Safety considerations and land-use policies handed the Port of Seattle two setbacks recently - one small, one large.
The small one is about lighting, or lack of it, on the docks at Fishermen's Terminal. The issue came up following one of the drownings a year or so ago at the terminal. A safety division of Labor and Industries recommended several changes, which the Port followed up on, said Port spokesman David Schaefer.
One of them was the installation of so-called bull rails, short barriers at the edges of the docks, and another was adding more ladders along the slips, he said. Another suggestion was to put in more lighting along the docks, particularly near the bull railings, but that was one the Port balked at, according to Schaefer. "We thought it was unnecessary," he said. "Our argument was, let's just put in enhanced lighting where the loading goes on [at the ends of the docks]."
There were concerns about the lighting the entire lengths of the docks as well. The Port was concerned that the lighting could affect navigation at the terminal and that lighting could bother nearby residents, Shaefer said.
For fishermen, lighting is a safety issue, they say. And official explanations aside, they charge that the Port doesn't want to put in the lighting because the agency is only interested in saving the equivalent of chump change compared to the millions it is spending on new docks at Fishermen's Terminal.
The matter ended up in court, where an administrative judge recently declined to drop the state case, as the Port had asked, Schaefer said. "The Port didn't think it should go to trial." A trial is scheduled for November, he added.
NORTH BAY BUMMER
The big issue, and one that has broad implications for the city, is the Port plan to develop its North Bay property above Terminals 90 and 91.
North Bay is in the city's Ballard Interbay Northend Manufacturing and Industrial zone, an area the city's Comprehensive Plan mandates should be preserved as it is to protect industrial, family-wage jobs. However, the Port has been hard pressed in recent years to find new industrial and manufacturing tenants for North Bay. So the Port has looked elsewhere, considering at one point adding residential development to the area.
That didn't fly, Schaefer noted. "The [Port] Commission took it off the table a couple of years ago." So the Port has shifted focus and is asking the city for a new zoning overlay that would allow a significant amount of office and research-and-development use on the site.
The Seattle Planning Commission and seven of nine Seattle City Council members have taken a dim view of the proposal. An Aug. 3 planning commission report to the council's Urban Development and Planning Committee chair Peter Steinbrueck takes the Port to task for trying to change the zoning.
The zoning at North Bay currently mandates a 50,000-square-foot limit for office use to "discourage large-scale, stand-alone office buildings from proliferating and compromising industrial areas by out-competing industrial uses," according to the report. "The Commission is concerned about the potential precedent this might set for other industrial proposals on industrial land."
The Port has made some progress and is currently in discussions with Korry Electronics about moving its manufacturing operation from South Lake Union to North Bay, Schaefer said.
But there's a catch, according to the planning commission. The Port proposal would give Korry a more affordable lease for industrial use than other similar leases, according to the commission report.
However, the report notes, the North Bay needs a large amount of work done on its utility and transportation infrastructures. But given a sweetheart deal with Korry, those improvements could only be paid for "by gaining higher leases from non-industrial uses at the site."
Still, the planning commission sees a potential Korry Electronic lease as separate from the Port's proposed zoning overlay.
A majority of the city council agrees. An Aug. 10 letter from the seven council members to new Port of Seattle CEO Tay Yoshitani encourages to Port to "sign a relocation agreement with Korry Electronics without delay."
The council letter also echoes the planning commission, charging that approving the proposed overlay "would signal to other industrial land owners that the city is not serious about restricting industrial land to industrial uses, and would set a bad precedent."
The council also recommended that space reserved for industrial use be increased to "substantially more than 50 percent of the overlay area."
By contrast, the Port's proposal calls for reserving only around 10 percent of the North Bay area for industrial use, said Stephanie Pure, an aide to Steinbrueck.
The council member isn't saying that none of the land can be used for office space, and research and development, and he shares the Port's concern about dwindling manufacturing growth, Pure said.
"I think the main message here is, we want to preserve industrial land," she added. Still, Steinbrueck is interested in sitting down with Port officials and negotiating an agreement, according to Pure.
Staff report Russ Zabel can be reached at rzabel@nwlink.com or 461-1309.
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