Neary-Sighted

After a slow start to the year, Lakewood public policy roars back to life tonight at 7 in City Hall. Among the important questions is whether to extend a moratorium on several kinds of new development in Tillicum.

The council will hold a formal hearing, so we will likely hear from some landowners, businesspeople and residents. The fundamental decision is whether the city needs more time to make decisions, or whether to temporarily adopt some or all or modified rules that are suggested by staff in their recent staff report:

- Limiting the height of buildings on the freeway side of Union Avenue to 40 feet high, instead of the 60 feet normally allowed in that commercial zone. The staff's thinking there is that it's better to have shorter buildings on the freeway side so people driving by can see the buildings on the lake side of Union Avenue.

- Restricting drive-throughs to only the freeway side of Union Avenue. This should be a lively point, since many drive-throughs are presently located on the lake side of the avenue. Staff's thinking for this recommendation is that maybe we want to encourage businesses on the lake side to be more pedestrian-friendly, and channel the busy driving areas to one side of the road. Should be an interesting discussion.

- Dealing with small lots by new design rules. This one is a biggie because how we deal with this is going to have implications for the rest of Lakewood. Regular readers of this column know that Lakewood is combed with turn-of-the-century lots that, if fully developed, would dramatically change Lakewood's character. Some of the lots are as small as 2,500 square feet, and somewhere out there are lawyers who are going to argue that such a lot is perfectly fine for a stack of condos. (well, or maybe just a house)

- Widening Union Avenue to 60 feet, to allow for more walking and biking options.

Bear in mind, NONE of this is final. The discussions about Tillicum will continue.

Meanwhile, two other subjects should also generate discussion tonight. One subject is whether to allow residents to park in the right of way for 48 hours, instead of 24 hours, after getting a notice to move their car. The issue here is folks who park cars and leave them there in the right of way. Obviously extending the time by 24 hours would give people more options.

And finally, the police are asking whether the council would be willing to require people who own a total of five or more rental properties to get a business license (the current requirement is for folks who own eight or more - either as apartments or a total of individual properties).

The idea is that if you do so, then police have greater leverage if someone is renting to a lot of criminals because police can approach the landlord about their business license. But of course people who have been renting properties for many, many years might join the council in asking a lot of questions about this one. What we can expect the police to say is that some of the smarter criminals are figuring out that they should move into smaller complexes in order to avoid police interaction with their landlord.

And really really finally, you probably already saw it, but there was a comprehensive review of another Lakewood police anti-crime program in today's News Tribune.
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