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WOODINVILLE — At two hours and 32 minutes, it was the shortest Woodinville City Council meeting since February 16 — but it was not without its moments of contention.
The central issue at hand was whether or not to adopt Ordinance No. 504 to establish interim development regulations for the central business district (CBD) and general business (GB) zone.
Those interim regulations — an idea proposed by Councilmember Jeff Glickman at the previous meeting and agreed to, in principle, by a 5-1 council vote — include a temporary stay on downtown building heights, building sizes and design district boundaries.
Glickman has advocated scrapping the planning commissions downtown recommendations to "buy more time so the council can make some real city planning decisions." Again, it’s a question of growth downtown: how high, how wide, and where?
Two versions of Ordinance No. 504 had been prepared by city staff for council’s consideration: Option A, Assistant City Attorney Angela Belbeck explained, was an emergency ordinance which would become effective upon adoption but required five affirmative votes. Option B was a non-emergency ordinance that would become effective five days after the adopted ordinance was published and required four affirmative votes.
Mayor Chuck Price, who was absent last week, jumped in head-first when discussion started last Tuesday.
"I don’t know why we have to do an interim emergency ordinance," he said. "It’s no emergency. We can do this tonight ...We’re just an hour away ... We’re close. I can smell it ... It’s some kind of a mask to delay this thing."
Glickman immediately moved to adopt option A.
Council Member Bernie Talmas seconded the motion and then tipped his hand.
"There’s a potential sale of at least 20 acres downtown which is prompting these interim regulations," he said.
Council Member Susan Boundy-Sanders had an agenda to peddle and made that clear: "Mr. Mayor, you could put together your complete plan in an hour and I could put mine together in an hour and mine is a lot different from yours and I’m not going down without a fight."
She said it with a smile and a laugh, but no one smiled and laughed back.
Council Member Paulette Bauman appeared perturbed.
"I support the motion but I’m not looking at this as a stall tactic," she said. "We need to get busy. I’m not looking to extend this much past August 3."
Boundy-Sanders said she wanted a complete list of measures before making a decision on the look and feel of the final downtown code, which left the mayor shaking his head.
"I know, Mr. Mayor ... you’re making faces ... you don’t want to do that but the stakes are really high."
After taking public testimony on the topic — three citizens spoke — Boundy-Sanders spoke again.
"We’re leaving ourselves exposed to unregulated development," she said. " "I’ve done a lot of homework and my feeling is this council could use a lot more study time and a lot more familiarity with the issues."
Price shot back: "When we talk about protecting ourselves it looks like rhetoric for ‘The sky is falling.’ And the sky is not falling."
Glickman begged to differ: "There’s information in the community that several large big-box stores are in the process of acquiring land and contracts."
(To which the mayor replied, under his breath: "The sky is falling.")
Bauman cut to the chase, asking Planning Director Hal Hart if any developer had approached the city within the last week.
"Nothing of the nature you’re talking about," Hart said.
He added that small businesses call the city "all the time," but in the last week only a potential brewery had called.
Bauman pressed on: "McLendons? Loews? Fred Meyer?" she asked.
"In the last seven days, no," Hart said. "But I have talked to some of those interests in the last few months."
Glickman then said the council needed to step back and look at the big picture, and spoke metaphorically.
"There’s a push and a pull aspect to this," he said, " much like a bowl of spaghetti. If you pull on one end of the spaghetti when you’re deciding one detail, the whole bowl moves around."
He recognized that the council’s downtown vision differed significantly.
"We need to get on the same page and have the same vision ... so we can get a job done here. Where exactly (in the planning commission’s plans) is ‘Country Living, City Style?’ I don’t see it. I see Kirkland. This isn’t what the people elected us to do and it’s not the vision the community has."
City Manager Richard Leahy then suggested each council person submit a final list of downtown proposals but asked for a cut-off point.
Boundy-Sanders, appearing pugnacious, turned to the mayor and said the following: "You can try to smack me down but I keep bobbing right back up."
She said it with a smile and a laugh, but again, no one smiled and laughed back.
Price responded with "Are you finished?"
In the end, it was determined by a 4-1-1 vote (Councilmember Liz Aspen was absent) that the debate would continue to the scheduled July 6 meeting for first and second reading, after each council member had a chance to submit their list of downtown proposals to city staff.
For the record, Boundy-Sanders voted "no" and Councilmember Scott Hageman — whose voice was curiously absent throughout the debate — abstained.
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