Snoqualmie committee backs planning commission retail-overlay boundaries, directs ordinance to council

The Snoqualmie Community Development Committee on May 5 directed staff to advance amendments that would require a minimum of 90% of storefronts in defined downtown areas to be retail uses and to forward an ordinance and a companion resolution to the City Council for consideration.

The change under consideration would apply the 90% retail, 10% nonretail threshold to storefronts facing Falls Avenue, select parcels on Railroad Avenue and storefronts along Center Boulevard, and would remove the existing retail-waiver process that allows exceptions.

"To require that a minimum of 90% of those storefronts consists of retail uses as defined in the code," said Andrew Levins, a land use planning consultant assisting the city, describing the proposal and the boundary alternatives staff prepared after the committee’s April discussion. The committee heard staff recommended following the Planning Commission’s earlier recommendation for the downtown boundary.

Committee members discussed how the overlay would treat four parcels on Falls Avenue that are currently used as residences. City attorney (identified in the meeting transcript as City attorney) said the municipal code provision…