Lake Forest Park OKs trail criteria

  • Brooke Fisher<br>Enterprise editor
  • Monday, March 3, 2008 11:41am

They didn’t make it look easy, but they did it. The Lake Forest Park City Council adopted an ordinance that provides specific development criteria for city trails, most notably the Burke-Gilman.

“We are looking forward to working with the county under guidelines in the ordinance to make sure we end up with a great project to improve the trail,” said Council Member Ed Sterner, one of three council members on a committee to address the topic.

The issue of trail redevelopment has been heavily debated the past two years. The ordinance passed with a 6-1 vote at the Thursday, Nov. 9 City Council meeting, with Council Woman Sandy Koppenol dissenting.

King County officials plan to redevelop the 30-year-old section of trail that runs through Lake Forest Park. The three-mile stretch is the oldest of all and the redevelopment process has been controversial.

While the ordinance had considerable support from the council and homeowners who live east of the trail, Cascade Bicycle Club staff and county administration still aren’t completely supportive, although county administrators are open to working collaboratively to address issues.

“We are still committed to working with the city of Lake Forest Park on redevelopment of the trail even though we are not completely satisfied with the language in the ordinance,” said Thomas Koney, assistant director of King County Parks.

Cascade Bicycle Club staff are even less supportive of the ordinance. About 289 members of the nonprofit organization live in Lake Forest Park.

“What the city of Lake Forest Park did here is decide that they are more important than state law,” said club advocacy director David Hiller, “and that the 50 or so homeowners adjacent to the trail are more important than the law.”

The ordinance requires a Conditional Use Permit with guidelines for redevelopment. City and county staff have recently worked collaboratively to rewrite parts of the ordinance, which include no longer requiring an interlocal agreement between the city and county and reducing setbacks from 15 to 12 feet.

A last-minute change was made at the Nov. 9 meeting, before adoption of the ordinance, regarding speed limits on the trail.

While the ordinance originally stipulated a 10 mph speed limit throughout the portion of trail that extends through the city, it was altered to a baseline speed limit of 15 mph with lower speeds at areas that are congested or prone to accidents. The maximum trail speed throughout the county is 15 mph.

The original speed limit in the ordinance was one aspect with which county staff and Koppenol disagreed. Another aspect Koppenol doesn’t favor, but which hasn’t changed, is the provision for signs. The ordinance requires yield signs for trail users at driveways and roadways that provide access to fewer than 50 homes and stop signs for trail users at access points to more than 50 homes.

“I have no problem with yield signs facing the trail when there’s a high volume road crossing the trail, but I don’t support it for private driveways,” Koppenol said.

The recent changes have the appearance of making the ordinance more flexible, while they are in fact insignificant, said Hiller.

A letter dated Nov. 8, written by Kevin Brown, director of King County’s parks and recreation division, was delivered to council members by Koney at the council meeting. The letter outlines some areas of concern from the county’s perspective.

Issues of concern, according to the letter, are that the ordinance gives the hearing examiner discretion to deny a permit which is contrary to the Growth Management Act, project cost could increase based on requirements outlined in the ordinance, there are specific buffers and setbacks, and trail users must yield to right of way to cross trail traffic, which is inconsistent with state traffic code.

“If Ordinance 951 is adopted as proposed, then King County will need to take a close look at the viability of this project — whether or not to allocate project funds elsewhere,” wrote Brown.

Although the letter may sound slightly “harsh,” Koney said he made a point at the Council meeting to recognize that the city and county have made progress on a number of points of disagreement.

In terms of next steps, Koney said the soon-to-be-adopted county budget includes funds for the planning portion of trail redevelopment.

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