Planning staff told the Lake Stevens Planning Commission that a coordinated update of concurrency rules, street and parking regulations, and traffic-impact fee methodology will begin in 2025 to implement the city’s recently revised comprehensive plan.

Senior staff said the updates will align municipal code with the Growth Management Act (GMA) requirement that public facilities and services necessary to support development be adequate or have a financial commitment in place within six years. “It’s the twelfth goal of GMA. It ensures that public facilities and services necessary to support the development … shall be adequate or that financial commitment is in place to complete the improvements or strategies within 6 years,” Planning Director Christy Schmidt said.

Why it matters: concurrency rules and the capital improvement plan (CIP) determine whether new development can proceed or must fund mitigation. Staff said the updates will clarify when developers must pay their proportionate share of traffic improvements, modernize impact-fee methodology using current ITE (Institute of Transportation Engineers) trip generation data, and resolve inconsistencies between the city’s Engineering Design and Development Standards (EDDS) and municipal code.

Staff overview and schedule
Planner Christy Schmidt told commissioners the package includes a concurrency management chapter, updates to streets and sidewalk standards, a parking chapter, and a traffic mitigation impact-fee methodology. The city retained Transpo to provide technical work on impact-fee methodology and concurrency options. Schmidt said the commission can expect strikeout/redline drafts of the concurrency chapter and the traffic mitigation fee worksheet at upcoming meetings and that staff hopes to front-load the work in spring to complete the code changes within six to eight months.

Key policy points and constraints
- Staff said the city will adopt the comprehensive-plan levels of service and a multimodal level-of-service standard for multiple modes and public services and then update code to reflect those standards. Schmidt emphasized that developers are required to mitigate only the proportionate share of new development impacts; they are not required to correct preexisting deficiencies.
- The update will integrate the latest ITE trip-generation rates into the traffic-impact fee work and produce a citywide tracking matrix for development trips to better monitor cumulative impacts.
- Staff noted a pending state legislative proposal on parking regulation; the city will await the Legislature’s action before adopting local parking changes to avoid duplicative work.

Public outreach and stakeholder engagement
Staff asked the commission for input on outreach methods. Commissioners recommended direct mail to affected households, civic Facebook groups managed by the city account for official notices, school distribution channels (Peachjar) for school-area issues, neighborhood-targeted outreach in newly annexed areas, survey QR-codes on land-use notice signs, and a possible quarterly printed newsletter. Commissioner Connor Davis and others suggested a city-branded post or mailer to signal official information and to reduce rumor-driven responses.

Implementation details and follow-up
Staff reiterated coordination with public works on EDDS updates and said public-works staff have a separate consultant agreement to align design standards between departments. Schmidt said staff will present a concurrency chapter and a traffic mitigation impact-fee update at the commission’s next meeting and welcomed emailed suggestions about outreach and detail level in staff summaries.

Ending
Schmidt and senior planner David Levitan said the updates aim to provide predictable development regulations for applicants while ensuring the city meets GMA concurrency obligations and maintains a current CIP. Commissioners gave initial outreach suggestions that staff said they would incorporate into the public participation plan.