The future of Tacoma’s waterfront is now up to the City Council.
The city’s nine-member Planning Commission voted unanimously Wednesday for an overhaul of shoreline rules, recommending the council approve it this fall.
The update to the city’s Shoreline Master Program includes some changes requested by industry. But it also would toughen requirements for companies to offer public access and places one prominent business in violation of zoning requirements, to name two controversial aspects of the 238-page plan developed over nearly five years of give-and-take with the public.
“As the City changes over time, so do the values and priorities of our citizens. Not all citizens agree on every aspect of the vision for our shorelines,” commission Chairman Jeremy Doty wrote to the City Council, telling members that the plan would “strike the appropriate balance between active port, industrial and water-dependent uses; public access to attractive waterfront spaces; and environmental protection.”
It would take a while for most people to notice the effects of the proposed rules. Even the company being targeted by the most prominent rezoning, Sperry Ocean Dock, will be grandfathered in.
The dock could keep leasing berths to the federal government for a pair of 685-foot Ready Reserve ships. But new uses of the site on Schuster Parkway would be restricted under the same rules that protect the waterfront along Ruston Way.
It would further shrink the reach of the industrial zone that once stretched all along Commencement Bay.
“The port has got to end somewhere, and I think there’s plenty of land in what we consider the port proper,” said planning commissioner Scott Morris of Pierce Transit, who proposed the zoning change.
Proponents of a public esplanade along the bay and the Thea Foss Waterway pushed for the change, including some who live along Stadium Way and see the ships as out of place near their neighborhood.
But commissioner Thomas O’Connor, a developer, said the industrial zone should include Sperry Ocean Dock and end at the salt marsh that blocks the company site from the new Chinese Reconciliation Park. He said the change would make it harder for Sperry to obtain permits to upgrade its property, eventually driving it out of business.
O’Connor voted for the shorelines plan reluctantly, “holding my nose,” he said. He said the commission improved it from earlier versions.
“I feel it still has a business-hostile tone to it,” he said.
The commission considered loosening zoning rules for several businesses on the east side of the Foss, allowing heavier industrial activity. But it ended up recommending that change on only one property, the Nustar Energy oil terminal.
Some businesses also have complained about proposed rules for public access.
The changes affect properties anywhere on the waterfront that are legally supposed to provide public access but can’t for logistical or safety reasons. Instead of getting a pass, they would have to pay to help improve access elsewhere.
One option would be to pay a fee into a city fund to benefit waterfront trails and other improvements.
Jordan Schrader: 360-786-1826
jordan.schrader@thenewstribune.com
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