Though initially dissatisfied with the lengthy process outlined to review Mercer Island’s residential development standards, the City Council ultimately decided to stick with the staff-recommended timeline, aiming to listen to extensive public input and adopt code changes by July 2017.

Development Services Group (DSG) Director Scott Greenberg and newly hired Planning Manager Evan Maxim said that the community engagement schedule was developed based on feedback from the Town Center visioning and code revision process, which lasted about two years.

Mayor Bruce Bassett said that though “faster is better as long as it’s done right,” the changes being discussed are “hotly contested issues that go right to peoples’ pocketbooks and hearts.”

The city’s Town Center planning process had a hard deadline, as the council had imposed a moratorium on downtown development until that work was finished. The moratorium was extended twice, but expired on June 20.

The council considered passing a moratorium on residential development last year, but voted not to go through with it. Councilmember Dan Grausz said at the time that addressing density in neighborhoods was on the council’s work plan for 2016, and that he saw a moratorium as a way to force a discussion in the community.

Grausz, who lives on First Hill, said that the city needs to move quickly to keep up with the pace of development, especially in his neighborhood, and increasing public concern.

“The upcoming work on single-family residential development standards is being driven by a concern shared by many residents: the rapidly changing character of Mercer Island’s single-family neighborhoods,” according to the council’s Aug. 1 agenda, when the initial scope of work was approved.

The city will host a community meeting in October to collect public input and kick off the first phase of the project. The second phase involves Planning Commission review and “road show” meetings, where city staff will take proposals out to community groups for feedback. The third phase is council discussion, which will include a public hearing.

Maxim said that he believes the commission will need about 15 meetings to propose and review changes, and that the schedule recommended by staff is “meaningful and ambitious … especially if scope continues to expand.”

There are 17 items on the work plan currently, including building height, gross floor area, lot coverage (impervious surface), minimum setbacks, tree retention, building pads, minimum lot width and depth, definition of a single-family residence as related to very large homes, lot consolidation/maximum lot area, construction-related impacts, deviations (process and criteria), large residential accessory structures and uses, such as 30-foot-high gazebo or 12-car garages, enforcement tools (including penalties), building permit process (public notice, public input and right to appeal), fence height deviations, time limit on validity of building permits and short plats (ensuring that short plat process is not circumvented by, for example, applying for a building permit for one part of a lot with the intention of short platting the property after that permit is granted).

In an August email update to Islanders, Grausz wrote that the changes will involve “reviewing various rules that, as currently written and interpreted, are allowing houses to be built that are completely out of scale with the surrounding community,” “preventing developers from circumventing our subdivision/short plat rules” and “placing common sense rules on construction practices in order to not allow years of dawn to dusk construction making our homes a daily nightmare,” among others.

Changes to single-family neighborhoods generally fall into two categories: impacts related to new subdivisions and impacts resulting from new single family construction (tear down/replacement and new construction on existing vacant lots).

Permit data indicates that between January 2010 and December 2015, about 11 percent of new homes permitted (24 out of 217) were located on lots that resulted from subdivision. About 89 percent of new homes permitted between January 2010 and December 2015 were built on existing vacant lots (13 percent) or were the result of a tear down and replacement home (76 percent).

The median square footage of new homes permitted since 2010 is 4,675 square feet. These new homes are nearly 50 percent larger than the 1960s and 1970s homes they are now replacing.

Councilmember Dave Wisenteiner also expressed interest in accelerating the project timeline, and said that the disconnect with the Town Center public input and outcome was that people felt like they were being listened to. Councilmember Jeff Sanderson echoed the sentiment, noting that the city needed to collect less qualitative and more quantitative input this time around.

The council also voted 6-1 in favor of a $21,500 budget appropriation for meeting facilitation and graphics development, in addition to the $15,755 budget request approved by the council at its Sept. 6 meeting for postcard mailings, meeting space, materials and refreshments.