Lake Forest Park advisors review climate impact summary, set vulnerability assessment, outreach for March

Consultants and city staff presented a draft Climate Impact Summary and outlined a Climate Vulnerability Assessment (VA) during a Lake Forest Park planning advisory meeting, and planners set a March check-in to present hazard maps and a public survey window targeting mid-March to mid-April.

The Climate Impact Summary identifies four primary hazards for Lake Forest Park — extreme heat, wildfire and wildfire smoke, increased flooding and declining summer precipitation leading to drought — and will feed a vulnerability assessment that maps the city’s assets against those hazards to rank exposure and sensitivity. "The RCP 8.5 scenario represents a high emissions future," said Sebastian Espinosa, a climate and sustainability analyst with Cascada Consulting Group, explaining the scenario used for the projections. Espinosa and project staff said the assessment will inform the climate element of the city’s comprehensive plan.

Why it matters: the assessment will guide which neighborhoods and critical services the city focuses on for resilience investments. Consultants told the committee they will spatially map assets such as community resources and housing, parks and natural areas, critical facilities (libraries, police, fire, town hall), transportation (arterials, bridges, culverts, bus routes), local businesses and water resources (stormwater facilities, reservoirs, tanks and wells) and then rate exposure and sensitivity.

Key findings and numbers presented by the consultant include: a historic rise in average monthly temperatures and projections under the RCP 8.5 scenario that Lake Forest Park’s annual maximum temperature could increase about 8.3 degrees by the end of the century; an additional roughly nine days per year with very high heat-index values; projections that annual precipitation in Lake Forest Park could rise about 77% by century’s end, with winter (Dec–Feb) rainfall increasing roughly 7% while summer (June–Aug) rainfall may decline about 21%; and April snowpack in the region is projected to be at or below 75% of the 1980–2009 baseline 57% of the time by mid-century and 83% by the end of the century, increasing drought and wildfire risk. (All projections were presented as outputs of the consultant’s climate-impact tool and were attributed to the consultant’s use of the RCP 8.5 scenario.)

Committee members pressed for local detail and additions to the asset list. Janek, identified as vice chair of the Planning Commission and a committee member, urged the team to include regional sewer trunk lines that run beneath Perkins Way and along the Lyon Creek corridor: "We have two very significant regional trunk lines of sewer that run through our town," he said, and noted those lines follow creek corridors and erosion-prone road segments. Project staff acknowledged that King County Wastewater Treatment Division owns the large trunk lines but said they will add the sewer trunk lines to the water-resources layer and attempt to acquire GIS shapefiles to confirm locations.

Other assets the project team agreed to incorporate or clarify: tree canopy spatial data (staff will coordinate with the city’s urban forest planner), community gathering places (Fairfax Commons/Third Place Commons) as community resources or critical facilities, the town-center grocery store (named in discussion as a local grocery), fiber-optic infrastructure, and local streams and parks (Lyon Creek, McAleer Creek were named in discussion) as part of parks and natural areas. The consultants said the landslide and erosion hazard layers they plan to use were obtained from King County or state sources and acknowledged some datasets may be dated; they agreed to check for the most recent King County landslide/erosion data and to note data limitations in the VA.

On outreach, project staff said they will translate the survey into Spanish and mail a postcard with a QR code. Alexandra (project staff) told the group, "By the next time we see you, which is in March, we will have completed our hazard analysis mapping of those climate hazards and present those results to you then," and the team plans to present preliminary asset sensitivity ratings for confirmation at that meeting and a fuller draft VA in May. The team also plans roughly five group interviews with stakeholders (youth groups, businesses, stewardship and volunteer groups, seniors and civic organizations) to gather qualitative input in addition to the mailed/online survey.

Committee members flagged data and outreach issues the consultants said they will address: the need to confirm which snowpack data feed regional water supplies, the quality and vintage of landslide- and erosion-hazard layers, and how to make the public survey approachable for residents who do not engage on climate topics. The consultants said they would use simplified public-facing wording, rely on prior local surveys to avoid duplication, and try to broaden audience reach for the March survey window (tentative launch March 14 with the survey running about four weeks).

Next steps: consultants will complete hazard mapping and initial exposure rankings for review in March; project staff will request King County wastewater shapefiles for the trunk sewers, seek a city tree-canopy GIS layer and contact the urban-forest planner, add community gathering places and the local grocery to asset lists, incorporate committee edits to the public survey, and schedule group interviews with identified local organizations. The committee set a tentative next meeting in March for a short VA check-in and a May meeting to review the draft vulnerability assessment and recommended priorities.