The City of Sammamish Parks and Recreation Department, and landscape architecture consultant The Berger Partnership have presented their final draft of plans for the Sammamish Landing Park on the north-eastern shore of Lake Sammamish.
Their vision is the result of many months of public consultation and study, and according to the city’s parks director Jessie Richardson, seeks to provide a balance between the various recreational demands, which include swimming, picnicking and hiking, and preserving the ecology of the area.
But the plan presented to a special council study session on Monday, Sept. 14 is unlikely to be adopted without some changes.
The most significant of these is the probable exclusion of a pedestrian bridge from a parking lot on the east side of East Lake Sammamish Parkway, across the parkway, to the lake’s edge.
Although, as it stands, the final plan includes a pedestrian bridge, Richardson said that because of engineering and cost issues, it would most likely be cut from future revisions of the plan.
“It presents quite an engineering challenge,” she said.
Richardson put a ballpark figure for the cost of such a bridge in the $800,000 range, and said “we do believe that those dollars could be better spent elsewhere.”
“I think we will see that structure come out in the next plan.”
Instead, the city and consultants are looking at the feasibility of a pedestrian crossing across the parkway.
“Public works have said that a crossing would be possible,” Richardson said.
Following their first look at the final plan, Richardson said that a number of councilors directed her department to explore options for providing a larger beach area.
The plan includes one main beach area, with a number of smaller beach “pockets.”
However any expansion of one beach area will result in a reduction of beach areas elsewhere in the park, as the city will limited by regulations regarding what percentage of the park’s shoreline area can be used as public swimming area.
The city’s Shoreline Master Program (SMP), still to be ratified by the Washington Department of Ecology, states that an area of up to 25 percent of the vegetation enhancement area may be used as an active use area.
“I’m not sure how many of those pocket beaches will remain, once we revise that main beach,” Richardson said.
One of the difficulties facing her department is the progress of the city’s SMP, which will soon be sent to the Department of Ecology for review.
Any changes to shoreline regulations will obviously impact plans for the Sammamish Landing Park, and so Richardson is hesitant of setting anything in stone before the SMP is finalized.
For a complete copy of the Landing Park plan, go to /www.ci.sammamish.wa.us
