EVERETT — After a contentious public hearing on Wednesday, a divided Snohomish County Council voted 3-2 to approve a request by the city of Snohomish to annex the 241-acre North Lake Urban Growth Area.
Council members Megan Dunn, Strom Peterson and Jared Mead voted to approve the interlocal agreement for the annexation while members Nate Nehring and Sam Low voted against.
North Lake is north of 22nd Street in Snohomish and east of Highway 9. More than 200 people live in the area.
Under the interlocal agreement finalized by the city on Aug. 19 and approved by the county on Wednesday, North Lake could become part of Snohomish after a 45-day review process by the Boundary Review Board of Snohomish County, triggered once the city submits a Notice of Intention to Annex.
At Wednesday’s hearing, several North Lake residents who live in the North Ridge neighborhood spoke in opposition to the annexation and asked that their neighborhood be removed from the urban growth area.
“We would like to be left out of the annexation into the city of Snohomish,” North Ridge resident Rod Hovde said during the public hearing. “We are getting no benefit for being annexed in.”
Low went to North Lake on Saturday to knock on doors and speak with the residents, he said during the public hearing.
“I did almost half the doors of the 122 households. Only three households said that they wanted to be annexed into the city of Snohomish,” he said. “My constituents don’t want this. My constituents are happy where they’re at.”
North Ridge is the most densely populated neighborhood in North Lake, with over 40 homes. Residents there have campaigned to be removed from the urban growth area since the city’s public hearing on Aug. 19.
During that hearing, North Ridge resident Nina Celestine said that the neighborhood had no desire for city sewer or water services.
At that time, Snohomish Public Works Director Nova Heaton said the city is “not interested” in taking over existing water systems in North Lake. “They don’t meet our current standards,” she said.
Only new developments would need to build sewer and water lines connected to the city.
In a letter to the County Council, North Ridge resident Jesse Podoll said the neighborhood’s water system is owned by the residents who purchase water from Everett. Annexing would make the system “more expensive to operate, and we will now have additional layers of governance, such as permits and licenses that did not exist before,” the letter said.
Snohomish City Administrator Heather Thomas-Murphy said the annexation will have no bearing on their water corporation.
“We do not govern or permit independent water systems, that is through Washington State Department of Health,” she wrote in an email.
North Ridge resident Mike Gallagher said during the county hearing that residents didn’t want developers building more houses in a neighborhood already “maxed out.”
“What they want to do is rezone our lots so that they can be sold to developers and they can develop our neighborhood,” he said. “We don’t want to grow.”
The area surrounding North Ridge is planned for single-family homes, the city’s website says. Other areas of North Lake are planned for medium-density housing.
Snohomish City Council member David Flynn told on Monday, “Growth is inevitable the closer you are to a city and a municipality,” adding that people have the right to sell their property to developers if they wish.
“When the Growth Management Act passed 35 years ago, there was an expectation that cities were going to be growing,” council member Jared Mead said after public comment. “Cities have not, for the most part, grown nearly at the rate that we had expected, or that former legislators had expected — and that counties, frankly, need them to grow.”
The city’s annual tax revenue is expected to increase by approximately $90,000, Thomas-Murphy told The Herald in July.
Clarification: A previous version of this story said the County Council approved the North Lake annexation. However, the council approved an interlocal agreement for the annexation. Now that the agreement has been approved by Snohomish and the county, the city may submit a Notice of Intention to Annex to the Boundary Review Board of Snohomish County, which triggers a 45-day review of the annexation proposal.
Taylor Scott Richmond: 425-339-3046; taylor.richmond@heraldnet.com; X: @BTayOkay
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