MARYSVILLE — A 100-acre parcel of mainly pasture and wetlands near Marysville being considered for a University of Washington branch campus looks like it will be developed one way or another.
If the site isn’t selected for the college, it’s expected to be developed with business parks or new housing — with possibly as many as 300 homes.
Lighthouse Projects, a development company based in Lake Forest Park, applied to Snohomish County to build housing on the site before aiming for the college, company president Ken Lyons said.
Lighthouse is keeping its housing application pending as a fallback in case it doesn’t get the branch campus.
Under the current housing plan, 42 homes would be built on about 11 acres of its property west of I-5 at Forty-Five Road and 156th Street NE. The homes would be built in “rural cluster” style, close together on quarter-acre lots with open land around them.
Traffic is a concern in the area, with the Smokey Point retail area to the north and Quil Ceda Village to the south. Rural clusters of 640 homes are proposed for an area about three miles to the northwest, north of Lake Goodwin. That developer, the McNaughton Group of Edmonds, is also considering building a “mini-city” of up to 6,000 homes.
Rural clusters have been controversial. It is a type of development in which new homes in rural areas can be built closer together in exchange for providing more open space around them. Proponents say the housing type controls development and maintains the character of the surrounding area, while opponents say it’s another way of allowing sprawl.
If the Lighthouse site is not selected for the college and is added to the city of Marysville’s possible annexation area in the future, it could be developed with business parks or up to 300 homes — depending on how Marysville zones the property.
“If the college doesn’t go through, it’s going to be a good time to sit down and review where we are,” Lyons said.
For the campus, Lighthouse Projects would build extensions of 156th Street NE and 152nd Street NE, Lyons said. If the site is not selected, the company would not need to build the roads for the 42 clustered homes but would do so for a larger development, he said.
When the competition was thrown open for a location for the proposed branch campus, Marysville approached Lighthouse about applying for the college.
Lighthouse then spoke with two families who own 150 acres directly to the east, bordering on the railroad tracks, about adding their property to the mix for the college. They agreed.
The company and the city then put together an application package for the UW site selection committee. The package includes a very rough conceptual drawing of where housing and other buildings could go.
The site made the cut and is one of nine remaining on the list. A recommendation of three or four sites is due to the Legislature by Nov. 15.
The company could pursue its original plan for the rural-cluster housing, on the northern part of its 100 acres, if the site is not selected, Lyons said. Lighthouse applied to build the housing last January, he said.
Building the cluster homes would still leave the larger southern part open for development in the future. Before moving ahead with any projects in the southern part, the company will wait until the county adds the property to Marysville’s growth area, Lyons said. That won’t happen until next year at the earliest.
Marysville opposes rural clusters and has told company officials that it would rather the company not build them, city planning director Gloria Hirashima said.
“We don’t want to see developments go in that don’t have urban-level improvements,” such as roads and sewers, Hirashima said.
Rural clusters, allowed only in areas zoned rural by the county, are built with septic tanks, not sewers.
Lyons said the clusters could be built with a common drain field that could allow the homes to easily be converted to sewers.
If the property is added to Marysville’s growth area, the city still has the choice of adding the property to the city or not. It also could zone the area either for residences — with a minimum of four lots per acre — or for business parks.
At this point, the latter is more likely, Hirashima said. Lakewood South, a small rural triangle between I-5 and the land proposed for the college, was recently added to the city and is expected to be zoned for business parks.
“Generally speaking, we have not been promoting a lot of residential expansion in that area,” Hirashima said.
Reporter Bill Sheets: 425-339-3439 or sheets@heraldnet.com.
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