Concurrency is the established regulatory mechanism for determining if a development proposal meets the concurrency provisions of the city's Comprehensive Plan and ensures improvements or strategies are in place at the time of development or that a financial commitment is in place to complete the improvements or strategies within six years (see LSMC 14.110 and RCW 36.70A.070(6) (b)).

Why update these ordinances?

One of the side effects of a rapidly growing city is the potential strain on roads, intersections, and traffic flow. Chapter 14.110 of the Lake Stevens Municipal Code details the policies for applying traffic mitigation fees, which help offset the costs associated with providing needed infrastructure and maintaining levels of service as outlined in the Comprehensive Plan.

The codes must be updated to meet regulatory compliance and best practices for design or administration based on changes in fire requirements, local regulations, and state law.

The city has contracted with Transpo Group to assist with the technical aspects of the regulatory updates. After a thorough review with the consultant, staff recommends the following next steps:

1. Prepare an annual concurrency report to allow the city to better track intersection, active transportation, and transit LOS of the City’s transportation facilities. Findings from the yearly concurrency report can be utilized to identify and prioritize projects within the City’s annual update of the 6-year Capital Improvement Plan.

2. Track concurrency within each Traffic Impact Zone (TIZ) identified within the City’s Traffic Impact Fee (TIF) program. This would implement an approach consistent with concurrency tracking within the subareas. The City should determine the maximum land use and trip capacities for the areas outside of the subareas. As developments are proposed outside the subareas, the added units/square footage can be cumulatively tracked against these maximum thresholds to ensure that land use growth does not exceed levels analyzed in the Comprehensive Plan.

3. The City’s current concurrency tracking matrix only includes the Lake Stevens Center, 20th Street, and Downtown Lake Stevens Subarea. Once the industrial center's subarea planning is complete, the city will add the Lake Stevens Industrial Center subarea to this tracking sheet. Additional transportation analysis may be necessary to identify this subarea's future trip growth capacity and associated transportation improvements essential to maintaining the level of service (LOS) standards identified in the Comprehensive Plan.

4. Set a lower threshold for concurrency evaluation and a higher threshold for when a traffic study is required, as established in the Overview of Basic Traffic Study Requirements. This would ensure that “small” projects are still tracked throughout the year as part of the concurrency process but would not require a full traffic analysis since these projects would likely not impact intersection LOS.

5. Update the traffic impact analysis (TIA) guidelines outlined in the Overview of Basic Traffic Study Requirements to provide clear guidance on the level of traffic analysis (e.g., no analysis, trip generation only, full intersection analysis) necessary to conduct the concurrency review for projects of various sizes.

6. Adjust the concurrency tracking process based on person trips rather than vehicle trips to align with the multimodal LOS standards and transportation projects identified within the Comprehensive Plan.

There will be plenty of opportunities for public comment before the code updates are finalized. Community members are encouraged to attend a Planning Commission or City Council meeting (either in person or remotely—agendas can be found on the city's Main Calendar), or please send comments to cschmidt@lakestevenswa.gov.