A Kirkland City Council vote on the proposed Lake and Central project didn't take place as expected at a packed-to-overflowing council meeting on Feb. 15.
There were simply too many speakers who wanted to weigh in on the mixed-use project that night, but a vote was expected at a council meeting on March 1, past the Courier deadline.
Mayor Mary-Alyce Burleigh noted that the council doesn't poll its members over issues, but she hazarded a guess at the outcome. "It's going to be a close vote, I think," she said.
Whether that's true or not, the majority of speakers at the Feb. 15 meeting slammed the Milliken Martin LLC project. In addition, a steering committee heavily weighted with members of Citizens for a Vibrant Kirkland (CiViK), which opposes the development, recommended unanimously that the project not proceed.
City Manager Dave Ramsay said he set up the steering committee so that half would represent the interests of residents, who were chosen by CiViK, while half would represent the interests of businesses and downtown organizations, which picked their own representatives.
The steering committee, in its report to the City Council, noted that the group had met six times and sponsored four community workshops about the project.
Hundreds of people attended the workshops, and according to a survey the steering committee took, 74 percent of respondents thought the combination condo and retail project would change the small-town charm of Kirkland for worse.
Passions ran high at one of those workshops at Lake Washington High School, according to Burleigh. "There were four or five of the anti-development folks that got very emotional, let me put it that way," said the mayor, who reluctantly added that city staff members were shouted at during the meeting.
Jeff Leach - a steering committee member and CiViK president - said the project did not adequately address community concerns, even though the developers have scaled back the original four-story project to include deeper setbacks on upper floors, and the project was broken up into several buildings, for example.
Larry Martin, of Milliken Martin, said the development would bring more retail choices to Kirkland, create active pedestrian spaces, increase connectivity and add new residents who would bring a new sense of vitality to downtown. He said his company has taken concern over maintaining human scale in the development to heart. "We are very proud of the proposal we have put forward," Martin said.
A clearly irritated Don Milliken, of Milliken Martin, said that the city chose his company two years ago, added that it took nine months to forge an agreement with U.S. Bank to become part of the project, and revealed that more than $500,000 has been spent on planning so far. "We've spent this time and money in good faith," he added.
Opposition to the project, he charged, is based on a very vocal minority. "They are a self-serving, non-elected group. Their statements should be taken with a grain of salt," Milliken said. "Are we self-interested?" he asked. "You bet, but we pursued this project because Kirkland was on the right track."
John Overleese sided with the developers. The project meets city zoning codes, support the goals of the Downtown Action Team, and would jumpstart an economic revitalization of downtown Kirkland, he said.
"The reality is we have a group of protestors who protest anything," said Overleese, who added that the project opponents are NIMBYs. "This is the time to get some backbone and do the right thing," he told council members
Leach denied that the steering committee was a NIMBY group. "We are definitely not a biased committee," he said. The group, he added, is not against development on the so-called "Main and Main" site, "just not this one."
Doug Davis, a steering committee member of the Kirkland Downtown on the Lake group, agreed. "The overwhelming response seemed to be that the revised proposal didn't fit ...," he said. Davis also questioned whether the assessed value of the property ($1.9 million) was accurate.
Replacing the existing 58 parking places on the site was also an issue for project opponents. "Proposals for onsite replacement public parking were not determined to be financially sound," according to the steering committee report.
The public parking would be replaced in a two-floor underground garage, according to the proposed development. But Tim Blanchard, chair of the Kirkland Parking Advisory Board, said his group feared public parking would be lost if the project goes through.
"I don't think we can solve our parking problem with this corner," said Kirkland resident Cindy Zech, who added that the guaranteed replacement of public parking is not a sure thing. "The community deserves a much better proposal," she said.
It was a comment echoed by Ken Schmidt, who said the project would make downtown parking 80-percent worse than it already is. He also said he agrees with what he termed as a majority of Kirkland residents who are pro-development but against the proposed Lake and Central project. "It is inappropriate, unnecessary and a bad business decision ...," Schmidt said.
Barbara Stolz said it was obvious how the city council should vote. "You must listen to your citizens," she said in reference to 74-percent negative response in the steering committee survey results. "How could they say it any more clearly?" Besides, Stolz added, a unanimous steering committee vote was "no small feat."
However, a unanimous vote is not strictly accurate. The Kirkland Chamber of Commerce was originally part of the steering committee, but a change in leadership and illness prevented a member from voting on the issue, said past chamber president Patty Smith. "We would have been the one dissenting vote," she said. "The sale should go through."
Downtown Action Team chairman George Lawson said that revitalizing the property was a cornerstone of the Downtown Strategic Plan. "I thought the planning process was excellent," he said of the developers' scaled-back version. Lawson urged the council to approve the sale "so that the opportunity doesn't slip away from us."
Davis, from the steering committee, didn't see it that way. He said the proposed project has served as a catalyst to bring a group of local residents together. Davis also said the steering committee would like the city to hold town-hall meetings so that the public can be educated about developing the corner in downtown Kirkland.
"It's not throwing anything away," he said of a no vote on the project from the city council. Instead, Davis added, a no vote would give Kirkland residents a chance to come up with "a unanimous vision" of what's best for the city.
Staff reporter Russ Zabel can be reached at rzabel@nwlink.com or (206) 461-1309.[[In-content Ad]]
