Planning commission adds downtown color‑palette and design‑review rules to work plan

The Snoqualmie Planning Commission voted on March 3, 2025 to add a review of the city’s downtown color palette and the historic design‑review regulations to its future work plan, after staff described merchant feedback and commissioners raised questions about process and authority.

Mona Davis, senior planner with the Community Development Department, told the commission she has collected comments from downtown business owners who described the current approved palette as “kind of a letdown” and, in her words, a “snore fest.” Davis said she is researching other historic‑district palettes and tracking how many variances have been reviewed in recent years; she told commissioners that pulling statistics from the permit system requires more time.

Davis outlined an implementation issue that commissioners then debated: the…