so he
15 couldn't make an assessment at all as to how the water was
16 coming down there.
17 If the path does go in there, it would and I hope
18 it doesn't go down there but if water goes in there,
19 you're going to have crackage, movement, and it will be
20 destroyed within a few years with the kind of asphaltic
21 concrete you want to put in there.
22 As far as safety, everything Pam said is true. Three
23 houses or three families right now with nine, ten people
24 backing out of there at all times, that's a safety issue on
25 that end, water coming off of Plat No. 8, you also see when
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1 they first started out there that was completely flat behind
2 there and we had 18 years of flat ground behind there and on
3 the original topographical map you can see that it went up
4 quite a grade and they pulled that grade down from the top
5 closer to 99 and pulled it down to our house where it at one
6 point was approximately about 17 feet high where it was flat
7 and that's where the issues come where I feel that if you
8 build a house on there, you put a foundation in there, I saw
9 no permeable fill being brought in there while that was
10 being that was just dirt from the top part of that land
11 that came down. No fill came in.
12 I'm not a geotech, but working with King County and
13 the state and different projects in the city, they have to
14 bring in permeable fill for drainage and then they also used
15 to have to build up foundations on hard pan which now they
16 say that you can compact it. Well, I think three days of
17 compaction over hundreds of tons being moved up and down
18 from 17 feet of level, I don't know, I think your houses are
19 going to turn out kind of No. 8 could possibly land into
20 my backyard.
21 So, you know, I really don't think it's stable, and I
22 believe it should be either retaining walled up and built up
23 with a permeable material that will make it so that they
24 have their flat area but it's also protecting the areas and
25 the houses around from having any kind of landslides because
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1 there are there will be a landslide. That's it for me.
2 MAYOR MULLET: Thank you, Janet. Next
3 we have Michael Jones.
4 MR. JONES: Michael Jones residing at
5 13025 41st Avenue South. I'd like to start out by
6 apologizing to the council and any of the citizens. I'm the
7 person that sent out that flyer. I sent it out for the last
8 meeting thinking after the fourth time being told that the
9 agenda was on the table that that was actually the time, so
10 my mistake. So I apologize to all of you.
11 Now I can start, I guess. I guess my concern started
12 first of the year basically when my wife and I, we happened
13 to drive by without the fence and the vegetation or any of
14 the above and it was being constructed. We had watched the
15 detention pond being built periodically throughout the weeks
16 prior to us driving by. The fence was going up at this
17 time.
18 My wife and I were like "Why is a fence going up
19 We, to our fault, since we had not come to one of these
20 meetings because the agenda changes sometimes and also I
21 happen to work swing shift, so you can appreciate that I'm
22 paying to be here, so anyway, the fence was going up and we
23 said "Why is that going up We thought the detention pond
24 or retention pond was going to be underground, but it didn't
25 make sense to have a fence around it if it was going to be
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1 underground.
2 I did a little bit more research and I came down to
3 the city here and they were gracious enough to answer a lot
4 of my questions, and come to find out, it wasn't going to be
5 underground. It was like no other development within the
6 area. At this point in time I decided that I could do one
7 of two things: I could accept doing nothing as a citizen,
8 but fortunately, that area is close to my heart.
9 It's a small community, Riverton is mixed with old
10 houses along with some new ones that have developed within
11 the last 10 to 15 years, but mainly the ones that have
12 stayed are almost a hundred years old, those houses and some
13 of the surrounding icons that you see in that neighborhood,
14 so the neighborhood is very small, very tight. As you know,
15 most of Tukwila's areas are that way. I won't bore you with
16 those details hopefully, but a sense of community is what I
17 wanted so I decided to take things somewhat in my own hands.
18 I happened to have three days off from swing shift. I
19 was on a had an education program at work and I happened
20 to have days so I took the opportunity to go to the
21 neighbors to not only meet the neighbors but ask the
22 neighbors to sign a petition. This petition was not to try
23 to stop the building, not to try to stop necessarily the
24 retention pond or detention pond. It was to hopefully start
25 a dialogue so that we could address some of the issues that
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it
1 the community had and hopefully the future building of areas
2 would not have the same problems that we're going to be left
3 with when the builder leaves. We have it for the next
4 whatever until we decide either to leave Tukwila or that we
5 pass away. We are going to have this situation.
6 It is truly noted that coming from the north going
7 south it looks beautiful. You come from the north down the
8 hill and all you see is a big hole. Two houses can fit in
9 this pond. Now, I know through reading some of your own
10 material that you folks tried to design or had a vision when
11 you started this in 2000 and it's greatly appreciated. You
12 have our interests at heart. I wasn't here. I didn't get
13 to speak to you for one reason or another. One reason is
14 I'm not within that 500 feet, so my concern is really
15 broadened for the whole community.
16 So since I wasn't here and you do have our heart, you
17 are looking out for us, the community, you set some
18 parameters out. You wanted it curvature, you wanted certain
19 landscape, so on and so forth, and you understand that.
20 Some of those things were not met because they couldn't be
21 met, but I have some in your documents most likely, I'm
22 sure they're there, I can just refer to some things that I
23 have questions about and I don't understand.
24 A statement from March 2002 which is about a year ago
25 in the middle of this paragraph it's a planning division
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1 comment. "If the size of the site and the design
2 consideration for the detention involved indicates its
3 current size or dictates its current size, then an
4 underground volt may be needed to be used." I don't know
5 what happened to that. I don't know what happened to that
6 plan because it doesn't seem like the detention pond got
7 smaller; it seems like it was enlarged, so since it was
8 enlarged, it just makes sense to me that it should have been
9 somewhat mandated by the council or the city had envisioned
10 it.
11 I have another comment here, and it's your own
12 paperwork if I can find it here. I don't know if these have
13 been met or not. It's just something to consider that you
14 look at because it's some of your own criteria that was set
15 forth because you're looking out for our welfare.
16 On February 8, 2001, plan review comments on the
17 spreadsheet, this spreadsheet, basically says "This will be
18 a public facility in the future maintained by the city. The
19 volt shall be designed for easement of access and
20 maintenance. Bottom of the cells should be sloped with V
21 bottoms, ladders built into the volt, sumps provided and
22 outgoing control structure and gates provided for access.
23 Landscape and fencing shall be conformed with planning
24 department requirements" and so on and so forth.
25 Not only is it an eyesore, that's a given; if it isn't
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1 a given, just take the drive. Just come down the hill and
2 see how big it is. See what we have to deal with. I guess
3 now we have to be concerned with how much water is going to
4 be retained in it year- around because now we have to take
5 care of fish and are those fish going to go into a stream
6 and be introduced where they aren't native to? I don't
7 know. Those are questions that I don't have to answer,
8 thank goodness. I just have to go back to work when I'm
9 done.
10 One other concern that came up truly is West Nile
11 Virus. I have literature here on West Nile Virus because,
12 you know, we weren't really concerned with that when we
13 started this process for the community, but it happens to be
14 the day that I started it it happens to be that there was an
15 article, an article about West Nile Virus and this happens
16 to talk about the U.S. outbreak leads the world in 2002. If
17 you would like to look at this article it's available. I
18 have other articles that we've gathered since then.
19 Interesting enough, you can appreciate a petition I
20 hope since you all are elected and everything and issues
21 that come before you trying to get citizens not to be even
22 myself apathetic and trying to get them to sign something is
23 very difficult. It was an experience that I never want to
24 take away. But at the same time, you can appreciate this:
25 I got over a hundred signatures within three days.
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1 I had two people that refused to sign. One was moving
2 out of the city and decided that it wasn't for him because
3 he was going to be leaving. The other was incompetent, so
4 on that note, I feel pretty good that everybody that signed,
5 some within the community, some that were outside of the
6 community because I felt that the mosquito didn't care if he
7 lived in the community or not. If you were within the
8 community, it would bite you anyway.
9 So on that note, there are some issues that I have and
10 I would just ask you if you once again can look at what you
11 required on some of your own literature so you have once
12 again our heart and interest because I know you do. I know
13 that's why you're elected. I know that's why you're in this
14 position and I know that the people that are building have a
15 job to do and everything, but they are not going to be here
16 in 15 years necessarily. Hopefully I will be. Thank you.
17 MAYOR MULLET: Thank you.
18 MR. JONES: I appreciate your time.
19 MAYOR MULLET: Next up is Verna Griffin.
20 MS. GRIFFIN: Hi. I'm Verna Griffin,
21 14488 58th Avenue South. Well, I'm in a little bit of a
22 minority opinion here tonight. I have lived in Tukwila for
23 the last seven years on 58th Avenue South and 147th and I am
24 one of those people who have purchased a lot over in Cascade
25 Glen. We live in a small house now and when we were around
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1 looking for bigger homes because my family is getting
2 bigger, we were thrilled to be able to find our dream home
3 in Tukwila, and I'm not saying that to sound cheeky or
4 cheezy. I'm serious. These homes were not your standard
5 spec houses. My husband builds houses for another
6 contractor.
7 These were houses where the builder was willing to
8 work with us to make the house into our dream home; the
9 neighborhood is beautiful; it's two miles from where I am
10 now. I'm still ten minutes to downtown Seattle, and they
11 are going to be unique homes and I am going to be one of
12 those people who are going to be around for the next 15 to
13 20, 30, to very many years.
14 I have a vested interest in the city of Tukwila. I've
15 always been able to voice my opinion here and I appreciate
16 that and I'll continue to do that. So I will keep an eye on
17 the Cascade Glen development, and I just want to reiterate
18 that I am glad that I didn't have to go outside of Tukwila
19 to find my dream home and hopefully it will get built.
20 Thank you.
21 MAYOR MULLET: Thank you, Verna. Aaron
22 Hergert.
23 MR. HERGERT: Good evening. I'm Aaron
24 Hergert, 13217 38th Avenue South. I've been a resident of
25 Tukwila for four years. It's nice to live in a small city.
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1 The responsiveness the city gives, the public works, the
2 code enforcement officers, outstanding. When I lived in
3 Seattle you didn't get that kind of service. I really
4 appreciate that.
5 COUNCILMAN DUFFIE: Thank you.
6 MR. HERGERT: One thing I want to
7 address that's been addressed by the people who have been
8 here is two things, actually, I should say are obviously the
9 two issues, the pedestrian pathway and the open retention
10 pond.
11 As has been stated, there are indeed three driveways
12 that the pathway would then come in contact with. There are
13 approximately nine to ten vehicles that access the road at
14 different times. I'm a police officer, I work graveyard
15 shift. In the morning coming home in the morning there are
16 people that rent that split -level house upstairs downstairs,
17 there's approximately three vehicles across the street, Pam
18 and her people have three or four, there's quite a few
19 people using the end of the street here that would be a
20 safety concern.
21 I'm a little unsure as to why the big push for the
22 pathway. As other people have stated, we bought on the end
23 because it's a nice neighborhood, it's a community, we are
24 an established community there. We didn't obviously want
25 the road to go through. The city was responsive to that.
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1 I'm a little unsure as the big push for the pathway.
2
3
4
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There's nowhere to go. There's no park on 38th, there's no
open space, there's no stores, there's really nothing at the
end of 38th except for 130th. I'm a little unsure as to why
they want a pathway, especially for people who don't live
6 there who are pushing for the path.
7 The people who do live there and the builder
8 themselves stated they don't want to build a pathway. I
9 think the money that is being allocated to build the path
10 that is unwanted by anybody so far could be better spent
11 maybe covering the retention pond, and it's probably and
12 the fish as was stated by a gentleman over there earlier,
13 they wouldn't have to worry about the many blue herons we
14 have in the year.
15 Again, as I did say, I think it's nice to live in a
16 small city where your concerns can be heard. Maybe it
17 doesn't always go your way, but I appreciate the city has
18 been responsive so far and I hope they will be responsive in
19 this issue.
20 MAYOR MULLET: Thank you, Aaron. That
21 concludes the people who signed up, and I assume if you
22 signed up you raised your hand to be sworn in. If there's
23 anybody else who would like to speak at this point who
24 didn't get on the list or didn't raise your hand to be sworn
25 in, you're welcome to come up now, raise your hand, be sworn
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1 and add any testimony before we close out this part of the
2 public hearing. Okay. Seeing none, I'd like to thank you
3 all for coming tonight, and the council does listen to
4 people and I'm sure they will balance as best they can the
5 needs of our comp plan and other issues with the issues
6 tonight.
7 Council, you have a choice: I can would you like
8 to make some comments in the public hearing or I can close
9 the public hearing, you can make comments tonight or another
10 night, you can vote on it tonight or another night. What's
11 your pleasure at this point in time?
12 COUNCILMAN DUFFIE: Well, I'd like to
13 comment, just get some answers from the public at this time.
14 I don't want to vote, but I'd like to
15 MAYOR MULLET: We do have a chance for
16 the applicant to make any comments at this back at this
17 point in time. I don't know if he wants to or not, but
18 Brian, did you wish to make some comments?
19 Ray is going to make the comments for
20 us. He's our resident geotech on the project.
21 MR. COGLICE: Ray Coglice, Earth
22 Consultants in Bellevue, Washington. I just jotted down a
23 few notes here during the testimony. I suppose one of the
24 issues here that was brought up was stability of some of the
25 building pads, and I guess I just want to give you the
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1 assurance that we will be out there during the development
2 of each of those lots to assess the foundation soil, and if
3 we see areas that are unsuitable or unstable, they get
4 over excavated and replaced with structural fill.
5 We will be on -site observing and making sure that all
6 the perimeter drainage is installed per the blueprints
7 around the buildings so we will be out there observing each
8 lot making sure that we have good foundation support.
9 I guess on the issue of the surface water, from my
10 experience out there at the site, and I suppose in the
11 predevelopment stage, there presumably was quite a bit of
12 surface water flow coming down that site in its previous
13 undeveloped state. To the extent that that's been modified
14 or changed, I guess with the installation of the
15 infrastructure, the catch basins that are picking up that
16 surface water, I guess I would emphasize a lot of that is
17 being controlled at this point.
18 If there are some areas that have been modified such
19 that surface water is impacting an adjacent property, we
20 will address that, whether that's with a diversion drain
21 possibly, but we will address that, and certainly on that
22 same issue, any kind of erosion issues, we've been out there
23 at the request of the city and the owner to check erosion
24 control measures.
25 The site has been hydroseeded, the webbing has been
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1 placed where necessary on the slopes to control the surface
2 erosion as well. So I guess I just wanted to emphasize that
3 we were involved during the development of the
4 infrastructure and grading, but we will continue forward
5 during the development of the lots and address these issues
6 as they come up.
7 MAYOR MULLET: David?
8 COUNCILMAN FENTON: Mr. Mayor, while I
9 got you here, could I ask you, on Pam Longshore's pictures
10 that she has here which were taken, I believe, January 4th
11 of '03, am I correct in assuming that there's been a
12 considerable amount of work done to prevent or to correct
13 what I'm looking at here in these pictures? Have you seen
14 these pictures?
15 MR. COGLICE: I haven't seen the
16 pictures. Well, having just seen these pictures, what I'm
17 observing anyway is standing water down here at the toe of
18 this slope. My understanding is that this area has been
19 surfacely disturbed through the grading and wasn't there a
20 water line? So there was some
21 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: You can see it
22 running from the top of the easement up there to the top of
23 the section. It kind of filters down there.
24 MR. COGLICE: So what I'm observing is
25 some surface disturbance and it looks like there's been some
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1 straw placed over that for the erosion control. There's no
2 doubt there's standing water there. It looks like it's
3 coming down that slope and making its way down here to the
4 slope, but what I'm observing here is what appears to be a
5 slope that's been there predevelopment stage unless this has
6 been modified radically in the interim which my
7 understanding it's not been altered.
8 COUNCILMAN FENTON: To answer my
9 question, you're stating nothing has been done since January
10 4th of 2003 to today that changes the look of what I've got
11 here.
12 MR. CUNNINGHAM: I'll speak to that.
13 Brian Cunningham from Cunningham Development, the site
14 grading contractor. The only thing that's happened there is
15 that it's this work was done just prior to shutting down
16 for the winter and the hydroseeding had not taken place at
17 that time as far as taking hold, but it has now and it's
18 starting to grow, it's starting to become do what it's
19 supposed to do, and in this case it wasn't.
20 COUNCILMAN FENTON: Thank you very much.
21 MAYOR MULLET: Is that all, Dave?
22 COUNCILMAN FENTON: Yeah.
23 MAYOR MULLET: Pam Linder?
24 COUNCILWOMAN LINDER: I think Michael
25 Jones knows that we the utilities committee was in the
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1 process of looking at detention ponds and we started it last
2 August and we were moving along seeing what other changes we
3 could make and this was really before the West Nile Virus
4 reared its ugly little head, but we held off because of the
5 conflict between the quasi judicial process for this and we
6 knew we would be entangled with that. We will finish that
7 and hopefully by fall of this year we will have new plans
8 for that and that may require covering them, we don't know.
9 Part of the problem is also getting a higher
10 percentage a much higher percentage of engineering done
11 so we don't end up with a problem like this, so the
12 preliminary plan and what you end up with is much closer.
13 This thing kind of morphed into something where the lot was
14 suddenly too small to accommodate it and you ended up with
15 something slightly different than what we thought. That's
16 one issue.
17 The other issue is this is a council that listens to
18 citizens and that makes it extraordinarily difficult to have
19 a policy because when you have a policy and all the planners
20 will tell you and the police will tell you and the firemen
21 will tell you and everybody will tell you you need to have
22 cross streets, streets that go through so you don't have all
23 these little clogs and everything, but when you try to do
24 it, you have people come and say "We do want that, but we
25 don't want it on our street," and every time they do that,
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1 just about every time, we listen and we listened the last
2 time and we said "Okay, okay. We're not going to put a
3 street here. We'll put a sidewalk in so neighbors can visit
4 neighbors and we feel more like a community."
5 I don't feel compelled to put in a sidewalk in a
6 neighborhood where nobody wants it inside or outside, but
7 you have to appreciate the dilemma when people say "Why
8 don't your roads go anywhere? Why don't any of them go
9 anywhere We try to do a cul -de -sac and the firemen say,
10 "Well, you have to have a cul -de -sac that has to be as big
11 as this room because we have to be able to turn the fire
12 truck around. It can't be a little cul -de- sac."
13 So you're making it very difficult by coming and
14 talking to us. That's all I have to say.
15 MAYOR MULLET: That got you off the
16 hook, Pam. Over here first. Joan?
17 COUNCILWOMAN HERNANDEZ: Richard didn't
18 have a chance.
19 COUNCILMAN SIMPSON: I just want to ask:
20 Why is it so important that we have to have this easement,
21 the ped path?
22 COUNCILWOMAN HERNANDEZ: Actually, mine
23 was kind of the same.
24 COUNCILMAN DUFFIE: That was mine too.
25 MAYOR MULLET: Let me make clarification
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1 here. What you've got into is talking about this issue
2 rather than asking questions of staff.
3 COUNCILWOMAN HERNANDEZ: I have a
4 question.
5 MAYOR MULLET: Okay.
6 COUNCILWOMAN HERNANDEZ: I have a
7 question of staff. I understand that we cannot impose any
8 additional conditions. Can we remove a condition?
9 MR. LANCASTER: For the record, Steve
10 Lancaster, community development director. I'm going to
11 take a brief stab at this and ask the city attorney where
12 I've gone wrong.
13 You clearly cannot add additional conditions that were
14 not part of the preliminary plan. The removal of a
15 condition, if you find that the condition, either because of
16 changed circumstances or because of something that you
17 didn't understand or realize at the time you made the
18 decision originally occurred, I believe you could eliminate
19 a requirement, however, you do have to understand that there
20 could potentially be people who are not in this room who did
21 not come to testify because they believed you would carry
22 through on your original decision, could disagree with that
23 decision and could potentially have a cause of action
24 against the city.
25 I think you have in this room most of the people who
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1 are interested, both the applicant and the neighbors, but I
2 think there is some risk of that and I guess I'd ask Bob to
3 let me know how far astray I've gone on that.
4 MR. NOE: For the record, Robert Noe
5 city attorney. I think Mr. Lancaster is on point on that.
6 If there are changes in circumstances that you think would
7 warrant a removal of condition, you could do that, but as he
8 kind of warned, there may be people here that actually want
9 that path, and in your original consideration of the
10 preliminary plat approval, there must have been some reason
11 to include it.
12 I understand the policy of through streets and trying
13 to accommodate dead -end streets by having the ped path, but
14 that's a possibility. There may be somebody who would
15 challenge any condition change at this point based on
16 perceived changes in circumstances.
17 You could do it so long as it's not arbitrary and
18 capricious. If there is some basis in fact for changing it,
19 then I think you would be okay in doing that.
20 MAYOR MULLET: Joe?
21 COUNCILMAN DUFFIE: I want to ask, I've
22 been asking this for the longest time: Jim, can you explain
23 to me about the sidewalk and concrete, please?
24 MR. MORROW: Again, for the record, Jim
25 Morrow, director of public works. The proposed pedestrian
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1 path has been designed such that there would be a two -inch
2 base that would be constructed and then on top of that would
3 be two inches of asphalt that is per the normal standard
4 that we have for things like the Interurban Trail that we
5 have traveling throughout the city.
6 It is a standard pedestrian path. It is not intended
7 to take heavy traffic of vehicles or anything that would
8 break it down. It is for pedestrians or for bicycles or
9 things like that. It is for light traffic use. And it
10 is asphalt is sometimes called asphaltic concrete. It is
11 under the same principle only you use petroleum products as
12 the binding agent to hold together the sand and the rock
13 that may be in it and that's what turns it black.
14 COUNCILMAN DUFFIE: My next question is:
15 If we put this down and she said we are going to put it
16 down, who is responsible for maintaining this?
17 MR. MORROW: It is the way it is
18 currently established is that it will be the homeowner's
19 association's responsibility for the maintenance of that
20 pedestrian path.
21 COUNCILMAN DUFFIE: Would that be in
22 black and white or how would that be interpreted?
23 MR. MORROW: Yes, it's part of the
24 conditions now for the plat, and again, as it was stated
25 earlier, should a problem develop, then it would be up to
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1 the homeowner's association to take care of that maintenance
2 problem or to repair anything associated with the pedestrian
3 path. If it were not properly maintained according to the
4 city standards, then it would become a code enforcement
5 issue. We could be contacted.
6 COUNCILMAN DUFFIE: Thank you.
7 MAYOR MULLET: Joan, did you have an
8 add -on?
9 COUNCILWOMAN HERNANDEZ: Actually my
10 question would probably be more appropriate to address after
11 the public hearing is closed and after we have council
12 discuss.
13 MAYOR MULLET: Are there any more
14 questions that need to be asked in the public hearing? Pam
15 Carter.
16 COUNCILWOMAN CARTER: Okay. This is for
17 our city attorney. There seems to be some confusion over
18 easements, and I asked earlier and a different individual
19 owns the property on which there is currently an easement
20 for access by some of the people in the audience and there
21 is also, I am assuming, an easement being granted for the
22 ped path, correct?
23 MR. NOE: That's my understanding,
24 correct.
25 COUNCILWOMAN CARTER: Okay. And the use
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1 of one easement doesn't preclude the use of another, if an
2 asphalt ped path is built, it does not supercede and
3 preclude other property owners from exercising their right
4 of easement, does it?
5 MR. NOE: That's correct. The 25 -foot
6 easement that is at issue is a nonexclusive easement. If it
7 was exclusive, if the language called out as an exclusive
8 easement, then the people here that brought the issue up
9 tonight would have a pretty good point because they would
10 have exclusive use of the easement, but it's not exclusive.
11 COUNCILWOMAN CARTER: Neither of the
12 easements are exclusive then.
13 MR. NOE: I haven't seen the easement
14 for the path itself. That may actually be an exclusive
15 easement for the path, I don't know.
16 COUNCILWOMAN CARTER: Okay. Do we have
17 other staff to answer that question? They are digging in
18 there looking.
19 MAYOR MULLET: While Carol is digging
20 for that, Pam Linder had a question of Verna Griffin.
21 COUNCILWOMAN LINDER: Verna, as a new
22 homeowner there, if maybe you could come up, and I know that
23 as the new homeowner you will be speaking for the
24 association, or maybe maybe you could speak for the
25 association in advance and say were you aware of the ped
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1 path?
2 MS. GRIFFIN: No, I was not aware of it.
3 COUNCILWOMAN LINDER: Would it make a
4 difference to you? If you knew it was there, would you not
5 have bought?
6 MS. GRIFFIN: No.
7 COUNCILWOMAN LINDER: Would you have
8 been more inclined to buy?
9 MS. GRIFFIN: No.
10 COUNCILWOMAN LINDER: Will you sue us if
11 we
12 MS. GRIFFIN: I'm under oath. No. I am
13 totally sympathetic to what's going on. We are Lot 17. We
14 are at the bottom of the hill, flat land, next to the red
15 house, and we aren't homeowners yet, but to answer your
16 question, no.
17 COUNCILWOMAN LINDER: Okay. Thank you.
18 MAYOR MULLET: How are you doing, Carol?
19 MS. LUMB: I'm not there yet.
20 MAYOR MULLET: I think we should have it
21 on the record, at least as much as we can. Mr. Lancaster,
22 do you want to kill some time while Carol is looking?
23 MR. LANCASTER: There is one issue I can
24 spend a little time with. The council's obviously concerned
25 about the pedestrian path. I just wanted to make note of
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1 one fact and that is that through the construction of the
2 ped path as it's designed, the designers have done it in a
3 manner that would, we believe, help the drainage situation
4 in that area, so if the council decides that the pedestrian
5 path is not going to be a requirement, we will need to find
6 some alternative way to manage the storm water in that
7 location.
8 COUNCILWOMAN CARTER: And I have another
9 question.
10 MAYOR MULLET: Pam Carter.
11 COUNCILWOMAN CARTER: We know that
12 springs migrate, and I can think of another housing
13 development where the developers swore there were no springs
14 in the area and I could see the water running through the
15 drains they were installing, so I want to make sure that the
16 neighbors don't suffer additional surface water problems,
17 and we heard the gentleman say that they would address that
18 and I believe him.
19 Is there something, a way we can ensure that or is
20 there something already in here because I trust him but he
21 may move out of town tomorrow and I want to make sure that
22 the neighbors would be protected from additional surface
23 water because that is a very wet hillside. It's really
24 almost boggy.
25 MR LANCASTER: I can give you at least a
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1 partial answer, and a partial answer is that we will require
2 as part of the building permits that drainage be evaluated
3 on a permanent basis and that the geotech recommendations be
4 incorporated into the building plans. What I'm not sure of
5 is whether there's anything that specifically states that in
6 the plat documents but we do that as a matter of course of
7 the housing construction.
8 COUNCILWOMAN CARTER: It's just with so
9 much disturbance, the springs moving.
10 MR. LANCASTER: We are blessed with more
11 water than we can stand in our hillsides.
12 COUNCILWOMAN CARTER: I have heard
13 stories of potential purchasers of property there, the
14 realtor would take them out of the car to show them the
15 property and they would sink down over their ankles and turn
16 around and get back in the car and leave. There has always
17 been water there. I want to make sure we aren't allowing it
18 to happen that additional water is poured on people's
19 property.
20 MR. LANCASTER: We manage it through the
21 permitting process as best we can.
22 MAYOR MULLET: Carol, do you have some
23 information on the easement?
24 MS. LUMB: I do. For the record, Carol
25 Lumb, department of community development. This is an
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1 easement for pedestrian walkway and it reads as follows:
2 "Grantor grants to grantee the easement for pedestrian
3 walkway east 23 feet of the following strike parcel," it
4 describes the parcel, "subject to the following
5 restrictions: 1) said pedestrian walkway will not exceed
6 eight feet width as measured in an east to west direction
7 and paved surface at any point within said easement area,
8 and 2) said paved surface may not be of concrete
9 construction but may be of asphalt construction suitable for
10 a pedestrian walkway or may be a composite concrete asphalt
11 construction as required by the City of Tukwila. Covenants
12 herein contained run with the land and are binding on all
13 subsequent owners thereof."
14 MAYOR MULLET: Okay. David.
15 COUNCILMAN FENTON: Mr. Mayor, I
16 recommend we close the public hearing. I have a number of
17 things I want to discuss with the council.
18 MAYOR MULLET: Okay. We have two people
19 that want to say something on this at this point in time.
20 What's council's pleasure?
21 COUNCILMAN DUFFIE: Let's hear them.
22 MAYOR MULLET: Okay. Give your name
23 again if it's in relationship to that and if we are up into
24 legal categories on this, then I hope you have some legal
25 information to present.
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1 MS. OMETH: Denise Ometh, I reside at
2 13264 38th Avenue South. First of all, I don't know what
3 the legalities are. Carol just read us a right -of -way.
4 This is the first time we've even heard of it, and it's my
5 understanding that because we are in effect, effected by
6 this, that we are should have been we should have been
7 kept in the loop on this from the very beginning.
8 This is what we were told by King County who issues
9 the right -of -ways and easements, so we should have been kept
10 in the loop with this whole situation from the development
11 on. We should have been granted access to the title of the
12 property. I don't know who's giving away this easement.
13 We've got one dated from 1945. You're saying
14 basically it doesn't mean anything, and an easement is a
15 right held by one property owner to make use of the land of
16 another for limited purposes as right of passage. Now, all
17 of a sudden you're telling me "Well, no, you can't do that."
18 We can put a sidewalk there and now you can't drive your
19 cars there, so you can virtually take away our easement
20 because you want to put a sidewalk in.
21 And so you got your property, he's got his
22 development, he's selling, we have a property that has
23 potential to subdivide but because you want to connect our
24 community, which obviously, none of us are really interested
25 in, not that we don't want to connect with the community,
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1 but we don't need a sidewalk to do it, and all of a sudden
2 you're tying our hands and saying that we can't subdivide
3 our property because you're taking away our access that we
4 need in order to do that, just to put a sidewalk in that's
5 got more danger issues than anything.
6 Before you guys make a decision whatsoever on this
7 sidewalk, I really ask you to seriously look at this
8 easement issue because you can't just I don't know where
9 this easement this is the first I heard of their easement
10 for a sidewalk. I know nothing of it. I'm astounded. But
11 I urge you to drive down 38th Avenue South. Imagine your
12 kids walking down there at night taking a shortcut home.
13 There's virtually no sides of the road to walk on. They are
14 walking down the middle of the street.
15 It's just I just urge you to drive down there and
16 really take a look at it and imagine a sidewalk there and
17 people walking up and down that before you make any
18 decision. Thank you.
19 MAYOR MULLET: Thank you, Denise. Is
20 there any other legal interpretation of an easement that we
21 can get here? Go ahead, Aaron.
22 MR. HERGERT: For the record again,
23 Aaron Hergert, 13217 38th Avenue South. I realize that the
24 council and mayor are anxious to get this meeting over with,
25 but I would like to propose two things to you.
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1 The city attorney brought up I'm not an attorney
2 brought up the issue, the potential the city could be liable
3 for not providing the pedestrian pathway, which from what I
4 can see in this room for the pedestrian pathway are this
5 gentleman and Ms. Lumb. I don't see anybody else in the
6 room anxious for the pedestrian pathway.
7 I think in order for the city to find out if they
8 could be held liable, just send out a notice to all
9 concerned parties or anyone in the area that would be
10 affected by it if they would be adverse to not having the
11 pedestrian pathway put in. I think anybody who responded
12 that they were not adverse to having the pedestrian pathway,
13 the city would not be held liable, i.e., if anybody
14 submitted that they were for the pedestrian pathway, at that
15 point, I think they could be addressed.
16 MAYOR MULLET: Aaron, I think that's one
17 potential solution and the council will discuss those things
18 when they get off the record.
19 MR. HERGERT: That's all I wanted to
20 say. Apparently more people in this room are against it
21 than are for it and I'm not sure what the big push for the
22 pedestrian pathway is. Thank you.
23 MAYOR MULLET: Brian?
24 MR. CUNNINGHAM: Brian Cunningham. But
25 I do want to weigh in on two things. One is we certainly
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1 are sympathetic and understand the issue of connecting
2 neighborhoods and that's what it's about, it's about
3 connecting neighborhoods, and then here is the debate about
4 is it good or bad, and this is the process that we go
5 through, and I've seen this process happen many times.
6 That's number one.
7 Number two, relative to if your decision is to take
8 the asphaltic pathway off the table, it certainly would be
9 our position to address Pam's concern that if there's water
10 being directed towards her area by the disturbance of the
11 soil that we did to put in the loop line that was required
12 by the water department, we certainly could camp that a
13 certain degree to the west and still put in a catch basin
14 that Ray Coglice was suggesting, so that could be done.
15 MAYOR MULLET: For the record, which
16 water district required that loop line?
17 MS. LUMB: That was 125.
18 MAYOR MULLET: Thank you. That was not
19 the Tukwila Water. All right.
20 Have you been sworn in? I think this is Jay the
21 architect; is that correct? No. I have no idea.
22 (Public speaker sworn in.)
23
24 MR. GREER: For the record, my name is
25 Gary Greer; I'm the owner of a company called Secure Capital
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1 Investments No. 2 that is the owner of the property the
2 pedestrian pathway is proposed to go, and I was also the one
3 that granted the easement to Dream Catcher Homes to put it
4 in there.
5 I would like to it's come up in questions at least
6 from my perspective as a matter of fact, I think there's
7 a record of a letter I sent to the City saying I was not for
8 granting the easement and frankly do not see any practical
9 reason for the pedestrian pathway. I think the same
10 problems that all the other citizens have, I think it's a
11 case of trying to force a decision on policy that doesn't
12 fit the circumstances.
13 I don't think it's to anybody's advantage. If it
14 becomes a point of importance, I would certainly I may
15 not be the one who would be able to do it, but I certainly
16 would be willing to move the easement for the pathway. It
17 came up because the city demanded the pathway and then Dream
18 Catcher Homes came to me and said "We have to have this,"
19 and under, you know, some degree of willingness to
20 cooperate, I agreed to do that, but I don't agree to the
21 decision of the pathway any more than anyone in the
22 committee would have any sense to.
23 MAYOR MULLET: Thank you.
24 MR. GREER: That's the history, so I
25 think it's the policy that's driving the pathway, not the
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1 desire to develop the original owner or any of the
2 neighbors.
3 MAYOR MULLET: Okay. With that, that's
4 a final word for the public hearing. I'm going to close out
5 the public hearing now.
6 (Discussion off the record.)
7
8 MAYOR MULLET: I'll ask for a motion.
9 COUNCILMAN FENTON: I move we adjourn.
10 COUNCILMAN DUFFIE: Second.
11 COUNCILWOMAN LINDER: We have somebody
12 who wants to speak?
13 MAYOR MULLET: We'll have discussion on
14 the motion.
15 MR. CUNNINGHAM: Brian Cunningham. I
16 certainly understand the process and I'd just like to come
17 with my kneepads on and ask you that if this is the only
18 issue, that we would certainly like to build the houses for
19 the people who are waiting for those building permits and
20 we've already bonded this to be a fact, and this doesn't
21 mean it's going to be, but I don't know if there's a process
22 where you can approve this
23 MAYOR MULLET: There's not a limited
24 approval, Brian.
25 MR. NOE: Council members, I forgot to
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1 mention, since we are keeping the record open that it
2 remains quasi judicial and you can't talk to anybody. If
3 the applicant is going to bring information back at this
4 forum in two weeks, you can't look at anything prior to
5 that. His suggestion that some sort of a conditional
6 approval before a final disposition won't work. He can't do
7 that.
8 MAYOR MULLET: Joe?
9 COUNCILMAN DUFFIE: Okay. This also
10 means that we cannot go on the property looking at the
11 property at this time that's quasi judicial; is that
12 correct?
13 MR. NOE: You can go to the property and
14 look around; you just can't speak with anybody.
15 COUNCILMAN DUFFIE: Are you sure on
16 that? Positive?
17 MR. NOE: I'm positive.
18 COUNCILMAN DUFFIE: When we were
19 building up there, we couldn't do it.
20 MR. NOE: You can do it.
21 MAYOR MULLET: All right. We have a
22 motion moved and seconded and I think discussed. All in
23 favor of adjourning the meeting, the public hearing for two
24 weeks say Aye.
25 COUNCILMEMBERS: Aye.
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1 MAYOR MULLET: Any opposed? That
2 carries and we'll have it on our next regular meeting.
3 We'll hope to get back some further information on the
4 easement and people's thoughts about the pedestrian path.
5 COUNCILMAN FENTON: Did my motion
6 MAYOR MULLET: That's your motion. You
7 want to, we'll vote on Dave's motion now.
8 COUNCILMEMBERS: Aye.
9 MAYOR MULLET: Any opposed? That
10 carries.
11 (Proceedings adjourned
12 at 9:20 p.m.)
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1 STATE OF WASHINGTON I, KATIE A. ESKEW,
ss CCR #1953 a duly
2 County of King authorized Notary
Public in and for the
3 State of Washington
residing at Renton,
4 do hereby certify:
5
6
That the foregoing proceeding was taken before me
7 and completed on May 5, 2003, and thereafter was transcribed
under my direction; that the proceeding is a full, true and
8 complete transcript of the testimony of said witness,
including all questions, answers, objections, motions and
9 exceptions;
10 That I am not a relative, employee, attorney or
counsel of any party to this action or relative or employee
11 of any such attorney or counsel and that I am not
financially interested in the said action or the outcome
12 thereof;
13 That I am herewith securely sealing the said
proceeding and promptly delivering the same to BOB BAKER.
14
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand
15 and affixed my official seal this 6th day of
June, 2003.
16
17
Certificate
*th-J I
Katie A. Eskew, CCR, RPR
Notary Public in and for the State
of Washington, x: £2 at Renton.
t