Reasons for Planning Commission decision | Letter

Planning Commission added the residential component to the Comprehensive Plan based on the following criteria

Planning Commission added the residential component to the Comprehensive Plan based on the following criteria.

1. Maple Valley housing availability is limited in this category. Part of the justification is to provide some housing for people employed in the commercial developments. Also, the city must attempt to provide closer to 12 percent of its housing in multifamily units in order to meet the (King) County wide goal of housing for all levels of income. If we ignore this goal, or attempt to put it off to the future, we risk the possibility of losing out on funding for county and state matching funds on infrastructure projects.

2. The desire is that much of the multifamily housing will be devoted to senior apartments minimizing effect on traffic and school district. Also some of the apartments planned for will be studio and one bedroom type minimizing the effect on schools.

3. Contacts with commercial builders, investors, and architects indicated no interest in developing commercial properties in Maple Valley.

4. Most of the vacant commercial land has been on the market for over 8 years with no brick and mortar interest generated.

5. Comprehensive studies showed that multifamily housing would generate the most income (by a significant margin)to the city in tax revenue.

6. City staff was unable to provide believable statistics to prove that commercial would generate greater tax revenue.

7. City staff provided minimal and untimely information from the Tahoma School District as to potential crowding in the schools.

8. The city has shown only lip service to promotion of EDC (Economic Development Council) and the IEDC (International Economic Development Council) report. In addition they did not present any targeted plan to with checks and balances to promote economic development in the future.

9. Planning Commission felt that with allowing some residential construction that the owners would hold the rest of the land for commercial development.

10. The approval of multifamily would provide maximum tax income to the city in the shortest amount of time. Thus the fiscal cliff could possibly be avoided.

I feel that it is very important to understand the process that Planning Commission used in making this final decision. They worked long and hard in what was very difficult in all the ways enumerated above.

Larry Lindstrand
Maple Valley