EVERETT — City staff fielded questions about Everett’s periodic comprehensive plan update at an open house Wednesday as the city works to complete the update before a June 30 deadline.
Residents raised questions about parking availability, public transit improvements and the building permitting process during the two-hour event.
Everett, like other large Washington cities, is required under the Growth Management Act to complete 20-year comprehensive plans designed to lay out the goals and policies that will prepare itself for increased growth. Cities update their comprehensive plans every 10 years.
The state required Everett to complete its periodic update by Dec. 31, 2024. It hopes to complete the plan by June 30, when it must implement zoning changes to comply with new state laws regarding middle housing.
In planning documents — currently in draft form until the City Council gives it final approval — the city lays out goals of incentivizing mixed-use, walkable development while increasing housing supply and protecting natural areas and wildlife habitats.
“The planning for this is planning for the arrival of mass transit and the train in a huge way,” said Nathan Shelby, a member of Everett’s planning commission. “If we don’t do it now, we will be so far behind the ball when the train gets here, we will have to make 30 years of change overnight. Nobody’s going to want that.”
One concern raised by attendees at the open house regarded parking availability. The city must plan for the arrival of 65,000 new residents and 36,500 more housing units by 2044 while also incentivizing housing development at affordable prices.
Everett is still looking at solutions for the parking problem, planners at the open house said, but as of now, the city is hoping to reduce parking requirements to one parking space per housing unit. Generally, current developments in the city require two parking spaces per housing unit. Building 70,000 new parking spaces would not make Everett “an affordable and livable city,” city planning director Yorik Stevens-Wajda said at the meeting.
One of the stated goals of the city’s draft plan is to reduce the proportion of commute trips by single-occupant vehicles. A method of achieving this could be utilizing transportation management associations, said Brock Howell, executive director of the Everett Station District Alliance. Those associations — some of which currently operate in neighboring cities like Seattle and Bellevue — work with building owners and tenants to incentivize occupants of large buildings to use forms of transportation other than cars.
“I think it’s a very real concern that citizens have,” Howell said. “Yes, we need more housing, and we want them not to drive. We don’t all want to be stuck in congestion, so we need to figure out ways to incentivize them to live without cars.”
Research has shown low-density sprawl which incentivizes car travel can have negative public health and environmental impacts.
Residents also asked about potential delays in permitting for the new construction. Some worried that, with so many new residents set to move to the city, getting enough building permits approved in a timely manner could present a challenge.
The amount of time each permit takes depends on the building being constructed, assistant planner Danielle Marshall said at the meeting. The city’s permit services department currently has a “very quick turnaround,” she said. City Council member Ben Zarlingo also said granting more funding to the permit department could help plan for the increase in building permits.
The city is still looking for feedback on the comprehensive plan, as the plan is coming from “your dollars,” said the city’s long-range planning manager, Aliza Ann Wetzel. Residents can submit comments at everettwa.gov/2044.
“It’s you who actually changes things, by your comments and your discussions with your planning commissioners and everyone else to say ‘We want to have a city that is livable for a whole host of ways, we don’t want a city that is dominated by vehicles,’” Wetzel said. “Those are the things you have to say. I can stand here and say it, but I’m not the person who is experiencing it day in and day out. It comes stronger from you.”
Will Geschke: 425-339-3443; william.geschke@heraldnet.com; X: @willgeschke.
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