Diana Noble-Gulliford was careful, but sure of her words.

“I think we need to, as a city, press the reset button on multi-family and revisit the impact that multi-family has on our roads, our parks, our schools and our neighborhoods,” she told the Federal Way City Council at a public hearing on the temporary ban on apartments, which was passed on June 7. “One of the most instrumental reasons we became a city and became incorporated was the unbridled growth of multi-family development in Federal Way that was approved by King County.”

Noble-Gulliford, a member of the Planning Commission and president of the Historical Society of Federal Way’s board, said development is going to have a “huge impact” on the city’s transportation infrastructure, specifically the flow through the city’s center, which is where most of the zoning for multi-family housing is located.

Two other citizens, as well as two letter-writers, had the chance to comment on the six-month moratorium on the development of all multi-family housing – two weeks after the City Council passed the temporary ban.

Legislative District 30 Democratic Chair Tim Burns said he doesn’t have a position on the moratorium, but he did have a few things to say to the council.

“I was highly upset that the council rammed it through with a suspension of the rules at the last meeting,” he said, adding that the moratorium wasn’t on the agenda in the beginning and the rules were suspended after a presentation on the issues. “Then to have a public hearing tonight, after the council has already approved the moratorium, I think is ludicrous.”

Burns likened the meeting the moratorium passed to a “cigar-filled room.”

“I just think that looked like the council was trying to subvert somebody’s attempt to get public housing, and it was certainly not transparent, and I’m really disappointed in the mayor and the council on this issue,” Burns said.

City Attorney Amy Jo Pearsall said the council’s actions to enact a moratorium were within the normal process and were “perfectly legal.”

“The purpose of a moratorium is to halt everything in place as it is,” she said. “If too much advance notice is given, it could ruin the purpose of a moratorium in that people could try to put their applications in and thwart that process.”

Dave Berger, board vice president of the Multi-Service Center’s board of directors, encouraged the Planning Commission to create an advisory committee when looking at zoning for multi-family housing. The committee, he suggested, would consider the community but also entities, such as the Multi-Service Center, that “have a responsibility going forward to address housing needs.”

“As you’re well aware, we have a housing crisis that’s only getting worse month-by-month, year-by-year,” Berger said.

Federal Wayans Bob Kellogg and Thomas Keon submitted comments in writing, both supporting the moratorium.

“With 2,100 units of apartments already in the pipeline, all of which are potentially low-income, you are at a critical point of defining what the future of Federal Way will become,” Kellogg wrote. “By loading our community with low-income apartments, it will not only impact our schools, but the social cost will affect the economic development of our city and the decisions of businesses that might want to locate here.”

Kellogg pointed out the number of Federal Way households with college-educated adults in the 1980s was much higher compared to the many “section 8 rentals” with multiple cars parked in front of them.

“My neighborhood is no longer middle-class,” he wrote.

Keon had concerns about multi-family housing’s impact on businesses.

“Many people who rent are transient, in that they are in a temporary employment situation or they simply want to be able to pick up and move at will,” Keon wrote. “I’m concerned that with too much multi-family housing, we will see a strain on the city’s resources and a decline in the quality of our schools due to overburden.”

Keon suggested the city create incentives for property owners to fill vacancies, incentives for new businesses to move into those vacancies, and that it seek and attract small businesses that are “hit hard by their $15 per hour minimum wage.”