The bad news: Kirkland is a magnet for developers.

The good news: Kirkland is a magnet for developers.

It is an odd state of mind that our community finds ourselves in. As we embrace the benefits that development brings, we agonize that it threatens what many of us hold dear; Kirkland’s intimately scaled, small-town vibe.

For evidence, we need look no further than the serial controversies suffered by several of our most recent redevelopment proposals: Park Place, Lake Street Market, Bank of America, Portsmith Condos, Houghton redevelopment plan and Potala Village. Each brought unprecedented levels of building height and density. Each triggered significant levels of community backlash.

That there should be this level of controversy over redevelopment is not normal. It is indicative of a community whose expectations are fundamentally out of kilter with what the zoning code allows. This is contributing to an ongoing cycle of citizen ambivalence regarding zoning approvals and subsequent anger about ever-larger buildings that continue to be approved.

This troubles me greatly and should also trouble you, dear reader.

Our great location, diverse population and developer-friendly zoning have made us attractive to development, a fact that we ought to embrace. Unfortunately, our collective assumptions about Kirkland’s built environment are far removed from the reality of what our downtown will eventually become through the current zoning.

The fact is, under current zoning policies, nearly all of our downtown’s small scale buildings will be replaced by larger multi-story mixed-use buildings. Even Park Lane – that iconic Kirkland street filled with intimate boutiques and shops – will eventually be lost to redevelopment.

However, for those of us living in areas outside the downtown business district (Houghton, Totem Lake, Finn Hill and other newly annexed areas), the opportunity still exists for engaged, well-organized and motivated communities to control how much and what kind of redevelopment occurs.

Without development at some level, neighborhoods and cities stagnate and eventually decline (Detroit being the extreme example). Redevelopment in an existing city is, in essence, the city being renewed.

Redevelopment brings a lot of desirable benefits. Old buildings are renewed or replaced, public amenities are added, new businesses come in, jobs are added and tax revenues increase. Theoretically, a “win, win, win” outcome.

Re-development, properly incentivized and regulated, occurs continually over time and allows the conflicting interests of developers and citizens to be reconciled fairly and intelligently. In the process, citizen concerns are recognized in zoning and development codes and developers make a reasonable profit.

Who’s involved

Three parties participate in this process: Developers, citizens and government.

Developers seek maximum financial returns. If you’ve ever seen the show “Shark Tank” (or the better Canadian version, “Dragon’s Den”), you’ll have a good idea of who I’m describing.

Developers are eminently predictable; they seek to maximize their financial return on property. As a result, they push hard to pack as much square footage as possible onto any property. Because financial returns on property flow to the developer in the form of “rent”, the bigger the building, the more rent the developer can collect.

In the developer’s world, a big building and big money are complementary notions. Like the capitalists on the TV show, developers think primarily in terms of hard issues like cost and profit. Soft issues like aesthetics, human scale or walkable streets only resonate with a developer if they attract tenants.

Unregulated, developers would eventually turn our streets into canyons of faceless, hulking monoliths. If you doubt me, visit downtown Bellevue.

Citizens don’t like change. Most Kirklanders (myself included) prefer the city stay the way it is, thank you very much. We value “soft” issues like walkable streets, good landscaping and human scaled buildings.

In fact, were Kirklanders given sole discretion on the issue, the model for development downtown would likely be something akin to Park Lane: A narrow, tree-lined, single-story street filled with boutiques. Politicians want tax revenue. They also need to be sympathetic to citizens’ needs, but the revenue imperative can distort the judgment of any elected official.

So here’s how the process works. The council uses the Comprehensive Plan to establish zoning requirements that vary by location. These requirements set the three-dimensional boundaries for buildings, essentially locking in the maximum physical size of the structures. Different areas of the city have different limits based on the need to preserve views, etc.

Usually, the zoning process incorporates public hearings where interested parties are given the opportunity to provide input on proposed regulations. Failure by either party to successfully have their concerns incorporated into the zoning code, before it is formally adopted by the council, will greatly limit future efforts to fundamentally influence the shape of future buildings in that zone.

The reason for this is simple. Developers make substantial investments in developing property based on the maximums allowed by zoning codes. Without an assurance on this, they would have little confidence to invest in redevelopment. A process that would allow for changing the code after the fact would be unworkable. Conclusion: Zoning code approvals are the critical element of the process and the one most at risk of imbalance between citizen and developer interests.

With a piece of property in hand and guided by zoning and development requirements, the developer submits his proposal to the Planning Department. The department works with the developer and other city departments to ensure minimum standards are met. The process can end with an administrative approval, after which the building can be permitted and constructed.

However, in key areas of the city (primarily downtown) the city requires review by the Design Review Board. The board (composed of citizen volunteers), using the zoning code as a reference point, then holds public hearings seeking to modify the proposal with respect to those “soft issues” I mentioned.

What the developer submits in the first board meeting is what you would expect; a building “maxed-out” to the limits of what the zoning code will allow. The board, being subject to the same zoning codes as the developer, is stuck with that maxed-out envelope and works to mitigate the worst and promote the best aspects of the ultimate building. So what is allowed by the zoning code is approved, albeit with architectural revisions to mitigate impacts or enhance features.

Design Review Board decisions can get appealed, usually by citizens that rightly feel their interests have not been adequately addressed due to building height and mass. Sadly, most appeals don’t succeed because the basis of citizen appeals are typically about the two issues that the board cannot substantially alter: Building height and mass.

So, what’s the problem? Developers are formidable counter parties in this process. They are well coordinated, well funded, politically active and understand the arcane intricacies of the process.

Citizens are ill-equipped to participate in this process for all the opposite reasons. We are not well organized, cannot easily hire experts to advocate for us and are limited in our ability to participate on the same level as developers, simply because we all have regular jobs to attend to.

Aggravating this very lopsided dynamic is an approval process so burdened by technical jargon and arcane concepts, it cannot help but be tilted in favor of developers. Against this, no one citizen has a chance of completely understanding the implications of a proposed zoning change, let alone standing in opposition to a proposal that a developer wants to push forward. The result is a disenfranchised citizenry.

In its current form, the city’s zoning update process is failing to synthesize a community vision for the future and is biased in favor of developers, who are prevailing on issues of profit over the needs of our citizens.

The zoning and development approval process fails to engage us at the right time with meaningful information. It is hurried, confusing, opaque and structured to favor much better resourced and organized developers. It is riddled with technical jargon, obscure concepts, and uses outdated and ineffective methods to engage the public.

As a result, our zoning approval processes are predisposed to discount citizen concerns and favor developer interests. The one advantage that citizens theoretically have are our elected politicians, who we should reasonably rely on to account for these inherent imbalances and compensate for them in how they develop and implement zoning policy.

In reality, city officials are not acting as “fair arbiters” between developers and citizens. Instead, they are treating each group as if they were equally resourced parties to the issues at hand – a hopelessly imbalanced approach.

James Truhan is chair of the Design Review Board.