Leadership issues surrounding annexation was a big part of the discussion during a study session and Kirkland City Council meeting March 2. The council went forward with allowing annexation residents to join city boards and commissions and had an extensive discussion about the size of the three new neighborhoods joining the city.
The issue of how large the three annexation neighborhoods are in comparison to current Kirkland neighborhoods is one of proportion and ultimately money, as the city gives the neighborhoods grants for improvements.
As a result of the discussion, the council gave the go-ahead for city staff to start looking into how the neighborhoods in the annexation are officially drawn up after the annexation date, with possible changes to even out the issues. The grants that are given to neighborhoods could become askew if the issue is not resolved.
According to the city, the average of Kirkland’s current neighborhoods is 405 acres with a population of 3,760. All three new neighborhoods would dwarf that average with Finn Hill’s population at 15,200 residents on 2,605 acres, Kingsgate’s population is 11,700 on 1,248 acres and North Juanita’s population is 5,600 on 621 acres. Under the current configuration, Finn Hill would become the biggest neighborhood in Kirkland by nearly double the largest current neighborhood, South Juanita.
Staff members told the council that there are two main reasons for the city to be broken up into neighborhood. The first is for planning and to make sure that certain areas stay conformed to what the residents desire as far as land use control. The second is that it helps neighbors in a geographic area to communicate through community councils. In configuring neighborhoods, meeting spaces have to be taken into consideration, such as fire houses and schools. Geographical features are also important for boundaries.
The biggest issue will be what to do to even out the scale of the new neighborhoods in comparison with current Kirkland neighborhoods. City staff is planning to get out into the annexation communities during the spring and summer to find out what is important to residents and then work with the Planning Commission to create a recommendation for the council, which could be made as early as the 2010 Comprehensive Plan amendments in December.
When asked if current Kirkland neighborhoods could be merged or broken up, Planning Director Eric Shields had this to say: “I don’t think anything is verboten. But I don’t think the staff wants to suggest something that would ruffle a lot of feathers in the existing city. We were assuming that this is primarily an annexation area exercise. But, yes there have been some discussions, offline, about that by some people but we aren’t pushing that point of view.”
If a plan is not implemented before the annexation date some council members expressed concern about how long it would take.
“We have neighborhoods that haven’t had their comprehensive plans updated in 25 years and that doesn’t seem acceptable,” said Deputy Mayor Penny Sweet.
Boards and commissions
The council also made a move to allow new residents in the annexation area to help in the expansion process. The council passed a resolution 7-0 to temporarily expand some of the boards and commissions to allow annexation residents the opportunity to serve prior to the annexation date. The Planning Commission, which advises the council on planning documents and to specific texts of land use regulations, was expanded from seven to nine seats.
Others that were expanded by two seats are the Park Board and Human Services Advisory Committee. The Library Board was expanded by one seat with two of those seats to be designated for annexation area residents. There is currently one open seat on the Library Board.
