Some questions surfaced during our last council meeting (9/18/06) regarding Renton Highlands revitalization planning. The Planning Commission is reviewing zoning and text amendments that support Highlands revitalization, but we have not yet assembled the citizen advisory committee that is supposed to produce the vision for this area. A few citizens in attendance at Monday’s meeting spoke to this concern. City staff’s response was essentially that staff had considered the advisory committee an implementing committee which would work with the community to find ways to execute on the plan, but that the Planning Commission, Planning and Development Committee and Council would do the zoning and text planning. This explanation did not sit well with the citizen speakers, and considerable council debate ensued. I expressed my view that the advisory committee should complete it’s vision for the area first, and then we should align the zoning with the proposed vision. I also stated that this did not have to hold up revitalization; council could simply lift the building moratorium immediately, and allow anyone wanting to build at ten units per acre or less to immediatly get started. Finally, Denis Law moved that the issue be placed in a Committee of the Whole meeting, which I strongly supported. This motion, and it’s implications, was then hotly debated for a few minutes; but the motion passed.

Another issue raised by the above debate was the interrelationship and timing of the zoning, the Comprehensive Plan, and the zoning text amendments. Our city staff is working to have all three of the above documents updated by the end of this year…a noble goal, but increasingly unlikely given that the Highlands Advisory Committee has yet to be appointed. The zoning has not been the biggest issue. Sure, the zoning maps keep changing, which has been generating some confusion (and a bit of criticism), but there seems to be a general consensus that a reasonable up-zone in the Highlands study area would be okay so long as existing homes in good condition also remain conforming. Similarly, I have not seen the wide-spread challenge to those proposed comprehensive plan revisions that are not targeted at the Highlands study area. So the only area of great controversy, at least for now, seems to be the zoning text amendments that accompany the proposed highland zoning maps. Unfortunately, these text amendments have become so voluminous that they currently fill 93 pages, and essentially create some new zoning categories and requirements that have not been used or seen before. Considering the entire council has yet to be briefed on these amendments, and I (for one) will be looking for extensive public involvement and concurrence, it is looking extremely sporty to imagine these text amendments being ready for adoption in two to three months.

This is what I think we should do:

(1) Immediately lift the moratorium and allow builders to begin tearing down and replacing buildings in Renton Highlands under the current density limitations of 10 units per acre in the outskirts, and 20 units to the acre near Sunset.

(2) Jump-start the Highlands Advisory Committee, and include those citizens and businesses that have been outspoken on all sides of the issue as well as those that have been quietly watching and have something to add. Ask this committee to work to find their common ground (I know it exists), and then build a vision for a revitalized Highlands based on that common ground. Ask the committee to distill the vision into a narrative that the public and the council can understand (as opposed to cryptic zoning acronyms and ever-changing maps)…then get council and public buy-in.

(3) Ask staff and the Planning Commission to finalize zoning and text recommendations that support the vision established above.

(4) Council review and approves the final package.

Lifting the moritorium would infuse immediate life by getting low density reconstruction going again. Then, we could take the time to get the higher density Center Village planning right…so that all parties felt good about the process and the end result. I’m certain we can achieve revitilization faster this way than by fighting about it for another year ot three.