Faced with strife, Tacoma council has trusty weapon: Moratorium

They did it with digital billboards. Ditto with medical marijuana dispensaries.

And last week, Tacoma City Council members approved yet another – this time on new big-box stores.

Enacting a moratorium – an emergency six-month ban to halt certain projects pending further city review – has seemingly become the preferred tool for a council faced with thorny land-use issues.

Has the City of Destiny unofficially become Tacomatorium?

“One might wonder, over the last couple months, why so many moratoriums?” Councilwoman Victoria Woodards recently asked.

Three times since May, council members have approved moratoriums to stop the clock on controversial proposals coming before them. In doing so, they directed city staff and planning commissioners to use the procedural timeout for further study and to recommend a direction for council members.

By comparison, before this summer, the city’s council had enacted moratoriums just three other times in the previous six years. They included temporary bans on new “special needs housing” in 2005, on “planned residential developments” in 2007 and on a multifamily housing tax incentive in 2008.

Some council members say they’re reluctant to adopt such bans, but contend they often have no choice. Outdated zoning and land-use codes sometimes aren’t equipped to deal with modern projects and their potential impacts, they say.

“Absent any other tool, we’re stuck with the moratorium as the only solution,” Councilman Jake Fey said.

Such was the case with the city’s moratorium on new “PRDs” in 2007, Fey said, prompted by the sprawling housing proposed for the North Shore Golf Course.

That controversial proposal, which sought to develop hundreds of homes on land deemed as open-space, largely was guided by a 1965 city law that had never been updated, Fey said.

Policymakers often can’t recognize the potential impacts of some developments until a specific proposal emerges to expose flaws in city code, Fey said. That forces city officials to try to update zoning laws on the fly – via the moratorium – usually with permitting processes well under way.

“I think we have a systemic problem,” Fey said. “We’re going to have this circumstance come up again and again until we can get ahead of the work.”

But other current and former city officials and business leaders worry about the frequent use of an action meant only for “emergency situations” – a term largely left up to the council to determine.

“If it’s just a move by political people to prevent something they really don’t want, even though it’s allowed by zoning and code, then I think that is an abuse,” said Tom O’Connor, a longtime Tacoma developer and past member of the city’s planning commission.

Enacting a moratorium seemingly geared toward thwarting a specific project can send the wrong message to potential businesses and employers, others caution.

“I do know that it’s important to be exceedingly careful when considering moratoriums on private development,” said Bruce Kendall, president and chief executive of the Tacoma-Pierce County Economic Development Board. “Great care must be taken because it can send a signal to the marketplace that may be unintended.”

Stirred by citizen concern that a developer was stealthily planning a Walmart for the Elks property in Central Tacoma, the council last week belatedly approved a moratorium on new applications and permits for “large retail establishments” greater than 65,000 square feet. The action directed further study of potential impacts such projects can have on neighborhoods.

Asked if the council’s third moratorium in as many months was an unusually high number, City Attorney Elizabeth Pauli said: “There certainly seems to be a little bit of a cluster lately.”

But, she added: “It’s not uncommon. It’s a tool that’s out there.”

Far from the sole domain of Tacoma, “moratoria or emergency interim zoning controls” can be adopted by local councils and boards even before even a public hearing is held, state law says – so long as one is held within 60 days of adoption.

“A county or city likely has authority to enact interim zoning controls as an emergency measure to preserve the status quo while new plans or regulations are considered and prepared,” notes the Municipal Research and Services Center of Washington, a nonprofit that provides legal and policy research services to local governments.

Such temporary bans can be imposed for up to six months, but “may be renewed for one or more six-month periods,” state law says.

Other prominent local moratoriums in recent years include Lakewood’s ban on new mini-casinos in 2007, and Seattle’s “six-month” ban on new adult cabarets, which was extended repeatedly over 17 years until a federal judge struck it down as an unconstitutional violation of freedom of expression in 2005.

In Tacoma, when a moratorium is adopted, city code says the Planning Commission must consider the measure and develop findings and recommendations for the council.

“Being hit with the billboard (moratorium) and then the medical marijuana one within about two months, that really jumbled up (the commission’s) schedule,” O’Connor said. “There’s a sense of urgency to get smarter faster than you would usually. It doesn’t provide, in my opinion, a very well thought out or researched result. It’s knee-jerk.”

Councilman Spiro Manthou, who abstained from voting on the latest moratorium, said he worries the city could face legal consequences for using moratoriums as a tool to thwart certain projects rather than to correct city regulatory flaws.

“I’m not saying that’s what happened here,” he said of the latest moratorium. “And I think there are reasons to have them. But to me, it’s just not a good way to do business. Let’s just deal with the issue now.”

But in answering her own question – why so many moratoriums lately – Woodards sees them as a sign of an engaged council.

“What it says to the citizens of Tacoma is that your council is being very thoughtful about how it proceeds with your business,” she said.

Lewis Kamb: 253-597-8542
lewis.kamb@thenewstribune.com
blog.thenewstribune.com/politics

Staff writer Kathleen Cooper contributed to this story.