Tacoma City Council Meeting - June 16th, 2009

Last night’s City Council meeting was a relatively simple event. No battles from the dais, but the public hearing did bring out a few voices with opposing views – particularly on critical areas changes. That said, here’s most of it …

PROCLAMATIONS

The mayor proclaimed June 20th, 2009 as Fort Nisqually Living History Museum Day on the occasion of the 106th anniversary of the Fort.

RESOLUTIONS

Purchase Resolution No. 37809 awards contracts to:

1. Osmose Railroad Services, Inc., on its bid of $573,270.85 for repairs to the Puyallup River Trestle.

2. Serpanok Construction, Inc., on its bid of $308,204.00 for stamped concrete crosswalk and sidewalk improvements in the Proctor and Fern Hill Business Districts.

3. Blue Line Transportation Co., Inc., in the amount of $175,950.00 for the transportation and distribution of various bulk asphalt products.

4. Tucci and Sons Inc., on its bid of $1,196,106.40, plus a 15 percent contingency, for a cumulative total of $1,375,522.36 for asphalt overlay on South Tacoma Way from South 38th to South 43rd Streets and from South 66th to South 74th Streets, and on Pacific Avenue from South 34th to South 38th Streets.

Resolution No. 37810 authorizes the execution of the Fifth Addendum to the Housing Cooperation Law Development Agreement with the Tacoma Housing Authority, in the amount of $888,720, for a cumulative total of $7,820,877 for wastewater infrastructure improvements for Area 2B of the Salishan Redevelopment Project.

Resolution No. 37811 was added to the agenda at the last moment and authorizes the partial reconveyance of a deed of trust for a portion of real property related to the William M. Factory Small Business Incubator.

FIRST READING OF ORDINANCES

Ordinance No. 27811 designates the Electronic Content Management System (ECMS) as a Special Project of Limited Duration. The total cost will be about $2.5 million over the next 5 years. This project should significantly increase the capabilities of the City to manage and search internal documents. Councilmembers Lonergan and Anderson noted that it will significantly impact the way the City does business.

PUBLIC HEARINGS AND APPEALS

Last night was the public hearing by the City Council on proposed
amendments to the Comprehensive Plan and Land Use Regulatory Code, which
includes changing the annual amendment planning cycle to begin July 1,
modifying policies for storm water management, updating the transportation
unfunded project list, revising critical area and other regulations, and rezoning property in the North Slope Historic District to correct an error.

AMENDMENT SUMMARIES

APPLICATION 2009-01: PLAN AND CODE AMENDMENT PROCEDURES – The amendment revises portions of the Municipal Code to reflect changes in State law, enhance outreach and public notice requirements, and clarify existing language associated with the annual amendment process. The revisions change the annual amendment cycle to July 1-June 30 and also change the deadline from December 31 to June 30 in any year for submitting an application to amend the Comprehensive Plan or Regulatory Code in the next cycle.

APPLICATION 2009-02: CRITICAL AREAS REGULATIONS – The amendment revises Critical Areas Preservation regulations to allow demolition of structures in critical areas, and activities in shoreline areas such as normal maintenance and repair of certain types of shoreline structures or developments (e.g. bulkheads, maintenance, dredging, piers, and docks) that are exempt from shoreline permit requirements, with a letter of exemption rather than a critical areas permit. A letter of exemption may include conditions to mitigate project impacts.

APPLICATION 2009-03: STORM WATER POLICIES – The amendment consists of changes to policies relating to improvements to storm water management within three elements of the Comprehensive Plan. This includes a change to the level of service standard for public storm water facilities.

APPLICATION 2009-04: TRANSPORTATION ELEMENT – The amendment adds ten projects located in the Eastside Neighborhood to the Unfunded Transportation Improvement Projects List of which one is a proposed pedestrian trail project that will be added to the Non-motorized Network Map. Adding these projects will make them eligible for future funding when it becomes available.

APPLICATION 2009-05: HMR-SRD – The amendment rezones one block that is located within the North Slope Historic Special Review District from R-4/HIST to HMR-SRD/HIST, consistentwith the remainder of the North Slope Historic District. The subject block is in the vicinity of North 4th and K Streets. The amendment corrects a previous mapping error.

APPLICATION 2009-06: CODE CLEAN-UP – These technical amendments to the Land Use Regulatory Code are designed to address inconsistencies, correct minor errors, and improve provisions that, through administration and application of the code, have been found to be unclear or not fully meet their intent. The changes include code text corrections, a Mixed-Use Center boundary correction, and a zoning classification correction.

That’s most of it …. any thoughts?