Everett, Wash.
Published: Tuesday, June 10, 2008

COUNTY GROWTH

Lake Stevens always gets shortchanged

 I have lived in the Lake Stevens area my entire life and have yet to understand the logic of Snohomish County with regard to planning for growth management. It is almost as if they are looking for a way to keep Lake Stevens a bedroom community for the benefit of everyone else.

In 2000-2001, the county adopted a subarea plan for Lake Stevens. This plan eliminated the potential for commercial development along Cavelero Hill. In 2005, they upzoned properties to create more dense residential development in Lake Stevens, while giving Marysville the land adjacent to Lake Stevens for Marysville to obtain commercial and retail development along Highway 9. Ironically, they also approved a site-specific rezone for property adjacent to this area (the former Hewlett Packard site), which was in the Lake Stevens urban growth area, to convert it from commercial to residential. Looking back on it, I'll bet everyone involved is proud of that ridiculous move.

Now the County Council is entertaining a proposal by a developer and Snohomish to take the land to the south of Lake Stevens and add it to the city of Snohomish for commercial and industrial development. Am I missing something here? Oh, yeah, I am: a job in my community.

How can the county keep giving Lake Stevens the short end of the stick? Don't they know we'd like to have some jobs and services in our town so we aren't driving everywhere all the time? The fact is that county buildable lands figures show that Lake Stevens ranks near last among all the county's cities in jobs per household at 0.42. Until the county and stakeholders can produce a sensible plan to handle the growth in the Lake Stevens and Snohomish urban growth areas, I am pleading with the council to hold off on approving any expansions at this time.

Brent Kirk
Lake Stevens
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