There’s planning, and then there’s the implementation of planning.
Planning is fun. Implementation is hard.
When it comes to the east side of Tacoma’s Foss Waterway, planning is outpacing implementation. There’s even a chance that the two will move in opposite directions.
Last Thursday, the city economic development staff filed an application to create something called an Innovation Partnership Zone. Such zones are the brainchild of state Sen. Jim Kastama, D-Puyallup, to help cities focus economic development efforts on promising new technologies.
South Lake Union in Seattle has an IPZ for high-technology. Everett’s IPZ is centered on aerospace, the Tri-Cities’ on biofuels, Spokane’s on biomedicine. Whereas state approval once brought money, now it only brings marketing clout.
Tacoma wants to concentrate on clean water technology, with the Center for Urban Waters at the core. It would partner with the University of Washington Tacoma and other public entities in hopes of attracting companies furthering cleanup of polluted waterways or purification of water supplies.
The city might further spur this so-called technology cluster by expanding Urban Waters with a second building on the Foss Peninsula. While several Tacoma council members seemed interested in the idea (it is already included in the city’s planning documents), at least one was skeptical.
Councilman David Boe wondered if the city has the political will to match its rules to its vision.
Urban Waters now shares a neighborhood with gasoline distribution businesses and warehouse and storage buildings. Access to this green building is hardly pedestrian- or transit-friendly.
Under current city policy, industrial businesses on the east shoreline north of the Murray Morgan Bridge can remain but can’t expand outside their existing property lines. The land use rules encourage a gradual transition to mixed use – office, light manufacturing, research and the retail and restaurants that might follow.
In truth, there is little demand for heavy industrial uses on the shoreline between the water and East D Street. And should the transition happen, property owners will see values increase.
Still, existing businesses with the help of the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber have been resisting the change. They succeeded in getting the planning commission to recommend lifting the ban on expansion on the shoreline. The commission also rejected a city staff request to broaden public access requirements, including encouraging the completion of the esplanade that begins on the west side.
The IPZ “makes sense,” Boe said during a council study session last month. “I’m just wrestling with the reality of the situation versus the dream of the situation. We have a vision for the east shore of the Foss that seems to be in conflict, at first blush, with how the planning commission has been looking at the east shore of the Foss.”
Mayor Marilyn Strickland summarized the tension between present and future when she said, “You can’t ignore the fact you have tank farms sitting on prime real estate on the waterfront.”
Then-City Manager Eric Anderson said last year that he thought the Chamber’s lobbying on behalf of Foss Peninsula industry reneged on a deal made to block a condo development on the east shore. To build Urban Waters, the city bought the land that had been approved for a condo project. The city then put in rules that called for mixed-use development in exchange for something desperately wanted by industry – a permanent ban on condos, apartments and hotels north of the Murray Morgan Bridge.
In a March 2010 letter to council members, Anderson warned that changes sought by industrial users may “unnecessarily limit prospects for locating other private sector research and technology companies proximate to Urban Waters, decreasing the leverage value of the City’s investment.”
Councilman Ryan Mello advised Boe not to despair quite yet. The council this month will consider the planning commission-recommended updates of the city’s shoreline master program. It has time to sync up the rules with the vision.
“We have a chance to make sure that happens,” Mello said.
Peter Callaghan: 253-597-8657
peter.callaghan@thenewstribune.com
blog.thenewstribune.com/politics
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