Washington Senate Bill 5466 would allow high rise apartments in most of Lake Forest Park

By Vicki Vickiscuri...

Neighbors,

I would like to thank everyone who attended the CORE Community Meeting and the ST Drop-In Open House. We collected nearly 175 letters from community members at the ST Drop-in Open House, and we mailed hard copies of these to Sound Transit and to the City of LFP. We continue to advocate for bus queue jumps and a lighter design for the Sound Transit bus rapid transit (BRT) project in our community. We need all of you to become even more engaged, to help us keep the pressure on Sound Transit. Recently, it was announced that Sound Transit is moving its stations out of Chinatown. Strong community advocacy and an engaged press pressured the Sound Transit Board to rethink and revise their 2016 plans. Now, the Board is adopting “the preferred option,” which locates the new stations in Pioneer Square. Plans can change even late in the game! Do not give up hope for LFP.

See: https://publicola.com/2023/03/24/sound-transit-board-adopts-major-last-minute-changes-to-2016-light-rail-plan-skipping-chinatown-and-first-hill/

Tonight, I’m writing about a new concern that would further degrade the environment and quality of life that we value in Lake Forest Park. Washington Senate bill 5466 would remove Lake Forest Park’s zoning control and allow multi-family apartments up to nine stories tall in most of Lake Forest Park around our new bus rapid transit corridor (see attach map and commentary). Astonishingly, it would waive parking requirements for developers with the assumption that all new apartment residents would use the new BRT instead of driving their own vehicles.

Lake Forest Park is a small city (less than 14,000 residents) that will be forever changed if this legislation passes, and the concrete corridor of BRT is coupled with high-rise building throughout our community.

This bill has passed the Senate and is currently pending a vote in the House. We are asking for an amendment to exempt small cities like ours from the bill.

Please write to our House representatives ( Rep. Davina Duerr and Rep. Shelley Kloba ) and tell them what you think about this bill. For your convenience, you may cut/paste the text below in your response.

Thanks.

See: https://wacities.org/news/2023/03/20/impact-maps-for-transit-oriented-development-bill-released-reveals-broad-scope