Everett to release final draft of comp plan

EVERETT — City staff are set to release a final draft of the comprehensive plan periodic update on May 30, planning staff said at the Wednesday council meeting.

The draft will incorporate changes based on public feedback made since a complete draft of the plan was published on April 7.

Changes to the comprehensive plan’s latest draft will include downzoning of certain neighborhoods where residents opposed changes, city planning director Yorik Stevens-Wajda said at Wednesday’s meeting.

Planning staff updated the zoning for two areas of the city — one near the Edgewater Bridge and another near American Legion Memorial Park — from a UR-4 zone to a neighborhood residential zone. Under the current comprehensive plan draft, UR-4 zones are set to have no maximum lot coverage — meaning buildings can take up more space on a property — and can be built one floor higher than buildings in neighborhood residential zones.

Some residents from the two neighborhoods raised concerns over traffic because of the UR-4 zoning.

Questions still on the table for the council to finalize include topics like neighborhood commercial businesses, a policy that could allow for small-scale shops to open on some corner lots throughout residential areas of the city.

The final draft planning staff are set to release on May 30 will be the culmination of nearly three years of work to update the city’s 20-year comprehensive plan. Cities like Everett are required to do so because of Washington’s Growth Management Act. The law, and the comprehensive plans the law requires cities to create, are intended to encourage housing development while reducing urban sprawl and encouraging multi-modal transportation.

The city’s planning commission is set to make a recommendation on the comprehensive plan to the City Council at its June 3 hearing. The council is expected to vote on the plan June 18.

Will Geschke: 425-339-3443; william.geschke@heraldnet.com; X: @willgeschke.