April 2009 Meeting Summary

By Peter Rimbos, Corresponding Secretary

On Monday, April 6, the Greater Maple Valley Area Council held its regular monthly meeting. Our invited guest speaker was Stephanie Warden, Director of King County’s Department of Development & Environmental Services (DDES). Your Area Council serves as an all-volunteer, locally elected advisory body to the King County Council representing all rural unincorporated area residents living in the Tahoma School District.

Building Permitting

DDES Director, Stephanie Warden, and Rural Coordinator, Joelyn Higgins [(206) 296-7159], provided an update on changes made based on public surveys and feedback to help serve County citizens. Ms. Warden mentioned that DDES office service hours have been changed to: M - Th from 7 AM - 5 PM. Technical Staff is available for detailed discussions from 7 - 9:30 AM. The Community Environmental Health Section of Seattle/King County Public Health has moved into the same building as DDES, located at 900 Oakesdale Ave SW in Renton, which will help streamline its portion of the permit process.

Ms. Higgins described the new “Permit at a Glance” feature that has been added to the DDES web site. Citizens can now search online to assess the status of any permit. Members of the Area Council praised this new feature as being very helpful to area citizens.

Ms. Warden discussed pending layoffs at DDES due to the economic downturn, as permitting is down ~40% from what had been projected for 2009. This should help facilitate permit throughput times.

The process for developing Rural Stewardship Plans has been simplified to aid rural property owners. Ms. Higgins stated that land owners interested in creating a rural stewardship plan for their property can visit the county site or contact DDES’s Betsy MacWhinney at by phone at (206) 296-6793.

Public Ordinances

Two public ordinances under consideration were discussed with Ms. Warden and Ms. Higgins: (1) Public Rules for Fire Apparatus and (2) Sustainable/Affordable Housing.

New International Residential Code 2009, which has been accepted nationally, requires automatic sprinklers for all new residential construction. The state of Washington currently is looking at adopting this rule. If adopted at the state level, local jurisdictions will next look at potential adoption, possibly in 2011.

There is a proposed ordinance to adopt provisions for five sustainable communities and housing demonstration projects using King County surplus properties (located in unincorporated areas near Kent, Federal Way, Burien, South Seattle, and White Center). The purpose is to provide additional housing with affordable housing and workforce housing integrated into developments containing market-rate housing. For more information, click here.  Public Comments are due Tuesday, April 28, to DDES’s Lisa Dinsmore.