-------- Original Message --------

Subject:	HIGHLANDS Land Use BEFORE and AFTER the Task Force
Date:	Sat, 18 Nov 2006 23:39:01 -0800
From:	Inez Somerville Petersen <webgirl@seanet.com>
To:	City Council President Randy Corman <rcorman@ci.renton.wa.us>, DLaw@ci.renton.wa.us, Tnelson@ci.renton.wa.us, Dpersson@ci.renton.wa.us, MPalmer@ci.renton.wa.us

Dear Randy, Denis, Marcie, Don, and Toni:

I am writing to you five because I consider you to be the Council Majority who will make the difference.

I have been studying the data posted to the web this week by EDNSP; and this info covers the results of the Highlands Task Force chaired by Kirk Moore.

I wish to report to you on both Land Use and Zoning. This email concerns the first part, Land Use.

There are two minor areas of difference between what the Task Force "recommended" and what the "mayor's vision of an urban village" was last summer, months before the Task Force was created.

One area is on 11th Place. Remember the doctor who approached the Council during the public hearings to suggest a more reasonable rezone for his building, and the Staff agreed. As a result RS became RMF. That was decided before the Task Force convened.
The other differences concerns small pockets on the periphery of CV (Center Village).
The areas of difference are indicated by a "circle" on the BEFORE Land Use map.

The result of my analysis: The Task Force recommendation is so close to the "mayor's vision for an urban village" from last summer that one could say Mayor Koelker got her way regarding Land Use.

Land Use as of 31 July 2006 (BEFORE the Task Force)
http://hca-renton.org/_TaskForce_Kirk_Moore/Land_use_BEFORE.pdf

Land Use as of 03 Nov 2006 (AFTER Task Force)
Reference Appendix A at this webpage:
http://rentonwa.gov/uploadedFiles/Business/EDNSP/planning/Proposed%20LU-Task%20Force.pdf

Please print both maps and visually compare. This will be serve as a good baseline for the BEFORE and AFTER zoning map which I am in the process of creating.

I was ecstatic last Monday night, thinking something wonderful had come out of the Task Force. Then I attended the Planning & Development Committee meeting on Thursday, and the comments about high density zoning started to sound so familiar. I had previously asked Rebecca for Task Force package on Monday, but I was stalled all week long with promises of putting the data on the web. Finally, it was posted and I could access it. You already know that I had some questions, and Kirk Moore refused to answer them. No wonder! When I sent him the BEFORE map, he probably realized it looked familiar.

And no wonder the mayor was so happy with the Task Force, she knew very well that the group had adopted almost to the letter, if not better, the Land Use and Zoning that she wanted from the "get go." The City Council had already promised the Citizens no eminent domain and no NON CONFORMING before the Task Force ever started. You got a taste of the Task Force zoning from the comments made by LInda Perrine on Monday, 11/13/06. And I might add that the Renton Housing Authority desire to develop the piece of land next to Linda Perrine's property was not shared in any City Council meeting where Iwas, and that's just about all of them. How about you council members? How many of you knew that the RHA had a low-rent facility planned next to Linda's property with access from Glennwood with 60-80 du/ac?

There is ONE THING which came out of the Task Force, which is no small matter, and that is that duplexes will not have to be bulldozed to remodel them. But that's not much to show for all the early morning meetings and all the hours these people took off from work to participate in the Task Force. I believe they were fooled into thinking they really accomplished something, but none of them knew the BEFORE picture, so how could they know they were being manipulated? The mayor's staff manipulated the Task Force just like the mayor used to manipulate the Council.

Kirk Moore did not have the background that Terry Persson had. It is a shame that the Council selected him over Terry Persson. The Task Force could have used Terry's knowledge.

I will provide the Zoning comparison tomorrow. There is alot of reading to do and to assimilate to figure out what the current zoning and bonuses are, this data is not conveniently located in one place. Keeping the documentation spread amongst all the various pieces of documentation makes it handy to control HOW the Council votes by controlling WHAT the Council knows.

I can say from my cursory review of the BEFORE and AFTER zoning, the zoning is very much the same high density zoning that the mayor wanted for her "vision of an urban village." You heard a quick sentence about RM-T and RM-U being implementable "upon request" and you know a developer will request it.

What Rebecca didn't say was that RM-T is 14-35 du/ac, 3+ stories, 14 foot min lot size (hardly room for a king size bed and a dresser), 75% coverage.
Or RM-U which is 25-75 du/ac, 5+ stories, with 75% coverage.
Remember that DNS? No envionmental impact, but with high densities just as before? One can't reach any other conclusion after reviewing the numbers.

The HCA's Appeal was made mute by Mayor Koelker abandoning the first DNS. But now we have another DNS, with the same high densities, abd still no EIS. We are right back at that same point. Her Adminsitration has a pattern of stepping right over SEPA/environment. Development is her God.

At what point is the Council Majority going to put a stop to the blanket DNS's which Mayor Koelker's ERC issues? If she and her staff won't protect the us voluntarily, shouldn't the Council do something about it?

Must citizens like Sue Rider of the Kennydale Critical Areas Alliance spend their hard earned money for legal advice? Just as the HCA had to do . . . it's just not fair to us. We pay twice. We pay for legal advice and we pay with our tax dollars for the City to fight us. Please, Council Majority, step in and take control. Don't adopt the 2006 Comp Plan Amendments cart blanche'.

Sincerely,
Inez