Clyde Hill News: Delays, backlog on code update continue
Clyde Hill News: Delays, backlog on code update continue
Also: Downed trees on Points Drive; city budget and deficit discussions ahead
Residents can expect continued delays in updating the city’s land use code after the Planning Commission rejected an attempt to consider a proposed change ahead of summer 2025.
A commissioner noted that “we have just a finite set of hours and meetings” (link) before the monthly two-hour meeting ended 20 minutes ahead of schedule.
More on the growing backlog of updates as well as the upcoming budget-deficit discussion below, but first: Clyde Hill Police and Public Works crews worked together with Bellevue Fire to clear downed trees, limbs, and debris blocking Points Drive late Thursday night:
Also: apologies for all the unanswered mail. I fell behind between travel and health issues, and am headed to my inbox now.
Disclaimer: while I am a councilmember on the Clyde Hill City Council, I write this newsletter in my capacity as an individual resident. Any opinions expressed are my own and not necessarily the position of the city. City information and references here are from public sources. I welcome email responses — and if the topic is about city business I will respond from my city email account.
Land use code backlog
The short version:
Updates to the city’s land use code — with a direct impact on residents — started three years ago and have gotten stuck behind the Comprehensive Plan process.
From a resident’s point of view, getting the process unstuck (while finishing the Comprehensive Plan already) is likely more important than answering “how did we get here.”
From a resident’s point of view, the city’s land use code is crucial
The city’s land use code protects residents’ views, sets limits on building height and footprint, and helps keeps intersections safe by establishing visibility requirements. Also known as “Title 17,” the land use code spans 24 chapters, from definitions to the rules for enforcement and appeals.
The land use code has issues and needs ongoing updates
Some of the code is out of date with modern safety standards.
For example, the code related to intersection visibility dates to 1971. City staff recommended “modernization, including alignment to requirements of Wuthrich v King County” (link).1
Some of the code is contradictory.
For example, since 2018, a Hearing Examiner considers appeals from residents of city administration decisions. However, there is contradictory code indicating that the Mayor handles these appeals. Here’s the city staff’s slide about this proposed change that was referred to the Planning Commission in January 2023:
Other parts of the code have been, to date, impervious to resident feedback that has come in the form of complaints, appeals, and requests for interpretation.2
Updates have been slow going: six years, three changes
The city started a land use code update effort in 2021 (link). Since then, the only update to the city’s code was in 2023. The city added a chapter related to Permanent Supportive and Transitional Housing in Clyde Hill.3
Before that, the two most recent changes to the land use code were:
in 2020, concerning “Small Wireless Facilities” and “Wireless Communications Facilities,” and
in 2018, when the city switched to a Hearing Examiner from a Board of Adjustment.
Next door in Medina, in 2022 alone, the city enacted four ordinances updating twelve chapters of their equivalent of the land use code (their “unified development code”):4
The backlog, or doing more than one thing at a time
Clyde Hill has a clear and sensible priority around finishing the comprehensive plan.
Residents have expressed consternation that their city has not been able to make progress on the backlog of land use code issues in parallel. For comparison, the neighboring Town of Yarrow Point is smaller than Clyde Hill, with fewer full-time staff and a lower tax rate, and is making progress on multiple fronts:
During its meeting last week, Clyde Hill’s Planning Commission agreed to revisit when it will consider one land use code issue after it completes its Comprehensive Plan work this summer.
Sustainable budget discussion ahead
The short version:
Clyde Hill has spent more than it has taken in, running a deficit every year for the last four years (link).
Mayor Steve Friedman described preparations for “a detailed plan for presentation to the Council at the April meeting” regarding a sustainable budget in his letter to the community earlier this month (link).
To date, the community hasn’t seen (to paraphrase Councilmember Steve Sinwell’s public comments from earlier this year) a budget review that rigorously and thoroughly challenges costs, optimizes revenue, and improves processes as part of solving the city’s budget deficit.
At the March Council Meeting, Councilmembers Olson and Hachamovitch (link) started a discussion to revise the Council’s budget priorities to emphasize improving “the city’s financial sustainability while prioritizing police and public safety as well as other services of value to residents.”
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Dean Hachamovitch
In hindsight, it’s not clear why city staff recommended prioritizing this work in June 2022 (link). The relative expense of land in Clyde Hill makes the city a questionable choice for permanent supportive and transitional housing. Also, work on the state-required Comprehensive Plan had already started in October of 2021 (link).
City of Medina Ordinances 1008, 1009, 1012, and 1017.