The Federal Way City Council plans to vote on a series of code amendments for multi-family housing developments at its next regular meeting on May 16.
The vote will arrive just in time before the current moratorium on multi-family housing development expires on June 6.
During the two consecutive moratoriums enacted, city staff has worked to develop codes that improve apartment construction, safety of residents and compatibility with surrounding development.
“I really think the original moratorium on multi-family housing was enacted to determine exactly what multi-family housing should look like in our city,” Councilman Bob Celski said at Tuesday’s meeting. “This has really been the big driver of the issue: what it should look like and what changes have to be made to really arrive at a workable solution.”
The council put a halt to all apartment development nearly a year ago as a way to “maintain the status quo” while staff could study how multi-family housing development was impacting the city and how it could be re-evaluated as the population increased.
In recent years, Park 16, Kitts Corner and Uptown Square have added 800 units. With Celebration Senior, that number increased to 1,100 more units.
While some residents in the community have attributed the city’s crime increase to more apartments, many were concerned by the impact to Federal Way Public Schools, as well as transportation within the city.
“This started about 11 months ago, and I initially supported this because I had a discussion with our superintendent and our school board members about the recent development of the multi-family units that had caused some increased students in the schools that the school district wasn’t quite ready for, and they suggested they needed time to plan for future students and for the students they have, which is about 1,000 students over capacity at this point,” Councilwoman Susan Honda said.
In working with the city, the school district has raised school impact fees from $2,899 to $9,273 per unit. Last year, officials dropped single-family impact fees to $2,899, from more than $5,100. The district has also created a citizen group that has met for several months and developed a plan for rebuilding and expanding several schools. A bond will likely be on the ballots this November pending board approval in June.
Severely limiting and restricting multi-family housing altogether in a city is illegal, however.
“As Council member Honda has said, there has been some controversy about the ordinance and some input about continuing the moratorium, but what I have to say is growing cities have growing pains,” Celski said. “Challenges are inevitable, but just because there are growing pains, we can’t stop growing. We have to carefully manage that growth as best as we can.”
Before the ordinance’s first reading on Tuesday, Community Development Director Brian Davis explained the code changes. At the recommendation of city staff and the Land Use and Transportation Committee, the code changes range from restricting parking locations for complexes with more than 100 units to requiring more private open space. The committee also recommended multi-family housing developments in the city center core zone should have the entire first floor dedicated to retail.
A complete list of the proposed code amendments can be read on the city’s website.
Both Honda and Davis stated that additional work needs to be done with zoning if the amendments are approved during the next council meeting.
Most of the city’s developable land for multi-family housing is along Pacific Highway South in the city center core and along South 320th Street.
Although the city is well above standard for providing moderate and low-income housing, the city has not yet met the community’s need for very low-income housing, according to a 2010-2014 American Community Survey.
Davis said, at the end of 2012, Federal Way had a capacity for 8,443 new residential units, 6,000 of those multi-family units. By 2035, the residential target increases to 9,363 units.
