Read, review and write immediately on these proposed changes.

If you are someone who has been concerned about any of the following, I’d encourage you to look at the requests submitted. You can find them here.

I see numerous requests for increased height throughout most every neighborhood in Kirkland. I see residential suites proposed outside of Central Business District, when we were told these would only be allowed in the business district. I see more requests to completely remove density restrictions and allow for “unlimited residential density” only constrained by the building envelope. This is the issue we are still fighting with Potala Village. I see requests asking that street parking and neighborhood parking be counted towards a developer’s proposal. Do we really want developers to put their cars in front of our homes rather than on their own property? I see commercial or LIT lots being proposed as new hotel sites.

If you have interest in how your community develops, you should review what has been requested.

I will be continuing to push towards the request that I’ve submitted as the current zoning is not aligned, in my mind, with the Comprehensive Plan. You’ll see that “staff” is not recommending that the plan move forward. Perhaps I failed to ask for things that staff would like. Mine seems to be one of the only ones does not suggest increased or unlimited density. It does not ask for slightly or grossly increased height limits. It does not ask for reduced parking requirements and provisions to allow greater consumption of street parking. Instead, I merely want our city’s zoning to fully implement the Comprehensive Plan. I hope the planning commission will vote against staff’s recommendation and will further study my request. I hope they recognize that there is still unfinished business that they started a couple years ago. The changes they made previously were a good start but much language was left that can still be manipulated by developers. So, the code revisions did not go far enough. The vision, plans and policies have us walking to our attractive, appropriately scaled, neighborhood commercial business for goods and services. Let’s make sure the zoning gets more aligned with the Comprehensive Plan as required by GMA.

Write to the planning commission if you have concerns about any of the items they are considering or if you are favorable towards my proposal.

Their emails are gpeterson@kirklandwa.gov, jpascal@kirklandwa.gov, cbagg@kirklandwa.gov, callshouse@kirklandwa.gov, elaliberte@kirklandwa.gov, cdullen@kirklandwa.gov, mmiller@kirklandwa.gov, aruggeri@kirklandwa.gov, tswan@kirklandwa.gov, dcollins@kirklandwa.gov, eshields@kirklandwa.gov and pstewart@kirklandwa.gov.

My email address is uwkkg@aol.com and I’d love a “cc” of any letters.

Karen Levenson, Kirkland