Population In Everett Wa - Everett harbor in background. Downtown Everett is a focal point of growth that outpaces the rest of the city. (City of Everett)
Snohomish County planning officials have signed off on new growth goals. Earlier this month, the Province Regional Planning Commission took final action on adopting specific jobs and population goals by jurisdiction. These goals will be used to determine how cities and counties will update their policies and regulations in 2024 to accommodate growth over the next 20 years. Local city councils and the Snohomish County Council must give final approval to commit to growth goals.
Population In Everett Wa
Snohomish County has already begun processing plans for its 2024 Comprehensive Plan Update, which plans to expand to 2044 over a 20-year time frame. The first phase of the initial environmental review is still a week away from the scoping process, but it should at least align with state, regional and county planning requirements, with adopted growth goals. As part of the regional growth strategy (VISION 2050), the approved plan must also be in line with other regional policies, such as placing high population and employment growth in designated regional growth centers, manufacturing industrial hubs and transport in areas with high potential. Designated regional geographies, such as metropolitan cities and core cities, can also be important areas of growth outside of designated centers.
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As part of that, the Snohomish County Tomorrow (SCT) – Snohomish County's regional planning agency – steering committee approved allocations for growth goals on Wednesday, December 1st. This clears the way for local governments to use those goals as a basis for developing their updated comprehensive plans.
As it turns out, the Southwest Urban Growth Area bears the greatest burden to absorb more residents and jobs. It makes sense given its geographic size, proximity to King County and Seattle, and access to services and amenities (eg, transportation, schools and colleges, ports and parks). Cities will account for the largest share of growth, targeting an additional 141,067 residents and 106,951 jobs. Chief among these are Everett (68,547 residents and 67,340 jobs), Lynnwood (25,167 residents and 21,912 jobs), and Montlake Terrace, Edmonds and Bothell each taking on an additional 13,000 residents. Additionally, unincorporated urban growth areas between Lynnwood, Edmonds, Mill Creek, Everett and Mukilteo will provide at least 84,270 residents and 14,312 jobs.
Prior to the SCT meeting, the Snohomish County Transportation Coalition (SnoTrac) sent a letter expressing concerns about the growth goal allocations. The coalition is particularly concerned about whether the allocations for growth goals are aligned with the regional growth strategy that was updated last year by the Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC). The strategy calls for 65% of residential growth and 75% of employment growth to occur in designated regional growth centers and high-capacity transit station areas, known as the "65/75 policy" in the region. King County - one of four counties in the PSRC - will certainly overshoot this number, but other counties may come up short, but it is unclear whether Snohomish County's goals will help meet this regional goal, Snowtrack argued.
According to an analysis conducted by SnowTrack, the coalition believes that Snohomish County should account for 60% to 65% of population growth and 70% to 75% of employment growth.
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Assuming higher county growth target numbers, Snohomish County would have to plan for 229,450 additional residents and 135,000 additional jobs.
Regional growth centers and high-capacity transit station areas, Snowtrack noted in their letter. It places a particularly high priority on metropolitan cities, large cities, and a small subset of urban regional geographies designated as high-capacity transit communities, which account for 88.2% of all additional residents and 90.4% of all additional jobs .
In many ways, Everett, Lynnwood and unincorporated Snohomish County must put a fire under their feet, planning to expand urban growth into downtowns and around high-efficiency transit. But this can be somewhat misleading, Snowtrak notes in its letter. "We are concerned that the burden of meeting the goals will be disproportionately greater for communities with the highest levels of capacity transit," Snotrak wrote. "This perverse result is primarily due to underallocation of overall population growth to transit-strong communities relative to transit-light communities." To demonstrate this, Snowtrack points to Arlington as an example.
"While Arlington is a high-capacity transit community, its only station is the Swift Gold Line at Smoky Point. Development opportunities within a quarter mile of the Smoky Point Transit Center are limited, especially relative to the overall geographic size of the city—the Smoky Point High Capacity Transit Community Area is approximately 2% of the total geographic area of the city,” Snotrak wrote. . "As a result, it is highly unlikely that Arlington will be able to place 46.4% of its population growth and 61.5% of its employment growth in the high-capacity transit community, let alone the higher goals of 77.1% and 86.3% . Cities like Bothell, Edmonds, Everett, Mountlake Terrace and Lynnwood will make the difference in their communities. It makes more sense to allocate more growth to metropolitan and core cities so that they have a more reasonable balance between growth inside and outside their regional growth centers and high-capacity transit community areas.
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Snohomish County states that growth goals are at least at the regional geographic level in accordance with the 65/75 policy. "For regional geographic areas that include Regional Growth Centers (RGCs) and High Capacity Transit Station Areas (HCTAs), i.e. Metro City, Core Cities and HCT communities, projected population (82%) and employment growth (87)%) RGS and The SCT recommendations are generally consistent," said the province
. "Additionally, the distribution of high-capacity transit stations in Snohomish County is an important factor included in the development of SCT's initial 2044 growth goals. In particular, the distribution of population and employment growth through 2044 within the regional geographic boundaries of core cities and high-capacity transit communities is the regional geographic distribution of VISION 2050. When apportioning growth, the following two data factors were taken into account: the number of light rail stations [and] the number of high-capacity transit stations (non-light rail) ."
Allocations for initial growth goals, however, cannot address the more granular concerns raised by Snotrak, which the province seemed to acknowledge. "Note that a more detailed breakdown of jurisdiction-level growth goals from CPPs to RGCs and HCTAs is not what Snohomish County CPPs accomplish," the county said. "Instead, this is the next step for individual metro, core and HCT community jurisdictions during local plan update efforts through 2024." The province refers to a regional policy that directs the planning of local municipalities, which gives priority to areas served by highly efficient transit.
Finally, the province said an evaluation should be conducted after receiving the local plan updates of 2024 to determine the level of compliance with the regional 65/75 policy. The province also added that the PSRC wants to address regional growth center and high capacity transit area growth allocations if they are reduced regionally for any reason, such as the adoption of a resolution or redistricting process.
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Whether or not allocations are realized, budgeting and consistency in planning remains to be seen and there are always ways for municipalities to realize allocations on paper. Everett, for example, decided to plan for growth in its downtown to the exclusion of almost the rest of the city. While this has led to many successes in replacing urban housing in the city center over the past ten years, the pace of growth has been slower than many had hoped and has been concentrated in an area far from many of the province's working class jobs The other main focus of the city is on Evergreen Way and SR-99, but the loud, polluted and impassable highways and bushes make it difficult to pencil in projects if they are undesirable locations.
Plans must now be realistic for growth needs and local conditions. It is still a long way from light rail arrival north of Linwood (2037/2041), so a check is necessary considering the development around station areas is far on the horizon. Instead, this decade should focus more directly on planning for growth and the assets it brings.
Despite opposition from wealthy residents, cities like Everett must work outside the narrow box of downtown and freeways. That means planning for neighborhood retail and dense residential growth in single-family areas that have transit accessibility and amenities. All neighborhoods in urban growth areas have a role to play in planning for growth, these upcoming local plan updates
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