Residents near North 152nd Street in Shoreline will wait longer to learn if the City Council will approve amendments to the city’s development code that will affect their neighborhood. Although a decision to extend a six-month moratorium on development applications until June 2 was unanimously approved on April 28, council members were less enthused about city staff’s recommended changes to the development code.

The amendments would set required transition zones or buffer areas between properties zoned for high intensity developments that are located across from single family residences. A moratorium was established in October 2007 to stop applications for such developments so the city staff could work on establishing transition requirements for 70 locations throughout the city — including one for a six-story senior housing development along North 152nd Street.

Still, the proposed amendments come up short, council members said at the April 28 meeting.

“Right now I feel like I can’t make the right decision,” Deputy Mayor Terry Scott said. “I don’t want to hold up development of this property when (a developer) has the right to develop it but I’m not prepared to make a decision.”

Several residents asked for something more from the council than the proposed ordinance offered.

“It may not be a rezone but it has the same effect,” Susan Melville said. “I don’t think we’ve come very far since September.”

Melville spoke specifically about provisions that would allow building inserts to be used as balconies in a possible development adjacent to her two-story residence.

“This really doesn’t do anything except give people the opportunity all summer to look into my backyard,” she said.

City manager Bob Olander told the council he believes developers will work with regulations if they are aware of specifics.

“One of the things we want to do in our development process is make it predictable both for the neighbors and the developers,” he said.

Olander said some residents were asking the council and staff to go beyond trying to handle transition areas and to reduce density. He told council members the moratorium was meant to address limited issues and density was a topic for a broader discussion around citywide visioning.

“(The ordinance) is not going to answer all of our questions but I think it’s a good start,” he said. “The moratorium is too small a vehicle to encompass all the different issues we are hearing about.”

Council members voted to table the discussion of the amendments to the development code to a special meeting on May 19 and were forced to extend the moratorium on applications for development to June 2 so it would not expire before an ordinance that addresses amendments to the code is passed.