The proposed lease between the Mercer Island Center for the Arts (MICA) and the City of Mercer Island will go before the City Council on Nov. 16.

MICA, which will be subsidized almost entirely by private donors, is looking at a lease for $1 per year with an initial 50-year term.

Lease approval will enable MICA to begin the permitting, planning and fundraising necessary to build a community arts venue in Town Center on a portion of Mercerdale Park, at the old recycling center.

The benefits MICA will provide, according to the lease, include: removal of the old recycling center buildings; public/City use of facility for arts and education classes, public meetings, and recreation; and a back-up Emergency Operations Center.

Once a lease is secured for the site, MICA will follow a detailed process to obtain permits and meet obligations before starting construction.

The City of Mercer Island must approve the building design, parking plan, all permits and an operations plan and budget. MICA will raise through contributions, pledges, and financing 100 percent of the construction costs.

MICA will also carry liability insurance to protect itself and the City from any claims arising from the use of the facility. After 50 years, the lease terminates and the facility then will become the property of the City, or the lease may be further renewed.

But MICA is facing an obstacle: there is a wetland at the proposed premises that is more than two acres in size, and Mercer Island City Code (MICC) does not allow alteration of a wetland over one acre. On Oct. 30, City Attorney Kari Sand received a letter from Jeff Kray with the Marten Law Group outlining his opinion “that the MICC prohibits the City from allowing MICA to build as proposed because doing so would disturb protected critical area wetlands and buffers.”

MICA proposes mitigation to offset the impacts, and “MICA’s Board and consultants are confident that we can both protect and enhance the wetlands and complete this valuable addition to Island life,” according to a MICA press release.

Both the proposed lease and the MI City Code prohibit MICA from building on the site unless the critical areas issues are resolved and all conditions to issue a permit area satisfied.

“Given the MICC, to move forward with permitting and construction, the current proposal for the Center will either need to be revised to comply with the current Code (such as re-orient or relocate the building on the site, reduce the building’s footprint, or other revisions), or the City will need to update its wetland regulations,” according to the Council’s Nov. 16 agenda bill.

More recently updated wetland codes adopted in other cities would allow the development to proceed, though Kray said that if the MICC did not prohibit MICA’s proposal, the project may need approval from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and one or more Washington State agencies.

The City Council could ask the public to weigh in on the issue via an advisory vote, which a group of citizens has been asking for.

An advisory vote could cost anywhere from $20,000 to $70,000, depending on when the election is held, and how many other items are on the ballot. The costs are split between all of the jurisdictions with ballot measures. A special election would be the most expensive.

The Council may consider the lease ahead of, and separately from, other building permit review issues, such as the wetland issue, Sand said, as MICA has not submitted a complete building permit application to date.