Upper Bear Creek UAC Meeting Minutes

Date: March 25, 2002
Time: 7:32 - 9:03 PM
Location: Woodinville Library, Woodinville, WA
Board Attendees: Nancy Stafford, Mary Filkins, and Peter Lamanna
King County Attendees: Marissa Alegria
Community Attendees: Maxine Keesling, Debbie Ridling, Ken Kawafune, Mary Kuehn, Gerald Hicks, Patti Van Laeken, Al Hooper and Stewart Ledford

Nancy began the meeting with announcements:
· Invitation to Eastside Community Coffee with Congressman Jay Inslee, March 26th in the Woodinville City Hall Council Chambers between 7:00 and 8:30 PM.
· Invitation from Sheriff Reichert to meet on the afternoon of either April 3rd or 4th. Peter and Nancy can make the 3rd but not the 4th.
· DDES proposed Revisions to Areas Public Rules Concerning Variances and Reasonable Use.

Nancy asked if anyone was familiar with and would volunteer in helping fill out the 501 3C forms for us.

Nancy then introduced Jennifer Lindwall and Richard Warren from the Road Services Division. Jennifer is a Manager from CIP Administration and Richard is a Principal Transportation Planner with the Department of Transportation. Richard was nice enough to come this evening on his vacation day. Many thanks.

Jennifer gave a brief introduction of what concurrency is and said they are now involved in an update to the currency map. Richard then presented the proposed map. Copies were handed out to attendees. David Mark had come out with him in the past to talk to us about concurrency. Richard explained that you first need to get concurrency approval before you can obtain a building permit. King County Code says that twice a year they need to update the traffic model and map and present them to the King County Council for approval. The map is generated based upon their analysis. They recently denied concurrency to a developer in the Juanita area because that area had gone over threshold. The King County Council has wanted to focus development in the urban areas. You do not need concurrency to get a single family permit in the rural area but you do for short plats. A short plat is a lot that has been subdivided into 2 to 4 lots. Public, not private, schools are exempt from concurrency. New or existing churches are not exempt. If a church is expanding in size they will need to get concurrency. The proposed map was supposed to go to council this Wednesday but the development community is opposing it. It will be submitted to the transportation committee and from there go out for a 30-day public commentary period. A red area (over threshold) can be changed to green (under threshold) by either changing the measurement tool, the threshold, or adding projects to Capital Improvements Program (CIP) that bring the area back into compliance. The CIP takes into account projects through the year 2007. Maxine raised some questions in response to the proposed map which showed our Bear Creek area being in the red and consequently prohibiting the building of anything except single family homes on lots of five acres or larger. She asked if Transportation had made any provision for recording on property titles some statement indicating that there is a moratorium on subdividing even a 20 acre plat into 4 five acre parcels that would each have a single family home. This title note would be similar to what is done with the 150 foot buffer in sensitive areas. Maxine asked if there was something that Transportation could do or communicate to the tax assessor about this problem so that people are taxed on a 5 acre parcel, the usable portion of their property, and not their entire 20 acres. Richard responded no. She referred to a 1995 policy about making road improvements in the rural area for safety or environment reasons. Jennifer said that that the latest policy says existing deficiencies. An attendee and Mink Road resident brought up the point that we are improving roads for residents outside of our area. Jennifer responded that our lives today and how we travel do not equate well with property taxation. Maxine asked why there are such differences in the mitigation fees. Richard said that it depends on the TNR. Next to the Redmond Water Shed mitigation fees for a single family residence are $7000 whereas in the UPDs it is only $4600. The KC Council has set the fees higher in the rural area in order to discourage development. The UPDs had a separate agreement with respect to mitigation. The 6-year CIP project list is generated from a 20-year project list. Richard said fees are collected for both residential and commercial applications. November is when the major update to the CIP occurs. One resident said their road, NE 172nd Place, is becoming an arterial with a speeding problem. Jennifer says they do have input on where traffic enforcement is placed. Richard said that you can refer to county code 14.70 which governs concurrency.

Jennifer then talked about how we go from the broad, Comprehensive Plan to an actual project. The Comprehensive Plan is adopted by the county and approved by the state. They will be taking the Comprehensive Plan 2000 to a Road Strategic Plan. A draft is due out in October. Chris Schultz, Upper Bear Creek UAC member, is on the advisory board working on this plan. At the end of April or early May there will be public meetings on this plan. The first phase will include only strategies and not specific projects. Phase 2 will have specific projects. Maxine asked if they will ever have a cap on environmental mitigation. Currently, mitigation is being paid out of road funds and it is never broken out. Jennifer said that it is hard to tell. Road projects took an 8 month to a year hit because of the new environmental regulations. Project costs have also increased about 15 percent. Federal ESA regulations and KC Sensitive ordinances (being updated) both impose requirements. Jennifer went on to say that the Roads Division has to go through the same permitting process as a private developer. Maxine said that reports have placed the increase in costs up to 50%. Jennifer says the 15% has been over the last three years. Maxine said that the National Fish and Marine is relaxing its regulations but KC does not seem to be following. Jennifer would like to see the county relax its regulations also so that additional funds would become available. Jennifer then continued with her explanation of the planning process. They will be looking at the 20 year needs list. In the past, once something was on the list they had to build it. They now know that some of those projects are not feasible any more and they are going to scratch them. A new 20 year list will be generated. The CIP is the 6 year funded list. It is here that you need to identify how you will pay for it i.e. taxes, grants, and mitigation fees. Taxes pay for traffic operations and capital projects. There is a $15 fee on vehicle license registration paid to roads. The county has to compete for state and federal grants. They will also be using up to 120 million from assumed sale of bonds. The county previously never used debt to fund capital projects. It will be 20 year bond that they will try and pay off in 10 to 15 years. A total of 476 million has been budgeted. The project side is Transportation Need Report (TNR) and bridge list. The bridge replacement program which includes the seismic retro fit program i.e. Novelty hill bridge, Woodinville-Duvall bridge. There is also the maintenance side that addresses things like roadside sluffing and pot holes. The traffic section deals with high accident areas and traffic congestion. Projects come from all of these needs. Choices are made with some sense of balance. The strategic plan will try to identify the level of surface we need. The 6-year CIP is required by law to be adopted by council. It is a public process and ordinance. It will be submitted in October and voted on this November. This is done every year. This November will be for the 2007-2008 year package. Maxine asked about who is responsible for culvert maintenance. Jennifer replied that it would be the Roads Division. The Roads Division pays for whatever is in road right of way. Surface water then addresses everything outside that. Jennifer then went through and responded to the list of questions the UAC had presented them.

Next board meeting will be Tuesday, April 9, 2002, 7:30 PM at Norm's house on Cottage Lake. Our next public meeting will be Tuesday, April 23, 2002, 7:30 PM, at the Woodinville Library. The topic will be Public Benefit System.