By Chris Carrel, Thinking Locally
In the last Federal Way myths column, I tackled the myth of poor Federal Way schools. Negative comments about the city’s physical layout and look compete with schools for the most oft-cited complaint about the community.
Federal Way is one endless strip mall with ugly pavement everywhere. What were those idiots thinking when they planned that?
There is a degree of truth here. Federal Way was poorly planned, to the extent it was planned at all. However, it’s arguable how much of the blame can be placed on the shoulders of Federal Way.
The history of community development during the years of rapid growth between the 1970s and 1990s was opportunistic development enabled by an absentee county government not terribly concerned with impacts south of the Kingdome.
Before incorporation, subdivisions and apartment buildings sprung up without suitable roads or consideration for impacts to local schools. Businesses were developed in inappropriate locations. There were no aesthetic standards for development or considerations for preserving open space. New development occurred without proper stormwater management, resulting in widespread flooding.
We bear a measure of blame for what happened, to be sure. Some Federal Way property owners benefitted from the developments. And not all the developers were from outside the community.
Sadly, my own father bought two of the most uncommercial properties in the city, so we missed out on the gold rush. However, his real estate acumen presaged my current career buying wetlands and other so-called “worthless properties.”
The lion’s share of culpability for pre-1990 Federal Way goes to a regulatory system based in Seattle that encouraged cheap, fast and ugly development.
The real story, though, is how the community responded. We organized, incorporated as a city and began planning and developing our way out of the hole that we had been put in.
Beginning in 1991, a new city council and staff developed brand new zoning and land use regulations. Over the years, those initial codes have been “dramatically rewritten” to reflect evolving community priorities, says Greg Fewins, acting Community Development Director, and one of Federal Way’s first employees. The codes, while not perfect, have provided a comprehensive and thoughtful approach to development that previously didn’t exist.
Perhaps no city policy better exemplifies the changes than the city’s sign code, which phased out the motley metallic forest of pole signs and ugly readerboards that use to dominate the city’s commercial area. State Rep. Skip Priest, who was one of the sign code’s proponents on the council, called the decision “one of the most important issues for our young city.”
You can’t talk about economic development and quality of life, he says, when the front door to your community looks like a junk yard.
Did the sign code work? So much so, that when the Seattle Times ran an article earlier this year slamming Federal Way, they used 10-year old photos of the downtown sign mess. A backhanded compliment to our progress, but a compliment nonetheless.
Pacific Highway eyesores aside, the community has also made great strides cleaning up the physical mess left by pre-incorporation inattention to infrastructure. Our roads and stormwater systems were a shambles when voters created the city of Federal Way. The main entry point to our community, S. 320th Street, flooded several times a year. When it wasn’t flooded with water, it was flooded with traffic. Traffic flow was a contradiction at several choke points around the city.
Assistant Manager Cary Roe has been point person on fixing both the stormwater and traffic infrastructure problems, first as surface water manager, then as public works director.
In both cases, he says, the city comprehensively assessed infrastructure problems, created a prioritized project list, and has methodically tackled the problems over the past decade and a half.
The city created a Surface Water Management department in the early 1990s and has invested more than $18 million in solving flooding and stormwater problems. More than $7 million has gone into repairing stream damage. Flooding of roads has all but disappeared, and stream health in Hylebos and other creeks has begun to improve.
Road infrastructure presents a much bigger problem and one in which progress is much harder to measure. If you look at the dollars, it’s clear the city is improving infrastructure. The city has invested a whopping $139 million in road improvements since 1992. More impressive than that number is the fact they’ve leveraged grants and other funding sources so that Federal Way taxpayers have only paid 40 percent of that total.
Roads around the downtown core look better and are safer to drive. We no longer discuss 320th and Pacific Highway as the state’s most dangerous intersection. Pacific Highway improvements continue to extend north, not just improving traffic conditions, but enhancing economic development opportunities on this strip. If you doubt that, just look at development patterns on Pacific Highway in areas that have let the strip decline.
Take it from someone who learned to drive on the two-lane, no-sidewalked South 320th Street — the improvements in our roads has been substantial.
So, let’s rank this Federal Way myth as partially true. Yes, we inherited and still have some poor infrastructure and development features. But the community of Federal Way is not willing to accept that legacy. Some communities waste lots of time talking about infrastructure and land use.
In Federal Way, we’re doing something about it.
Chris Carrel is a lifelong Federal Way resident and executive director of the Friends of the Hylebos, a nonprofit conservation organization working to preserve and restore Hylebos Creek and the West Hylebos Wetlands. Chris can be contacted at chinook@hylebos.org or (253) 874-2005.
