ARLINGTON — The city wants to be back in the game.
In 2006, Arlington officials put a moratorium on requests for annexation into the city limits.
The move was seen as a way to encourage development away from farmland in the city’s urban growth area. Additionally, the sewer treatment plant was dangerously close to reaching its capacity. No more sewer hookups could be handled.
Now, with the plant’s expansion and redesign under construction, and with the continuing downturn in the housing market and the crippling loss of sales tax revenue, the City Council recently repealed the annexation restrictions.
“This opens up some potential for an economic boost,” said Bill Blake, the city’s assistant community development director. “We can look for development activity sooner.”
The city plans to send out letters to property owners who applied for annexation in the last three years. More than 160 acres could soon be annexed into the city, community development director Dave Kuhl said.
David Cayton of Core Design in Bellevue used to represent a partnership that wanted the city to annex about 133 of those acres at the intersection of Highway 9 and Highway 531.
“The fact that the city changed its mind doesn’t surprise me,” Cayton said. “It’s a different economy now, and many cities such as Marysville are doing big annexations.”
Marysville is about to add a large residential area of about 19,000 people to its city limits, bringing in a bigger portion of the sales tax revenue pie.
“Because of the state’s tax structure, that’s what we have to rely on,” Arlington city spokeswoman Kristin Banfield said. “We fight tooth and nail with other jurisdictions for good-quality economic development.”
However, tax revenue isn’t the only issue with new annexation policy in Arlington, Blake said.
The city hopes to annex Hank Graafstra’s former dairy property on the northeast corner of town, and the previous policy would have prohibited the move.
The plan is to turn the former pasture land into a new city park.
“There’ll be nothing there that can’t handle getting wet when the river floods,” Blake said.
The Graafstra property also will help the city continue to establish biking and hiking trails in the area. “So someday people won’t have to get in their cars to shop, go to school and get to work,” Blake said.
Graafstra said he is hopeful that the new policy will help the city in its quest to build the new park.
“I think it would be good not just for Arlington, but for the whole county,” he said. “It’s a nice 2.3 acres of riverfront, and the city’s going to need it for its future growth.”
Gale Fiege: 425-339-3427, gfiege@heraldnet.com.
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