MARYSVILLE About 75 members of the building community heard the game plan for 2007 from Marysville staffers, who said only one large annexation remains on the citys agenda and that their focus will be zoning and planning newly acquired neighborhoods.
While the city is ahead in building new water and sewer capacity, roads will remain the bane of its existence from Soper Hill Road at the southern end of town to the busy Lakewood area at the northern tip.
The March 16 meeting at Cedarcrest Golf Course drew a crowd of early birds, heavy on boots, flannel and polo shirts. Only two ties were seen in the room, one worn by Mayor Dennis Kendall, as the audience heard members of the citys Public Works and Community Development departments explained how Maryville will deal with all the building planned for the next couple of years.
Many were happy to hear community development director Gloria Hirashima cite permitting turnaround time statistics showing workers were keeping ahead of other jurisdictions.
Were, in some cases, substantially under target, Hirashima said, with a caveat. The workload is continuing to grow.
She warned that many areas annexed by the city had projects started under county rules and regulations; city staff might not be up to speed on those, and contractors might have to cool their heels while they bone up on Snohomish County rules.
Expect a longer turnaround time for county projects because were not familiar with county regulations, she cautioned.
Likewise the Critical Areas Review governs developments near streams and other sensitive areas and can be litigation-prone, as environmental watchdogs scrutinize not only what builders do but what the city allows them to do.
Were getting a lot of those submittals in, Hirashima said, noting that the projects in the hopper range in size from one to 80 acres, requiring different levels of scrutiny from permitting officials.
The only major annexation remaining on the books is the ART/Wicklow monster that would even city borders up to 88th Street NE and eliminate a huge pocket of county land north of Grove Street and surrounding Pinewood Elementary School. The initial application was a proposal to annex a condominium project and adjacent neighborhood but the Boundary Review Board for Snohomish County added a much larger area that would inundate Marysville with expensive road projects. Right now that annexation is stalled as the county and city are caught in a stand off over the $30 million cost to upgrade and widen 88th Street NE from State Avenue to 67th Avenue NE. The two jurisdictions might halve the costs of the main east-west connector, but negotiations continue.
I think we are going to see annexations settle down, which will be a big relief to everyone, Hirashima laughed.
Her staff will continue to write zoning plans for the newly annexed Whiskey Ridge/Sunnyside and Smokey Point areas, as well as perfect a master plan to guide renewal of the aging downtown business district. Staff are searching the legal books to help the City Council decide when and where the fees can be levied, and who has to pay. The Marysville City Council will hold a public hearing on the matter
7 p.m., April 23, at City Hall, 1049 State Avenue.
That may actually move a little bit faster than we anticipated, Hirashima added.
Assistant public works director Kevin Nielsen assured the builders that the citys pipes could handle anything they threw at them: last year he challenged them to send the city what they could and they took him up on the offer. This year new reservoirs are completed in the Sunnyside and Sisco areas but they just received a new fresh coat of paint, he added.
So water and sewer are really solid, Nielsen said. Thats kind of what you want to hear.
What they didnt need to hear was that the city is continually behind the eight-ball with transportation infrastructure. Existing roads are swamped and Nielsen is planning for 2025 numbers. Solutions include possible connections to SR 9, SR 92 and 40th Street NE in the Whiskey Ridge area, and unwinding 67th Avenue NE so it makes sense by connecting it with another north-south line, 71st Avenue NE. The Washington State Department of Transportation had dubbed SR 9 a highway of state significance and is touchy about connections to what could become another mainline for north Snohomish County, just like I-5 has perimeter adjuncts like I-405 to relieve traffic pressures.
We dont have a 405 that might be it, Nielsen explained. We have some serious plans for that area.
According to Nielsen, building more than one connector means the resulting roads dont have to be as wide as they might otherwise have to be. An upgraded Sunnyside Boulevard would have needed five lanes and that would have meant acquiring rights-of-way through the many storm water detention ponds lining the street. The city hopes to avoid that.
Most of the builders and developers thought the annual get together was a good idea, including Larry Gardner, pastor of Marysvilles First Assembly, which has 57 acres west of the freeway where the church plans to build a family life center south of Lakewood. Like many people with interests in that congested neighborhood, he wanted to know about a promised bridge over the railroad tracks to allow cars to move south of the Lakewood Crossing shopping center. Nielsen told him permitting issues were holding that project up.
Thats kind of the driver for the whole project, Nielsen said. The mayor wants to get that built. Were trying to fast-track it as much as possible.
After the meeting more than one builder said that answer was hooey and worse, but the pastor shared neither their language or sentiments.
I was just wondering about the time table, Gardner said. I really think the citys done wonderfully. Theyve been hit really hard. I have a better understanding through these meetings how complex it is.
Dave Boersema is an engineer with the land surveying firm of Harmsen and Associates who goes to quarterly development meetings held by Snohomish County. Marysville is much better than the county, which often gives him the feeling this is the way its going to be, but the city is different.
At least they talk straight to you, Boersma said