EVERETT — The Snohomish County Council passed an ordinance Wednesday to rezone more than 3,000 acres within the county’s Southwest Urban Growth Area, allowing developers to more easily build townhomes and other multifamily structures within less space.
Most of the rezoned land sits between Mukilteo and Mill Creek, south of Everett and north of Lynnwood. As of 2020, the population was 505,947. By the year 2044, county officials expect the population to grow by almost 225,000 people, according to the 2024 Snohomish County Growth Management Act Comprehensive Plan.
The approved ordinance designates a majority of the rezoned area as low-density multiple residential, allowing a minimum of six single-family units (townhomes, duplexes, etc.) per acre. Some areas were rezoned as multiple residential, allowing multiple dwellings within a single building (i.e., apartments).
This is in accordance with the growth management comprehensive plan, a 20-year plan that guides county development. “The Plan is also meant to reflect the vision and priorities of Snohomish County communities and residents, while meeting requirements of state and federal law,” the county’s website says.
The rezones are intended to streamline permitting processes, according to Ryan Hembree, County Council legislative analyst. Developers are already allowed to build at these densities in the Southwest Urban Growth Area, but they must submit site-specific approvals to do so.
Rezoning eliminates the need for the extra step and will bring down the costs of new homes, council member Jared Mead said in an interview Friday.
“That’s certainly my hope for this and my reason for supporting this,” he said. “The process is time-consuming and expensive.”
Streamlining the process and making it easier to build more houses will lower prices, Mead said. “It comes down to supply and demand.”
The county first heard the ordinance on Oct. 1. At the hearing, several people spoke against the rezoning. Most were residents of the Esperance neighborhood, an area entirely surrounded by the city of Edmonds. As of 2020, Esperance’s population was 4,007 people.
During public remarks on Wednesday, Colleen MacDonald — an Esperance resident — spoke against the rezone, noting the neighborhood’s possible annexation into Edmonds.
“Esperance specifically should be aligning to the Edmonds design codes because we are surrounded by the city of Edmonds, it’s consistent and that also addresses the potential future annexation,” she said.
Bob Danson, general manager of the Olympic View Water and Sewer District, which serves the Esperance community, expressed concern that higher density could put a critical groundwater drinking source at risk.
“Added density means more hard surfaces, more runoff and more reliance on infiltration,” he said. “In a recharge area, drinking water impacts cannot be mitigated. The only protection is really prevention, so that’s why we’re here.”
After public testimony, council member Mead spoke in favor of an Esperance annexation.
“My concern overall when it comes to annexation — and what I’ve heard from other cities in my own district about county development standards not being what cities prefer,” he said. “My concern here would be making it less likely that a city — the city of Edmonds in this instance — would annex this area in if it’s redeveloped at a high density at a design standard they’re not comfortable with.”
After the meeting, Esperance was removed from the rezoning plan and designated to a new ordinance that was referred back to the county planning and community development committee on Nov. 25. On Wednesday, the council approved the rezoning plan that excluded Esperance.
Karrie Wilson, a Snohomish County resident, was one of the few people who spoke against the rezoning in its entirety.
“The ramifications of the ordinance affect traffic, public safety, people’s mental health, as well as the very environment we are trying to protect,” she said during the hearing on Wednesday. “I am most opposed to this ordinance. Please think critically before you make future decisions.”
Wilson also told The Herald she thought it a “slap in the face” to hold the hearing after thousands of people lost power due to the previous days’ windstorms.
“As a courtesy to the public, it should have been postponed,” she told The Herald. Not postponing was “very deceitful for the people who we voted into office to do.”
The council was required to hold the hearing on the scheduled day, according to County Council spokesperson Cassie Fannin in an email.
“Given the flexibility of the Zoom platform for participation by phone and the many prior opportunities for the Council to hear from the public on this matter, a continuance was not proposed,” she said. “This ordinance was originally introduced in late August, and the Council engaged with it as a topic in five public meetings.”
During the meeting, there was a 300-customer outage impacting the south Everett and north Lynnwood area, said Aaron Swaney, spokesperson for Snohomish Public Utility District, in an email.
“That’s considered few outages for us in that part of the service area, especially considering the storm that blew in,” he said.
Taylor Scott Richmond: 425-339-3046; taylor.richmond@heraldnet.com; X: @BTayOkay
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