Thurston County staff to explore enhanced ILA after Yelm requests trail parcel for parking

Thurston County commissioners on March 12 received a staff briefing and gave direction for staff to pursue an "Option 1 enhanced" approach after the City of Yelm asked to develop a parking lot adjacent to the county-owned Yelm–Rainier trail corridor, a 1.6-mile section of the Elray (El Reyne) Rainier Trail that lies inside Yelm's urban growth area.

The request, County Public Works staff said, concerns roughly seven county-owned parcels in the Yelm UGA. "They would like to develop a parking lot on their parcel, but there is not, based on their preliminary designs, adequate space for them to build out that parking lot without it encroaching on our trail right of way," said Karen Mason, County Public Works director. Mason and parks and trails staff said Yelm's council prefers to develop improvements on property the city owns and may seek Recreation and Conservation Office (RCO) grant funding.

County staff framed three high-level options for the board: (1) allow development within the trail corridor through an interlocal agreement (ILA) with specified maintenance responsibilities; (2) transfer only the portion of county parcel needed for construction…