City of Sammamish Director Community Development Kamuron Gurol, the man at the center of the city’s development of a Shoreline Master Program (SMP), can now see light at the end of the tunnel.

Gurol told The Reporter this week that he felt the SMP draft released on Aug. 7 represented a definite and positive movement toward constructing new shoreline planning policies for the city that will satisfy the requirements of the Department of Ecology.

He said there were times in the past few months when he was concerned that the process was not progressing as it should, as city staff and the council struggled to deal with the occasional hostile reactions of residents.

“With a process like this you start with the wide end of the funnel, with all the information, and you try to narrow it down,” Gurol said. “For a while there we were getting back to the very wide. But I think that now we are getting through what we need to, and bringing it back to a more focused point.”

Gurol said that while he had not had any feedback from the Sammamish Homeowners Association or individual property owners, beyond a few brief comments, at Monday night’s roundtable discussions at city hall he did sense a stronger feeling of cooperation and understanding.

Monday’s meeting was the first SMP discussion the city has held since the new draft was released.

“Compared to earlier sessions, where people were feeling much more fearful, and to some extent angry, I think that’s changed to a better level of understanding,” Gurol said. “There is still some skepticism as to how the city will administer a few of the words and phrases in the plan.”

These includes words like “reasonable,” and “feasible.” Residents are concerned that when it comes to evaluating “reasonable” ecological mitigation works on their property, planning staff might institute tougher requirements. Gurol said that it was a fairly simple matter to have these terms more strictly defined.

He said the purpose of Monday’s meeting was not necessarily to have everyone agree with what the planning document says, but to understand what it says, so in discussing it from here on residents were informed and had a good grasp of the details.

Despite solid improvements in the plan, there are still some items worrying homeowners. One of these is the issue of “non-conformance.”

A non-conforming property is one that, after passage of the SMP, will be in violation of one or more of its principles, such as being too close to the water’s edge.

Under the SMP, properties like this will not be required to do anything, and will be “grandfathered” into acceptance.

Earlier on in plan negotiations, the City of Sammamish Planning Commission had said that if a non-conforming property was to be damaged, say burnt down, to a cost of 75 percent of its market value or more, then the property owners would have to re-build the new structure in a new footprint, to ensure conformance.

This idea of having to move a structure that had been damaged through no fault of their own was not popular among homeowners. In response, the city council scrapped the requirement, and so under the current draft homeowners will not be asked to move non-conforming properties that are significantly damaged.

But still the term is bothering some residents, a number of which have expressed a fear that having their property marked as non-conforming will hinder their ability to sell it, get a mortgage, or have it insured, in a similar way that having a “lien” placed on a property is an official record.

Gurol said he had thought the council’s overturning of the planning commission’s requirement to rebuild damaged properties in conformance with the SMP would have addressed the issue for many residents, and was somewhat at a loss as to what to do with concerns about insurance and mortgages.

“I’ve not seen any evidence of this,” he said. “But I’ve asked folks to see if they can bring me any examples of how that might apply in the real world, evidence of anyone being constrained by having their property marked non-conforming.”

One of the more popular topics of discussion was the mitigation options for properties on Lake Sammamish.

What that means is should a homeowner not want to plant the required ‘x’ number of native species in a Vegetation Enhancement Area (VEA) along the shoreline, they can instead chose to, for example, remove their bulkhead, reduce the level of impervious surface on the property, or plant more plants elsewhere on the lot. Gurol describes this as “menu options,” a list of other things homeowners can do to fit the requirements of the plan.

He said that while this did take away from the city’s ability to closely predict what homeowners would do or what the shoreline would look like, it did accomplish the basic intention of the SMP.

“It’s the notion that, if you do the right thing by the environment, you will get some benefits.”

There was a good deal of interest from residents discussing Pine and Beaver Lake that this concept of menu options be applied there too — this is something the council will look at in coming weeks.

Some homeowners appear to be advocating this system of reward for environmental improvement. At one table, Sammamish Homeowners Association chief Mike Collins said he would like to see requirements for pervious surfaces, which are thought to play an important role in filtering water runoff before it enters catchments, increased, not just on the lake front but all around the city.

“Changing R-4 to 50 percent is okay by us. The more restrictive the better,” he said, before adding that the allowance of 70 percent impervious surface was a big number. It is also a number that exceeds that of other cities in the area.

R-4 refers to urban residential land that is predominantly unconstrained by environmental factors.

Collins also said that he, personally, favored the idea of common docks, that is, neighbors sharing a facility.

“But I can’t get that through my group,” he said.

Across from him at the table sat two such residents who opposed common docks.

“Good fences make good neighbors,” one said.

The city council will meet on Sept. 1 to discuss the new draft.