Overview

How much are we going to grow?

The Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC) is tasked with reviewing the state's growth ranges for our region and adopting the regional growth policies and projections, and how that projected growth will be allocated throughout the region.  PSRC is preparing for the next periodic review cycle and has issued a draft VISION 2050 Plan with updated regional growth strategies that include growth targets by area types.  

King County is currently developing growth targets for the county communities based on the draft VISION 2050 plan.  The growth targets are one of the first required aspect of the Comprehensive Plan update -- the growth assigned to Redmond will inform the update of the Redmond Comprehensive Plan and related functional plans and regulations.  King County will release the growth allocations for cities in November/December of 2020.  

 Here's what we know right now:

*Redmond is one of 11 Core Cities in King County.

Once we know how much growth will be allocated to Redmond, we'll need to address:

• Where is that growth going to go?
• What will that growth look like?
• What are the impacts and how can they be avoided or mitigated?

The City has hired IBI Group to help the community discuss these key questions and how we will take that vision and implement it through plan, policy, and regulatory updates.

Part of the answer to the "where will growth go" question has been determined at the regional level.  Vision 2050 includes the following policy:

MPP-RGS-8 Attract 65% of the region’s residential growth and 75% of the region’s employment growth to the regional growth centers and high-capacity transit station areas.

 … As jurisdictions plan for growth targets, focus development near high-capacity transit to achieve the regional goal.

What this means for Redmond is that most of growth will have to go into Overlake, Downtown, and Marymoor (the areas around the light rail stations).  How that will be distributed between those areas, where the remaining growth will go, and what growth will look like (housing unit types, building heights, design standards, etc) will be discussed during the visioning phase through a series of community discussions and through the development and analysis of market-based Land Use Scenarios.  

Unified Environmental Review

The Environmental review for this project will meet the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) requirements and will consist of a number of elements, as shown below, and an Environmental Impact Statement. The City has hired BERK Consulting to assist with the environmental review and documentation for the Redmond 2050 project.  The environmental review will be combined for all plans, codes, and policies updates under the Redmond 2050 project.

• Scoping - Environmental review will begin with a community scoping process that will obtain community input on what items should be evaluated during this update.  
• Impacts of growth scenarios - The BERK consulting team will work with IBI to ensure that environmental review is incorporated into the Land Use Scenarios that will be developed during the visioning phase of this project.  This will help to ensure that the community has environmental impacts to consider when looking at different growth scenarios.
• How to avoid/mitigate impacts - An Environmental Impact Statement is anticipated for this project, which will include measure to avoid and/or mitigate impacts. 
• Planned Action(s) - Planned Actions are area-wide analysis of development impacts / mitigation measures.  The Overlake Planned Action has run it's course, with most of the growth, mitigation, and incentives adopted under the planned action having been utilized.  This project will establish a new Planned Action for Overlake and will consider if the City would also like a Planned Action for Downtown and/or Marymoor.
• Updated environmental baseline data - Consolidating decades of SEPA documents and updating the City's environmental review data so that environmental reviews moving forward will have a more recent baseline year to review against.

This SEPA effort for Redmond 2050 is an opportunity to review successes and roadblocks to achieving the desired growth and environmental mitigation. It is also an opportunity to clean up and simplify the requirements under the multiple documents through a unified process.  BERK will also assist with research on mitigation best practices and a review of updated science-based measures.  

Overlake Planned Action

As part of the Urban Centers element of the Comprehensive Plan, last updated in 2007, Overlake is one of two Urban Centers that will be key in accommodating future growth targets.   While the current plan describes a broad vision for Overlake, refinements are needed to reflect the community’s long-term vision for the area, the changing urban environment, and to clarify the goals for key elements such as parks, open space, transportation, and development standards. The neighborhood plan also needs to be updated to account for change: including the Microsoft Redmond Campus Refresh and the Esterra Park Project and to prepare for the changes that Sound Transit’s extension of light rail will bring.  

Additionally, the following important development incentives will need to be updated>

• Overlake Planned Action. Thorough up-front analysis of impacts and mitigation measures of future development and growth that will facilitate and expedite environmental review of subsequent development projects. 
• Overlake Incentive Program Updates to the Comprehensive Plan and related regulatory updates provide new opportunities to reduce development costs while advancing neighborhood goals. 

Learn more about this unique Redmond neighborhood 

All area plans, functional plans, policies, regulations, and programs must be in conformance with the adopted Comprehensive Plan.  To implement the Comp Plan and to ensure that everything is consistent with the Comprehensive Plan, these other documents will need to be updated as well.  This includes (but is not limited to):

• Transportation Master Plan
• Overlake Neighborhood Plan (Addendum)
• Overlake Village Stormwater and Park Facilities Implementation Plan
• General Sewer Plan
• General Water Plan
• Watershed Management Plan
• Emergency Management Plan
• PARCC Plan
• Public Safety Master Plan
• Stormwater Comprehensive Plan
• Utilities Strategic Plan

The Redmond Zoning Code will also be updates, and there may also be updates to the Redmond Municipal Code (to be determined by the updates needed to accommodate growth and implement the vision).