Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Building a Better City - Budget Hearings, Night 3
We find ourselves tonight in the third of five budget hearings that the council is planning to discuss the 2008 budget. Tonight’s topic is economic development. Once again, I’m writing ‘live’ from the second floor of City Hall. Economic development is an important topic for our community. Lakewood lags behind surrounding cities in terms of number of jobs in town and the value of property. If we had more business, we would have more jobs for our children, and more tax revenues to hire more police. These stakes are high.
The economic development budget falls into three categories: the community development department (which we all used to call the planning department), the economic development department (which is basically one economic development coordinator) and the public works department.
The big items on the horizon for the planning department include a considerable amount of time and energy planned for coming up with a Tillicum Community Plan. The sewers that will be coming there in 2009 will transform that community as land becomes more valuable and more developable. Tillicum sits along I-5 between military bases, a lake and the rest of Lakewood and Puget Sound. It begins with enormous advantages.
(for more background about Tillicum, see my posting about our moratorium there)
The question for us is how do we zone, and build roads, to bring in the largest number of jobs and range of housing alternatives, yet still maintain the Lakewood quality of life. How do we build a Tillicum in keeping with the community’s special vision? Lakewood is not a big government town, so it’s going to take enticements and incentives, not an iron fist. Planning for a Tillicum that we can all be proud of in 10 years is going to be an enormous challenge. I suspect we would rather have a grand hotel in Tillicum that markets proximity to the bases and the lake and Tacoma, rather than a three-story Hooters that someone is going to want to propose. Good development does not happen by accident; it will take strategy.
For the first time, we also talked about devoting resources to specific American Lake Gardens Industrial Park planning, which may or may not involve linking up with the Port of Tacoma, one of the 800-pound gorillas of the Pierce County economy. It’s actually quite exciting to hear tonight that the Port of Tacoma might get involved in this process as they obviously have a lot of experience generating jobs and a richer economy.
Another nice bit of news that came up tonight is that the planning department is planning to gradually address a number of dangerous buildings and crime problems in the Sylvan Park neighborhood, which traditionally is one of the more neglected parts of town. (For those of you who don’t know, Sylvan Park is the neighborhood in the same part of town as the Starlite Drivein, south of 84th). Assistant City Manager David Bugher says that neighbors are complaining about 20 different properties, so it’s going to take time to address all those issues.
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The economic development budget falls into three categories: the community development department (which we all used to call the planning department), the economic development department (which is basically one economic development coordinator) and the public works department.
The big items on the horizon for the planning department include a considerable amount of time and energy planned for coming up with a Tillicum Community Plan. The sewers that will be coming there in 2009 will transform that community as land becomes more valuable and more developable. Tillicum sits along I-5 between military bases, a lake and the rest of Lakewood and Puget Sound. It begins with enormous advantages.
(for more background about Tillicum, see my posting about our moratorium there)
The question for us is how do we zone, and build roads, to bring in the largest number of jobs and range of housing alternatives, yet still maintain the Lakewood quality of life. How do we build a Tillicum in keeping with the community’s special vision? Lakewood is not a big government town, so it’s going to take enticements and incentives, not an iron fist. Planning for a Tillicum that we can all be proud of in 10 years is going to be an enormous challenge. I suspect we would rather have a grand hotel in Tillicum that markets proximity to the bases and the lake and Tacoma, rather than a three-story Hooters that someone is going to want to propose. Good development does not happen by accident; it will take strategy.
For the first time, we also talked about devoting resources to specific American Lake Gardens Industrial Park planning, which may or may not involve linking up with the Port of Tacoma, one of the 800-pound gorillas of the Pierce County economy. It’s actually quite exciting to hear tonight that the Port of Tacoma might get involved in this process as they obviously have a lot of experience generating jobs and a richer economy.
Another nice bit of news that came up tonight is that the planning department is planning to gradually address a number of dangerous buildings and crime problems in the Sylvan Park neighborhood, which traditionally is one of the more neglected parts of town. (For those of you who don’t know, Sylvan Park is the neighborhood in the same part of town as the Starlite Drivein, south of 84th). Assistant City Manager David Bugher says that neighbors are complaining about 20 different properties, so it’s going to take time to address all those issues.
