Mini-city plan could be turning point for Snohomish land-use policy

It's the kind of community where Ramona O'Connor can swing by the general store in her fuzzy pink Mickey Mouse pajama bottoms, to pick up a couple of lattes, without thinking twice about how she looks.

Where toy firetrucks are parked among the daffodils ringing the flagpole outside the all-volunteer fire station — and nobody steals them. Where neighbors share stories about the local bobcat, who likes to sit on the porch and stare through windows at the house cats. Where many cellphones still can't pick up a signal.

O'Connor was in sixth grade when she came to live with her grandmother, Eileen Pelkey, in 1979. Twelve years ago, she moved back onto Pelkey's property, just east of Lake Roesiger, and commutes to her nursing job in Everett. Pelkey — who died 10 days ago — remains "Mom" in her heart.

"Mom used to milk a cow and sell milk and eggs to the judge who lived next door — which of course was a mile away," she laughed, recalling the late Justice William Goodloe of the state Supreme Court.

But her smile faded when she contemplated a mind-boggling development proposed for a 3,000-acre dome of forestland rising above the country lake's western shoreline.

The landowner has hired people who oversaw the creation of major master-planned communities, including Snoqualmie Ridge, to help him win Snohomish County's blessing for a 6,000-home mini-city with shops, schools, jobs, parks and a golf course.

While most of the new community would lie out of sight of the existing Lake Roesiger neighborhood, it would spill over the top of the plateau, which affords lovely views of the lake, the Cascades and the Olympics.

And its estimated 15,000 residents would transform traffic patterns on the two-lane country roads linking the lake with Lake Stevens, Snohomish, Granite Falls and Monroe.

The state Growth Management Act generally requires urban-density development to be channeled into the urban-growth areas designated around existing cities.

But the law also allows counties to approve huge developments, called "fully contained communities," where in theory residents would live, work, shop and play without significantly affecting the surrounding areas.

Lake Roesiger's future lies in the hands of the Snohomish County Council, which has a new majority skeptical of the fully contained-community concept. Three of its five members — Dave Somers, Brian Sullivan and Mike Cooper — have taken office since the council's 2005 creation of a county policy allowing such projects.

Somers tried unsuccessfully in February to pass an emergency moratorium on the concept. His motion, which required a four-vote supermajority, failed 3-1. John Koster voted no, and Dave Gossett was out of town.

Now Somers is pursuing a more conventional strategy. Later this month, he plans to introduce a regular ordinance to create a six-month moratorium.

Next year, the council will consider changes to its comprehensive plan, and Somers wants to permanently nix the communities.

If he retains the support of Sullivan and Cooper, the Lake Roesiger debate could be moot.

That would please the Puget Sound Regional Council's executive board. Three weeks ago, the board endorsed Vision 2040, a regional planning strategy that includes a new goal: Counties should avoid creating fully contained communities "because of their potential to create sprawl and undermine state and regional growth-management goals."

County Executive Aaron Reardon unsuccessfully tried to remove that language, which he believes is an intrusion upon Snohomish County's right to make its own policy decisions.

"We believe fully contained communities are a better tool to allow us to grow and control the sprawl, while providing the key and necessary services to the citizens ... " he told the board. "I don't think anything prevents sprawl."

Reardon's comments provoked strong comments from a half-dozen other board members, including mayors and council members from cities affected by similar projects.

"We have one of these things, and it certainly has been devastating to all of Northeast King County," said Redmond City Councilman Richard Cole, referring to the 1,500-home Redmond Ridge, which is expected to grow by an additional 700 homes. "The traffic impacts — it affects Carnation, out to Duvall, out to Woodinville."

King County Executive Ron Sims was blunt. The developments had looked beneficial on paper, he said, because they provided private financing for public infrastructure such as road improvements. But they carried "unintentional consequences," he said.

"If we were at the point we are now, knowing what we know right now, I can assure you, you would not see the communities that we authorized," Sims said.

Jim Nyberg, a consultant to Lake Roesiger property owner Dave Barnett, scoffed at Sims' comments. King County essentially is "out of the business," he said, because master-planned communities already have been built on all available sites.

"If something was driving a fully contained community that was viewed as good for the politicians, they wouldn't say that."

Nyberg says the communities are beneficial to the region, providing a way to accommodate growth in a meticulously planned fashion. The Lake Roesiger project couldn't be built unless the county's environmental analyses addressed all of its impacts, he says.

In past instances, the only groups that remained opposed to the developments, once their true impacts were understood, were the nearest neighbors.

"It's very shortsighted to eliminate a planning tool because a community doesn't want to have one in their neighborhood," he said.

"Everyone wants to live in the country," said O'Connor. "And then it's not the country anymore."

Diane Brooks: 425-745-7802 or dbrooks@seattletimes.com