Tacoma is in the final stretch of updating its shorelines rules after five years of a grueling process that has included scores of public meetings and clashes pitting business interests against residents and recreationalists.
Once finished, the overhaul of the city’s Shorelines Master Program will include updated goals, policies and development regulations for 42 miles of city shorelines, including Commencement Bay and its waterways, the Tacoma Narrows and Wapato Lake.
But before the City Council can vote on the final plan and send it on to the state Department of Ecology for approval, council members will consider seven new amendments to recommendations made by the city’s planning commission in August.
The amendments range from the seemingly benign (a statement pledging support for a grain terminal offered by Councilman Ryan Mello) to the complex (a multi-part proposal with unique rezone elements hatched by Councilman David Boe).
Boe’s amendment, easily the most complicated, is also likely to stir the most controversy. It focuses on proposed changes to rules governing Commencement Bay and the east side of the Thea Foss Waterway – areas that have become key battlegrounds among stakeholders.
The public will have until Nov. 29 – the day the council is scheduled to vote – to comment. Here’s a look at the amendments:
Amendment No. 1:
This proposal, floated by Mello, specifically relates to the Point Ruston development site along Commencement Bay. The amendment would allow 24 mixed-use townhouses to be built 100-feet from the shoreline’s “ordinary high water mark” – 50 feet closer to the shoreline from where they’re now permitted. The more restrictive buffer theoretically was meant to ensure residents don’t attempt to take occupancy of a public shoreline.
What council members say: A proposed public esplanade along the shoreline that’s now part of the Point Ruston project “makes that whole (occupancy rationale) thing moot,” Boe said.
The amendment clears up “a glitch” over long-planned townhouse locations that have been approved by state and federal agencies, Councilman Spiro Manthou said.
Amendment No. 2:
Proposed by Councilman Jake Fey, the amendment relates to the “Walk the Waterfront” project along Schuster Parkway. It would direct staff to use $60,000 set aside to evaluate and select a single “priority project” from among three primary options for establishing public access. The options include a waterside esplanade, a reconfiguration of Schuster Parkway and improvements to the city’s existing but largely closed Bayside Trails. The amendment also would direct staff to seek funding for implementing the preferred option.
What council members say: “This would put us in a position to go forward with a proposed path, so to speak, along the water,” Fey said.
Amendment No. 3:
Proposed by Mello, this amendment would provide that, when developers opt to pay a fee in lieu of providing public shoreline access, those funds would be prioritized for projects to complete an envisioned “Dome to Defiance” walkway or other projects that enhance public access along Ruston Way, Schuster Parkway or the Foss.
What council members say: “The intent here is if you’re going to trigger some public access (requirement) because of your mega-development on the shoreline, that the preference for where your public access participation happens is where most people spend their time,” Mello said. Councilmen Marty Campbell and Manthou are concerned that, as written, the amendment could unfairly exclude funds from being used for worthy public access projects elsewhere, such as at Wapato Lake or the Narrows, in favor of downtown shorelines projects.
Amendment No. 4: This proposal by Mello would revise the intent statement for a deep water port/light industrial district along Schuster Parkway to include a special recognition for retaining the Tacoma Export Market Company (TEMCO).
What council members say: TEMCO employees have voiced concern that proposed rezones affecting Sperry Ocean Dock will create a “slippery slope” for the grain terminal, Mello said. “I wrote this amendment to be abundantly and specifically clear: This is not a slippery slope and we wish to preserve the TEMCO site for future jobs,” he said.
Amendment No. 5, part A:
Proposed by Boe, this amendment would create a unique district that would include the Tahoma Salt Marsh and Sperry Ocean Dock, creating a transition between the industrial Schuster Parkway District and the non-industrial Ruston Way Shoreline District. Industrial uses now permitted along Schuster Parkway generally would be permitted, but only under conditional use, giving the city more say on mitigating their potential impacts. It would also reduce the allowed heights for deep-water terminal facilities along Schuster Parkway from 100 feet to 35 feet and prohibit lay-berth facilities, effectively making Sperry Ocean Dock a non-conforming use.
What council members say: The amendment largely achieves goals sought by the planning commission’s recommendation to down-zone the current industrial classification that Sperry operates under, grandfathering in the deep-water port user. But while that recommendation would have prohibited new industrial uses at the site, Boe said his amendment creates a more subtle “transition zone” that would still allow industrial uses on a conditional basis.
Boe added the concept is based on the city’s 1988 Dome to Defiance Plan, which articulates “Schuster Parkway should remain zoned for industrial and deep-water moorage from the city waterway entrance through and including the Sperry Mill site.” The 1988 plan also states “ways should be found to make industrial uses and public uses compatible, including deep-water moorage growth,” he said.
Manthou said the amendment unnecessarily complicates things. “It’s almost saying the same thing (as the commission’s recommendation), we’re just putting a lot more layers of regulation on there,” Manthou said.
Amendment No. 5, part B:
This part of Boe’s amendment would extend a portion of the industrial rezone proposed by the planning commission for the Foss’ east side further along East D Street to either of two possible locations now under a mixed-use classification. The first alternative would extend the industrial zone south from the NuStar tank farms to include Urban Waters and Conoco Phillips, stopping just before the Youth Marine Center.
The second alternative would pull the industrial zoning all the way down to the Murray Morgan Bridge, to include Urban Waters, Conoco Phillips, the Youth Marine Center, and the Globe and Olympic Chemical properties.
Major differences between the mixed-use zone and the industrial zone include: View corridor requirements (mixed-use requires at least 30 percent of shoreline frontage be reserved as a view corridor; industrial has no such requirements); Foss Waterway design guidelines (new developments within mixed-use are subject to the guidelines) and water-adjoining conditional uses (restaurants or retail businesses allowed in mixed-use are prohibited in industrial).
What council members say: Boe said past city actions that eliminated residential use from the mixed-use district effectively killed its functionality. “You need residential density to really create the demand for the shops and the retail and the livability and the pedestrian access and all those other things,” he said.
Boe prefers the first alternative as way to promote the city’s investment in its Murray Morgan Bridge improvements, creating mixed-use potentials on either side of the bridge. But Campbell and Manthou prefer the second alternative – extending the industrial zone to the bridge. “It gives more consistency, more of a bright line,” Campbell said. Amendment No. 6:
This amendment, also floated by Boe, would extend a public esplanade requirement around the entirety of the mixed-use district on the Foss’ east side, depending on where the council decides the district’s boundaries should end. The planning commission recommended halting the esplanade requirement at East 11th Street.
What council members say: With the commission’s recommendation to eliminate the esplanade requirement, “you’ve made it nothing,” Boe said. This amendment would “at least still (have) the public esplanade requirement” for any areas that remain in the mixed-use district, he said.
Amendment No. 7:
Proposed by Fey and Boe, this amendment requires changing the city’s building code to implement design standards for residential development on the Foss’ east side south of 11th Street, to mitigate impacts that residential development could have on industrial uses east of East D Street. It also requires notification to prospective buyers of residential units on the East Foss that such units would be in close proximity to industrial uses.
Lewis Kamb: 253-597-8542
lewis.kamb@thenewstribune.com
blog.thenewstribune.com/politics
Twitter: @lewiskamb
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