Despite petition, Lake Stevens OKs rezone for new 96-home development

LAKE STEVENS — A proposed development with 96 townhomes in Lake Stevens is one step closer to reality.

In a unanimous vote Tuesday evening, the City Council approved a request for denser zoning for the 10-acre property at 10720 S. Lake Stevens Road.

The next step for the developer is to get its construction plan approved by the city.

The rezone faced resistance from some residents, who worried about the impact of the higher density on the neighborhood. The property south of the lake is mostly forested, apart from a few buildings, according to a city document. Though it’s close to some higher-density zones, the proposed development will be denser than its neighbors to the north, west and east.

Lake Stevens has grown significantly in recent years, from a population of 28,069 in 2010 to 35,630 in 2020. In 2021, the city annexed 500 acres of land on its southeast side. The same year, it annexed about 70 acres to the northeast. A long-awaited Costco in Lake Stevens, which finally opened in late 2022, is just a few minutes away by car from the proposed development site.

Westcott Homes applied for the rezone in April 2023.

In the ensuing year, the city and developer made adjustments to the proposed development’s layout and added “additional measures for traffic mitigation,” Lake Stevens Principal Planner Melissa Place wrote in an email.

The rezone and “preliminary plat,” or map of the proposed subdivision, have to be reviewed at the same time, Place noted.

Last week, a hearing examiner recommended the council approve the rezone. The examiner, Phil Olbrechts, wrote the rezone addresses a need for more moderate-income housing and will help the city meet the 50,952 population target for 2044 set by the county. Under state law, the city must plan for housing across a range of incomes, he wrote.

Before Tuesday’s discussion began, City Attorney Greg Rubstello told the council they couldn’t make their decision “based on discretion” because the rezone was a “quasi-judicial matter.”

“Whether they think it’s a good idea for the rezone or not, that’s not the issue,” he said at the meeting. “The issue before them is whether the applicant has complied with all the city code requirements and whether the conditions of approval imposed by the hearing examiner are reasonable.”

A petition opposing the rezone, posted last year, had garnered 310 signatures as of Tuesday afternoon. The petition urged the city to “find a reasonable solution that supports similar zoning of adjacent neighborhoods.”

The rezone is just east of a small neighborhood of single-family houses, which will now be flanked by denser housing on three sides. Olbrechts’ recommendation acknowledged the “unfortunate effect” of the change, but noted Snohomish County’s 2044 population target for Lake Stevens is beyond the city’s capacity with its current zoning.

Olbrechts added that half of the property will remain undeveloped “due to wetlands and steep slopes.”

Aric Turner, the petition’s organizer, spoke at the meeting Tuesday.

“We are not trying to stop building,” he said. “What we want is our concerns to be addressed.”

Among those concerns are the drainage from the development ending up in the lake and the height of the buildings. Residents in the townhouses, he said, would be 60 feet above street level “looking down into the backyards of neighbors.”

Turner also suggested the townhomes will sell at high prices, not in line with affordable housing goals. He pointed to the fact half the site will not be developed. So all 96 townhouses will be on the other side, making the development denser than it seems in the request.

Olbrechts noted in his recommendation that public commenters at a February public hearing raised concerns about traffic congestion and safety, stormwater runoff and overcrowding in local schools.

Another commenter Tuesday echoed some of those worries.

The commenter, who said she lived in an adjacent neighborhood, said traffic is already bad there. She added she was a substitute teacher in the school district and a nearby school is already overcrowded.

“I feel like there’s just so much development and there’s not really a lot of thought about our kids,” she said, choking up with emotion.

Schools will receive “school impact fees” to mitigate overcrowding, Olbrechts wrote in his recommendation. The school district also plans to expand, he added.

Traffic and stormwater are “heavily regulated by the City’s development standards,” he wrote, adding a traffic report showed the proposal met the city’s standards.

Sophia Gates: 425-339-3035; sophia.gates@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @SophiaSGates.