Citizens in Sammamish need to be aware that some landowners in the Southeast Quadrant of the Town Center seek a general upzoning of the entire Town Center so they “proportionally” can go from 90,000 square feet of commercial space to 300,000 sf—a 3.3/times increase.

This means the entire Town Center would go from the city council-approved 600,000 sf to 1.98 million square feet — or nearly a third larger than the entire 120-acre Redmond Town Center.

Our Town Center’s buildable land is only 100 acres.

Such a prospect for our Town Center would cause material harm to the established businesses in the Pine Lake (QFC) and Sammamish (Safeway) Centers. The economic viability of these centers would be threatened by such an overwhelming presence only a mile or two away and would likely result in vacant stores and harm the prospect of redeveloping these centers into more attractive commercial districts.

These landowners also seek a general increase in residential zoning throughout the Town Center so they can “proportionally” increase their density 20 percent.

A Town Center as applied for by the SE Quadrant interests would cause our roads to fail all over the city, resulting in either gridlock or requiring tens of millions of dollars that taxpayers would have to fund beyond the developers’ “fair share” requirements provided by state law.

The Sammamish City Council is tentatively scheduled to discuss the request Feb. 16.

Scott Hamilton

Sammamish