The fervor over the Klahanie Potential Annexation Area still has not calmed down, based on the public input at Tuesday’s Land and Shore committee meeting at Issaquah City Hall.
And now, there are even more land use issues for the committee to review and bring to the full council, including a thorough look at the city’s comprehensive plan, required every seven years.
However, almost all of the public comment turned back to Klahanie and the failed Feb. 11 annexation vote.
Dave Guzzetti, who lives in the Hunter’s Ridge neighborhood of Klahanie, asked the committee to release the PAA because they are surrounded by Sammamish and want to move on. Kirstin O’Malley, who is active with the grass-roots group Klahanie Choice, said unlike Issaquah, Sammamish would not need a super majority in a vote to annex the PAA.
“We’re tired of the voting,” O’Malley said. “We’re ready to move on. If you guys start carving up the PAA it may not look as attractive to them (Sammamish).”
O’Malley was referring to the suggestion by supporters of the Issaquah annexation to slice off the southern portion of the PAA, based on precinct vote. Tom Harman, who lives in the Ranch precinct of the PAA, said breaking it up not only will cause problems with who provides water and sewer, but also with homeowner’s association boundaries and who takes care of what roads. Any such gerrymandering of the PAA would require approval of the King County Boundary Review Board. Harman brought up the fact that the review board said Issaquah would have its shot, but if it failed, which it did, Sammamish should get its chance.
Former city councilmember David Kappler testified that when Greenwood Point and Providence Point were annexed into Issaquah, everyone was happy, but now those neighborhoods are still waiting for improvements they were promised, but the city hasn’t delivered.
“They need their promises fulfilled before Issaquah takes on Klahanie,” Kappler said.
Karen Ditaroff in the Brookshire neighborhood, where there has been vocal support to annex to Issaquah, said she’s done with all the talking.
“This is a democracy — we abide by the results,” Ditaroff said. “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should chop us up. Cut us loose.”
Land and Shore chairman Tola Marts said he felt that the public perceived that the city was dragging its feet on the issue. He said the easiest thing for the city would have been to do nothing — not try another annexation vote, and just leave the Klahanie PAA in its comprehensive plan in perpetuity.
“We’re trying to resolve this going forward,” Marts said. “We really are trying to do the right thing.”
He asked for patience. The committee prepared language for the comp plan docket that says it will “prepare materials to update the comprehensive plan for potentially releasing some or all of the PAA as well as prepare materials for a potential annexation of a smaller subset of the PAA.”
Two more annexations were added to the docket — of a much smaller scale. Washington State Parks sent a letter to the city March 10, asking the City Council to consider annexing Lake Sammamish State Park. The park lies within an island of unincorporated King County and is surrounded on all sides by the city. The state would still own the park, but the city would be the park’s underlying regulatory and permitting jurisdiction. An annexation of the park would require the approval of the BRB.
Several in attendance, who belong to the Friends of Lake Sammamish State Park, were encouraged.
Brad Book, who is on the Friends board said it was fuzzy to him what this would mean with police and fire protection. For example, would the city be responsible for additional shoreline patrol?
But he agreed more has to be done to improve the park, and the more control the city can have, the better.
The other annexation the committee added to its workload is a request from the Talus master developer to annex 49.24 acres of the East Cougar Mountain Potential Annexation Area. Talus’s development agreement expires in 2017.
Spokesperson for Talus, Darren Peugh, said it would utilize density that is already in the original development agreement.
Connie Marsh questioned if the Talus proposal met the spirit of an urban village, which Talus is zoned for, because it would be clearing trees in a rural area, creating urban sprawl and impacting forested hillside.
“One of Issaquah’s treasures is our forested hillsides,” she said.
Committee member Stacy Goodman was cool on the Talus idea because with the Central Issaquah Plan, the focus of the city is supposed to be on encouraging growth on the valley floor, not a mountainside. Nonetheless, it went on the docket for further study.
