Mark Hoffman, the city of Lake Forest Park’s community development director, and consultants from Cascadia Consulting Group presented a draft climate element to the City Council on Oct. 23, outlining both greenhouse-gas reduction and climate resilience policies and asking the council to hold a public hearing on Nov. 13. Staff said the city completed a SEPA determination of nonsignificance this week and could bring the item back for council action as soon as Nov. 20.

The draft, developed with the city’s Climate Protection Advisory Team, Cascadia, and the planning commission, responds to 2023 changes to the Growth Management Act (House Bill 1181) and to state funding made available through the Climate Commitment Act. The element includes a greenhouse-gas reduction subelement and a resilience subelement, nine overall policy goals and a set of supporting implementation actions. The planning commission transmitted a recommendation and a redlined draft to council for review.

Cascadia senior associate Maddie Siebert and consultant Alexandra summarized the technical analysis behind the draft. The team produced community greenhouse-gas inventories for 2019, 2022 and 2023 and a municipal operations inventory for 2023. In those inventories, Cascadia reported that on-road transportation accounted for the largest share of community emissions, buildings were the second-largest source, and the city vehicle fleet represented about 71% of 2023 municipal operations emissions. A detailed travel-market assessment found that more than 85% of vehicle trips that originate or end in Lake Forest Park are interjurisdictional, meaning they begin or end in neighboring jurisdictions.

On the resilience side, Cascadia identified four primary climate hazards for the city—higher summer temperatures and heat waves, wildfire and regional smoke events, drought and reduced summer precipitation, and increased extreme-precipitation events that raise inland-flooding risk. The vulnerability assessment mapped hazards against local assets (transportation, water resources, housing, critical facilities) and rated transportation and the local economy and water resources as having the highest vulnerability. The consultants said community outreach—including a survey with more than 500 responses, interviews with youth and an in-person open house—informed the priorities and showed residents’ top concerns to be wildfire smoke, extreme heat, severe storms and flooding.

The draft sets four resilience goals (strengthen responses to heat and smoke; advance environmental justice and community well-being; protect water resources through drought and flood resilience; and strengthen emergency response) and five greenhouse-gas reduction goals (reduce emissions from buildings; reduce vehicle miles traveled by expanding multimodal travel options; facilitate electric-vehicle transition and charging; promote land-use and development strategies that reduce emissions; and reduce waste by increasing recycling and organics diversion). The document includes implementation-focused language for education, tree canopy and natural areas protection, mobility hubs, transit coordination, and a recommendation that the city consider food-rescue or technical-assistance programs to help meet the state organics-management target (state guidance aims to sharply reduce organics disposal by 2030).

Council members asked for clarifications about tree canopy and whether projected removals from Sound Transit projects had been included; staff and Cascadia said tree inventories included existing canopy but did not incorporate unsubmitted Sound Transit project impacts because no formal application has been filed. Vice Chair Goldman asked whether the state Department of Commerce would issue comments during its 60-day review; staff said they did not expect substantive comments and that the 60-day review period ends Nov. 16. Several council members praised the planning commission’s work and the volunteer Climate Protection Advisory Team (CPAT); Hoffman said CPAT has disbanded after completing its work.

Hoffman also warned council members that multiple draft versions exist in the packet (the CPAT-submitted draft and the planning commission public-hearing draft with redlines). Staff said they will present a single exhibit—planning commission’s public-hearing version with a corrected figure—when the item comes back for the public hearing and possible council action.

The city packet contains the full draft climate element, a policy-development memo that explains policy rationale and co‑benefits, and an engagement summary. Staff and consultants invited council feedback before the Nov. 13 public hearing.

Ending: Council members and the planning commission chair described the presentation as a milestone for the community; no formal council action was taken on the climate element at the Oct. 23 meeting. The council scheduled the Nov. 13 public hearing and staff said it may present an ordinance for adoption as soon as Nov. 20 if no substantive changes are required after the Commerce review.