City council moves quickly, quietly, to ban one kind of development
In a short special meeting on Monday, the Gig Harbor City Council passed an ordinance prohibiting planned residential developments.
No applications for such developments will be accepted after Dec. 31, the council declared. The vote was 4-1.
Planned residential developments, or PRDs, have a contentious history in Gig Harbor, which has experienced explosive residential growth in the last decade.
Ordinarily, they are a tool used by both developers and cities to negotiate for mutual advantage — usually by trading more housing units per acre for amenities like sidewalks or green belts.
But critics say the city has in the past given away too much to developers and gotten too little in return. Overuse of PRDs became one of the issues that led to the election of an anti-growth slate to the present council.
“In my opinion, the past 30 years of council actions have greased development to the point where undesirable housing was created,” said Council Member Ken Malich in an email after the vote.
According to codepublishing.com, PRDs can “facilitate development of areas designated for residential use on the general plan by permitting greater flexibility and, consequently, more creative and imaginative designs for the development of such residential areas than generally is possible under conventional zoning or subdivision regulations.”
Council Member Jim Franich, who filled in as mayor pro tempore in the absence of Mayor Kit Kuhn, said the negatives far outweigh the benefits of planned residential developments.
“You lose a lot of consistency and predictability of what is going to happen in somebody’s neighborhood,” Franich said.
Franich said he wished the city had banned the practice 10 years ago.
“ It has been the intent of the council to reduce the density in all developments,” Malitch told the Gateway. “PRDs allowed higher densities. Originally, PRDs were set up to avoid the minimum lot sizes now desired by the current city council. We had to repeal the ability to change new properties into PRDs. This is why it was done.”
Malich noted that the city still had a backlog of 1,200 housing units approved under the old laws.
“The city needs a break to catch up with roads an facilities to serve the existing population,” he added.
Council Member Perrow voted against the ordinance.
“This was just another case of the Council not dealing with the symptoms but rather taking a meat-clever approach,” he told the Gateway later. “The results will be future neighborhoods with less robust native vegetative buffers, fewer common areas like playground and other amenities...”
Other unintended consequences, he said, would be “the public wanting more taxpayer dollars going to parks and playgrounds, complaints about few trees being preserved as part of developments and generally a less livable community.”
Perrow accused the council majority of rushing to eliminate PRDs before newly elected members are seated.
The council action also drew criticism from developer Kurt Wilson for what he called a “sneaky fast track,” bypassing a public hearing before the city planning commission, and passed at a special meeting with little public notice.
The ordinance was introduced on Dec. 9 and passed just a week later.
“You folks seem to push the limits more each day,” said Wilson, who runs SoundBuilt Homes, in an email to council members. “Why not follow the process? All we ask for is transparency and predictability to the extent feasible.”
The Dec. 16 meeting was the last for both Council Member Michael Perrow and Ken Malich. Council Member Spencer Albersold did not attend. Robyn Denson and Le Rodenberg will participate in their first council meeting on Jan. 13, 2020. There will be no regular council meeting on Dec. 23 because of the Christmas holiday.
Each member took time after the meeting to thank both Malich and Perrow for their service to the city.
In other action, the city council:
Approved an ordinance changing the selection process of standing committees. The city council will select committee members based on seniority. Seniority is defined as terms served as a city council member. The longest-serving council member gets first choice, then the others in order. Previously, the mayor selected committee members.
Approved and authorized the mayor to sign an Interlocal Agreement for inspection services with the Pierce County Fire District No. 5. This agreement empowers the fire district to inspect annually all buildings and occupancies except residential structures of fewer than 4 dwelling units.
This story was originally published December 18, 2019 at 12:00 AM.