LAKE FOREST PARK — More than 50 people showed up to the Lake Forest Park Planning Commission meeting Tuesday night, mostly in opposition to allowing senior housing on property owned by the Lake City Elks Lodge.
The Planning Commission was directed by Mayor Dave Hutchison to put together a recommendation for establishing a senior housing overlay area for land adjacent to Bothell Way NE and NE 145th streets owned by the Elks that includes the Lake City Kidney Center, formerly Rite-Aid, the Lake City Elks Lodge, a large parking lot and several single-family residences.
The city has a growing number of seniors and no senior housing. In the 2000 census, 15.6 percent of Lake Forest Park’s residents were 62 years old and over. The city’s comprehensive plan also states a goal of developing elderly housing and that the city would give “priority to residential development that meets this need.”
But neighbors of the land say they bought into a single-family home neighborhood, and don’t want to see it change. Others said the city should consider developing a sub-area plan for this area that looks at developing a community center or a branch library rather than creating an overlay just for senior housing.
City officials contend that an overlay would better protect the neighborhood because it could require things like a greater setback from the road, open park space and vegetation screening, height and design criteria, and would limit density. If left to be developed as currently zoned, market value multi-housing such as an apartment complex could go on some of that land, causing more traffic and density impact than elderly housing would, according to officials.
But neighbors said if the overlay were not put in place, the single family homes would remain in place, and they want to keep it that way.
“(Putting senior housing in here) will change the complexion of our neighborhood,” one neighbor said at the meeting. Other neighbors expressed concern over increased traffic and accused the city of “giving in to the Elks” rather than doing the work of developing a sub-area plan.
The senior housing overlay would set the density maximum at 242 units, require the main entrance to the senior housing to be on 145th Street rather than 37th, require at least 30 foot setbacks from the street, pitched roofing and height limits, landscaping and screening and a park or open space on the property.
The Elks have expressed interest in developing senior housing on this property, and the Senior Housing Assistance Group (SHAG) has already received approved financing from the Washington State Housing Finance Commission for such a development, said Bryan Park, with SHAG. SHAG has expressed an interest in building a 110 unit senior housing facility on approximately two acres owned by the Elks along 147th.
The commission plans to present its recommendation on the proposed overlay to the City Council by December, and the council will hold a public hearing on the matter before taking action.
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