The North/East Cities (NEC) municipal jail planning group launched the environmental review portion of the process to identify a site for a new regional misdemeanant jail on Dec. 18. This is part of an ongoing, comprehensive process as the cities plan for a single 640-bed municipal jail facility to replace the jail beds they are losing in King County jails when their contract with the county ends.
The NEC is composed of 23 cities, including Bellevue, Kirkland, Redmond, Seattle and Shoreline.
The public scoping process is the first step in the overall environmental review effort. The public scoping period will run through Jan. 30, 2009. Per State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) regulations, the required Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) scoping period is a minimum of 21 days. To encourage public participation in the process, the EIS scoping period for the NEC Regional Municipal Jail will be extended to 43 days and a total of six public meetings will be held. These additional steps constitute “expanded scoping” under SEPA.
The six EIS scoping meetings in January 2009 will be focused specifically on gathering comments on the scope of the EIS that will address environmental impacts of potential development of a regional misdemeanant jail. These meetings are in addition to the public forums that have already taken place for each site and are a formal part of the SEPA process. The dates and locations for the EIS scoping meetings are:
• Jan. 6, from 6 p.m. to close of comments – in the Auditorium, W404, at Lake Washington Technical College, located at 11605 132nd Ave. NE., Kirkland;
• Jan. 7, from 6 p.m. to close of comments – in the Theater at Shoreline Community College, located at 16101 Greenwood Ave. N., Shoreline;
• Jan. 8, from 6 p.m. to close of comments – in the Bertha Knight Landes Room at Seattle City Hall, located at 600 Fourth Ave. (between Cherry and James Streets), Seattle;
• Jan. 13, from 6 p.m. to close of comments – in the Brockey Conference Center at South Seattle Community College, located at 6000 16th Ave. SW., Seattle;
• Jan. 14, from 6 p.m. to close of comments – in the Olympic Room at the Seattle Center, located at 225 Mercer Street, Seattle; and
• Jan. 15, from 6 p.m. to close of comments – on Level 4, Rooms 404 and 405 of The Meydenbauer Center, located at 11100 NE Sixth St., Bellevue.
Doors will open at 6 p.m. and the formal program will begin at 6:30 p.m. for all scoping meeting.
At the end of the scoping period, the scope for the EIS will be finalized. The EIS will address any potential significant and adverse environmental impacts of building the new facility including site selection, land use regulatory and/or zoning changes and future permits that would be required for construction and development of the jail facility at a selected site.
The potential sites under consideration are:
•King County Jail Annex, southeast corner of the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Jefferson Street, Seattle
•Seattle north: 1600 W. Armory Way
•Seattle south: Highland Park Way Southwest &West Marginal Way Southwest
•Bellevue: 555 116th Ave. NE
•Shoreline: 2545 NE 200th St.
•Unincorporated King County: 13225 NE 126th Pl.
The cities are early in the planning process of studying alternative sites and then identifying a preferred site.
Decisions regarding which cities will ultimately be partners in a regional jail and the preferred location for the facility are not expected until 2010.
Written comments regarding the scope of the Environmental Impact Statement may be sent via e-mail at: MunicipalJailSEPA@Seattle.gov. Submittal of written comments regarding the EIS scope may be made to Diane Sugimura, Director of Department of Planning and Development, c/o Andy Ishizaki, NEC Regional Municipal Jail EIS, 700 Fifth Ave., Suite 5200, P.O. Box 94689, Seattle, WA 98124-4689, Phone: 206-233-2027. Written comments must be received by Jan. 30, 2009. For accommodations and translation services at the EIS Scoping meetings, please contact The Keller Group at 425-788-8990.
For more information, log onto http://www.necmunicipaljail.org/
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