Community Government

City Council approves housing code update

The Gig Harbor City Council voted 6-1 to approve updates to the city development code, proposed by the Planning Department, on Monday, Oct. 27. 

New state laws on “missing middle” housing require the proposed updates, which will now move on for further study and community feedback before final adoption next year. Councilmember Jeni Woock voted against the ordinance and tried to add an amendment before voting.

Several councilmembers also addressed inaccurate statements Woock made at a previous council meeting. At the Oct. 13 council meeting, Woock incorrectly claimed that BERK, the consultant the city used to help update the development code, pulled density numbers “out of the air.” She also noted that BERK is the same consulting firm the state used in the course of creating middle housing policies. 

Two years of work on updates

 At Monday’s meeting, Community Development Director Eric Baker gave the council an overview of the proposed updates — the result of two years of work, including analysis of the new state statutes. “The densities that you see in the document are based up on best practices when it comes to multifamily construction,” he said.

“Higher densities are necessary to be able to address multifamily projects,” he explained. “Additionally, these densities were then analyzed through a capital facilities plan. That capital facilities plan looked at the potential growth of jobs, housing, and people in our community and analyzed what impacts that would have on our roadways, what impacts that would have on our sewer system, water system, schools, et cetera.”

He also said that the city maintains a list of transportation and other expected projects needed to meet infrastructure needs for any developments, as well as traffic impact and capital facilities analyses. Planning Department staff will review all of that.

“We’ve considered the impacts of development, both on the front end of the comprehensive plan and also when projects come in to ensure that to the best of our ability, growth is paying their share, which is what we can require of growth,” Baker said.

Read our previous story for more information about the housing code update.

Not ‘pulled out of the air,’ Baker says

During council discussion, Rodenberg addressed Woock’s Oct. 13 statement that the numbers were “pulled out of the air, and that the consultant that we used was the same one as the Department of Commerce uses.”

“Is that a true statement?” Rodenberg asked Baker.

“I wouldn’t classify them as pulled out of the air,” Baker said. “They are, again, consistent with numerous other jurisdictions with a longer history with multifamily and single family attached housing. These are numbers that in many ways can be viewed as on kind of the low end when it comes to multifamily and single family attached housing, which again is the housing that we are looking to establish.”

BERK consulting

He confirmed that the city used BERK. But he said that while the consultant helped the state establish the methodology for municipalities to come up with housing targets, it did not establish specific state-level targets.

“That actually was established through the countywide planning policies. All the jurisdictions come together to determine those housing numbers,” Baker explained. “That was not generated by BERK, though it is an accurate statement to indicate that our consulting firm that worked on our comprehensive plan is the same consulting firm that established the methodology that the county utilized.”

That said, Baker continued, different BERK teams worked with the state and the city. Consulting firms commonly work for multiple jurisdictions. He also added that the city has “very strong conflict of interest language in our contracts and staff pays very close attention to ensure that those types of conflicts of interest don’t exist.”

Rodenberg asked that both staff and public correct councilmembers when they misspeak. “Because if we’re not corrected, and there’s been a hesitancy of staff to correct us for some reason, I’d like to see us corrected whenever it was necessary. Because once that word gets out there, it just takes on a life of its own and becomes truth the more that it’s talked about.”

Council members Roger Henderson and Emily Stone also offered Baker, Public Works Director Jeff Langhelm and the Planning Department an apology. Stone and Woock are running for the same council seat in the Nov. 4 election.

Failed amendment

Woock also proposed an amendment prior to voting on the ordinance that would require developers, rather than residents, to shoulder any fees associated with development. She explained that Gig Harbor residents are already worried about the rising cost of health care and child care, the extra costs from ongoing tariffs, and, now, whether they will have jobs given the ongoing federal shutdown. Councilmember Ben Coronado seconded the amendment.

Baker pointed out that it is “ingrained in the Growth Management Act that … growth is responsible for its share of impacts to roads and other infrastructure.” This means that developers must pay what are known as impact fees, or one-time charges that help to pay for the necessary expansion of capital facilities to accommodate new development.

However, as Principal Planner Katharine Shaffer pointed out, per Washington State Supreme Court precedent, the city cannot pass on 100% of all fees to developers. This means that residents must pay for some development, too, though the city passes on fees to developers to the maximum allowable extent.

Rodenberg also asked whether such an amendment would prevent the city from offering incentives to developers to create affordable housing, and suggested that the council have more time to consider such an amendment and its effects.

Only Woock and Coronado voted for the amendment, which failed on a 5-2 vote.