Chelan City Council discusses Comp Plan options

CHELAN – City Council commenced one of the last meetings including deliberation on Comprehensive Plans, Tuesday, Sept. 26. As the Comp Plan begins to come to a close, emotions began to seep through the cracks of a typically postured gathering. 

During the citizen comment segment of the session, John Olson gave a direct comment on this thoughts and opinions from the previous meeting’s conversation. “The last city council meeting on Sept. 12 was very enlightening and very disturbing,” Olson began, directing his opinion on the Comprehensive Plan updates discussed at last week’s meeting. “I apply the word disturbing to the following portions, among others,” he said, then followed by explaining a couple members of the council’s comments that he felt were less than favorable. “When I look at the Council, I see business people who are using their position to promote their businesses, or their jobs,” he continued, “almost every one of you have official gains by being here, I do not see people working to promote the health, safety, and welfare … of the public.” 

Next up at the podium for a brief speech was Steve Kline. “Goodfellow Bros, Inc.’s (GBI) most recent site plan proposal for the Three Fingers that was presented at the August 22 city council meeting would allow just 75 yards of public lake access,” said Kline, “which the public already owns, with no onsite amenities. The result would be just another ineffective access point similar to the other street-ends around town … GBI recognizes the public ownership of Boulevard Avenue,” he continued, referring to the implied road which runs horizontally through the bottom of each of the Three Fingers. “The entrance roads to the project cross public lands and in essence, the city is taking public lands without just compensation and giving it to GBI to enrich their project. There’s no community benefit here,” he said. Kline concluded his speech by voicing concern with parking availability for Sunset Marina, whether it is code abiding, and the possibility of the inadequate parking spaces adding to the already overcrowded streets in the W. Woodin Avenue area. 

After receiving citizen comments, Mayor Mike Cooney supplied a comment of his own, in light of previous statements, “this is always a dicey thing when we allow public comment, and we ask that it’s always civil. I will defend every councilmember as far as their service to the city, and I will do that as long as I am here. I know them to be good people and hardworking people … when I say it’s dicey, I mean that we can hear, but we cannot respond as a councilmember, so I’m going to do it for them.” 

Before moving on to other agendas, Cooney also took a moment to recognize Councilmember Guy Harper, as his term in nearing an end, “before we get to the last day of Mr. Harper’s service here, I want to recognize him as he has served over 16 years for the City of Chelan … he has served through thick and thin and we all applaud him.” 

Thrive Lake Chelan

A special presentation was provided by Thrive Lake Chelan Board Member Sarah Barnes. As she took the podium, beginning by introducing Thrive. “Thrive basically figures out any gaps for kids in our community, things that we might be able to figure out using community resources,” she explained, “things like homelessness, poverty, trauma, lack of family support – we try to find solutions for these problems. Our mission is to raise awareness, advocate, and empower the community to provide programs and services that meet the needs of the Lake Chelan Valley youth.” The program sets its aim at prevention of several serious issues in youths, including school dropout, hunger, and even suicide, offering multiple programs targeting the pre-teen and teenaged age groups. Some of the programs provided include the Teen Center, offering a warm meal and safe, supervised place on Friday and Saturday nights where teens can be off the streets; Helping Hands, which is a food need based program; Thrive Youth Advisory Board and Fusion Peer Mentoring. The mentoring program emphasizes on providing support and its success is reflected in the improvement in grades, behavior and overall mental wellness in students. After realizing the positive impact that the older classman could have on the younger classes, as well as input from adults in the community with the desire to help, the decision was made to expand the current peer mentoring program to include a new program which would resemble a big brother/big sister program. This expanded program, Thrive One-on-One Mentoring Program “is going to help youth reach their full potential,” said Barnes. “All the mentoring that I do, and the kids do, in the Chelan schools is under the supervision of the school district. Now … they will be meeting with kids and doing positive, enjoyable things, in public places,” she said, then provided examples of going for coffee, or going to a game. The program will still require the needed training and screening, but will allow the mentoring to take place outside the school environment. After working through the summer on building the foundation of the program, and receiving donations, the group was able to hire on Executive Director Tori Carpenter, who will be directing the program and matching up kids, among many other tasks.

 “I feel so special to be part of this program because I was a mentor … but more than that, I have been mentored, and in my experience, it has such an impact on the community.” She shared her experience with her mentor, and how it has greatly benefited her life, “she (Carpenter’s mentor) taught me that I could dream as big as I wanted to dream, and go as far as I wanted to go,” she explained, “now I can tell you with full assurance that I wouldn’t have this job if it wasn’t for her, and I wouldn’t be who I am today if it wasn’t for her.” Concluding the presentation, she provided statistics on the impact that mentoring programs have on a community, “young adults who have a mentor are 46 percent less likely to use illegal drugs,” she began, “81 percent more likely to participate regularly in sports and extracurricular activities … and those who have the opportunity, and have mentors, are 55 percent more likely to go to college. 

Zoning

The next presentation was given by Chelan Planning Director Craig Gildroy and Lisa Grueter of Berk Consulting.  To start the meeting, conversation began on the areas surrounding the golf course, and rezoning of some undeveloped land in that area. “The only thing, as council, that I think would be good for us to consider is that that is undeveloped land, currently Single Family Residential,” stated Councilwoman Kelly Allen, “single family is currently serving our residents, those who live here on a long-term basis, but once it goes toTourist Accommodation (T-A) it’s going to cater more to the tourism … I want us to make sure we’ve given it careful consideration because once is leaves Single Family and goes to T-A, it’s not coming back.” T-A zoning and affordable housing were key topics of conversation during the meeting. Councilwoman Erin McCardle voiced her opinion in regard to density bonus availability in T-A zones. As of the current proposal, the density bonuses are only available in the T-A Overlay, Special Use District (SUD), and Single-Family Residential (R-L). This is an option that can be suggested for addition to the Comp Plan amendments. “What we’re suggesting is that the City have a policy addition … we were thinking about if you up-zone than you would also require affordable housing,” said Grueter, “that was one option, we also have been thinking about if there was a new resort that would increase the demand for workforce housing … what we’re suggesting instead is to add a policy into the plan to all the city to require a housing mitigation plan, that would then get the City through the SEPA process to get that report and that would establish what we need to demand for housing as a result of a development, whether it was an up-zoned around or an already zoned area.”

Another zone discussed was the Northshore/Edgewater area. After some in depth conversation on safety concerns that up-zoning this area to T-A would create, including pedestrian and vehicle traffic, as well as line of sight, Council gave consensus to request the extraction of the rezoning of the R-L areas to T-A. 

Other areas covered in the comp plan proposal included the inclusion of the wording “to live and work,” in the Vision Plan, so it effectively states, “City of Chelan aims to conserve the qualities that make Chelan a great place to live and work while embracing sensible growth and change.” This was a suggestion by Councilman Ray Dobbs. Housing Mitigation coding and policies were also discussed, including options of providing workforce housing for applicable new companies or an in-lieu fee when workforce housing cannot be provided.

The next city council meeting will be Tuesday, Oct. 9 at 6 p.m. in City Hall Council Chambers. For more information visit cityofchelan.us.