City Council members abandoned the chambers Monday morning, and took a hike. They donned sturdy shoes and sunglasses for a 36-acre tour of Central Park Pad 5, where they puzzled over what should be done with the land.
The Issaquah City Council Major Development Committee met previous to the meeting with various city staff to work through questions and concerns regarding the Park Pointe development proposal.
The proposal raises numerous issues, but Monday’s meeting focused heavily on traffic, the fate of Central Park Pad 5, and impact fees.
Committee members examined concerns raised by Microsoft and by Highlands residents, the chief of which is congestion near Grand Ridge Elementary School. Some residents have suggested a second east-west road to alleviate some of the blockage on Park Drive, but Keith Niven, program manager for the city’s Major Development Review Team, said the only option for a second road would go through Central Park.
“Then you have through-traffic mixing with park kids, which is just a recipe to get run over,” he said. “I’m not sure anyone supports that.”
He said the reality of the situation is that traffic will always exist during drop-off and pick-up times, and the best solution is to create a second exit by removing a gate or something similar, which could be used during emergency situations. In the meantime, the city is continuing monthly meetings with the Issaquah School Board to develop better ways to improve traffic flow.
Microsoft, which owns 62 acres of land in the Highlands, is focused on making the site easily accessible; an influx of traffic is not appealing to employees. Microsoft officials have expressed concerns that the city is no longer following the traffic goals that were established in 2002, when the company purchased the land. Niven admitted that may be the case, but that the community may not be in the same place as it was when those goals were established.
“It’s not necessarily something that needs to be changed if there is a disconnect,” he said. “Ultimately, we can acknowledge that we’re in a different place now.”
A traffic consultant has been hired by the city to review the situation in the Highlands.
Committee members also discussed the possibility of adding additional buses during peak commuter times to encourage more residents to ride, a private shuttle system serving the Highlands, and a shared bicycle program.
The discussion of Central Park Pad 5 and the following walking tour, which led the City Council, a small group of Highlands residents, and Port Blakely and city officials on a hike through the woods, focused on possible uses of the land.
The parcel is about three acres, or approximately two and a half football fields, and could in the future be a playing field, a bicycle track, home to a retention pond, a web of hiking trails, or could even remain as it is. Hike attendees were shown where exactly these amenities could go, and were free to ask questions and make suggestions to the council. The City Council will spend the next several weeks in committee meetings with city officials, and listening to resident recommendations at council meetings in order to determine what is needed at Central Park.
The committee also looked at the appropriation of impact fees Port Blakely would be charged if it purchases the Park Pointe property. The slated $5 million for transportation mitigation and $3 million for parks improvements could possibly be reduced to $4.4 million and $2.7 million respectively. The money cut from those allocations would be used to pay police, fire and other general impact fees.
City officials hope to have the Park Pointe development proposal solidified by the end of the year.
Despite the myriad options to sort through and choose from, Niven said the council is making headway and coming close to decisions – and whatever it settles on will be successful.
“It’s like one of those weird, multi-faceted puzzles,” he said. “You can put the pieces together in a lot of different ways, but you still come out with a picture at the end of the day.”
