Shoreline council reviews five proposed comprehensive-plan amendments; no formal action

Shoreline — City planning staff on Monday presented five staff-initiated proposals for the 2025 comprehensive-plan amendment docket and described a work plan that would study the items this year and, for larger projects, carry them into 2026. Council took no formal votes on the docket; the matter will return for action after further study and public engagement.

The proposals include: removing Figure 16 (the “level of traffic stress” measure for bicycle facilities) from the transportation element and moving design details to the city’s engineering development manual; analyzing boundaries for four candidate countywide centers; updating the Town Center plan (including a focused study of Furlan’s Way); and updating the subarea plans and SEPA planned-action analyses for the two light-rail station areas identified in the plan (described in staff materials as the “140 Eighth” and “180 Fifth” station areas). Steve Safran, senior planner for the City of Shoreline, told the council that the Growth Management Act allows the city to review proposed plan amendments once per year and requires the city to create a docket of amendments for study.

Why it matters: the docket sets the city’s work program for evaluating changes to long-range policy that guide zoning, development and capital investments. Several council members and residents urged that studies emphasize multimodal access to stations, protected bicycle facilities, small-business connections to transit, and the historic character of parts of the Town Center area.

Staff framed the scope and timing. Safran said some items — notably the light-rail subarea plan updates and the SEPA planned-action work — are large in scope and may not finish in 2025, in which case staff would return to the council to add them to the 2026 docket. He said the Planning Commission recommended only amendment 1 (the removal of the bicycle LTS figure), but staff recommended that council add amendments 1 through 5 to the final docket for study and public engagement.

Resident comments and preservation request: during public comment, Dave Land of Echo Lake said he had attended multiple comp-plan meetings but remained unclear about what “amendment 3” would accomplish for a community center and asked for clearer explanation of trade-offs. Janet Way, representing the Shoreline Preservation Society, urged the council to pursue a historic-district designation around Furlan’s Way and asked the city to fund mapping and outreach materials ahead of the city’s 30th anniversary celebrations.

Transportation and multimodal access were recurring themes. Councilmember Robertson said she supported placing all five items on the docket and called the countywide-centers work an opportunity to focus investment where people can walk to amenities. Councilmember Scully and others emphasized underused commercial areas west of Aurora and called for more density and neighborhood-serving uses there.

On bicycle design, Councilmember Ramizel asked about differences among striped, buffered and protected lanes. Jeff Raker, the city’s transportation planner on the call, gave a technical description: “The striped bike lanes are a simple line. A buffered bike lane would be 1 or 2 feet between vehicle traffic with 2 stripes … and then a protected bike lane is something with either plastic bollards or otherwise providing protection between the bike lane and the vehicles, and the physical separated path means that the path itself is usually raised.” Councilmembers pressed staff to prioritize protected connections to the station areas where feasible.

Business and zoning concerns: Councilmember Rademasa urged staff to consider small businesses explicitly when planning transit-oriented areas, proposing that station-area planning include ways to support small retail and services, not only housing. Another councilmember suggested docketing an evaluation of land-use policy 9.6 and the land-use designations on properties between First and Fifth avenues north of 180th to ensure the plan and underlying zones provide flexibility for potential redevelopment; staff agreed to draft language on that idea to bring back for council consideration.

Process and next steps: Safran reiterated that items on the docket have not been analyzed; the docket merely identifies proposals for study. Staff said community engagement, Planning Commission review and potential Council hearings would follow. The Planning Commission’s recommendation (limited to amendment 1) will be placed on a future council agenda for action; the council may amend the docket at that time.

Other meeting business: the council approved the consent calendar by unanimous voice vote. At the end of the meeting the council recessed into a 20-minute executive session under the state open-meetings law to consult with legal counsel on potential litigation; no action was taken at the meeting regarding that matter.