The Snoqualmie City Council gave staff a list of questions to answer regarding the upcoming Salish expansion project at their Sept. 10 regular council meeting.
The Salish expansion is a multi-phased development project to build a hotel and convention center facility next to the existing Salish Lodge at the Snoqualmie Falls.
The Planning Commission began their review of the Salish expansion master plan on May 21. After a public hearing held in July and continued review since, the Planning Commission recommended the city council approve the master plan.
Before that can happen, the council began the process of going through the collected record and asking questions to further their understanding on various elements of the plan. Before any vote takes place, staff will be working to answer the questions brought up by the council.
Jason Rogers, senior planner at the city, presented the council with an overview of the Planning Commission’s discussion topics, such as utilities, traffic, visual impacts and residential development standards. From there each council member had several chances to ask more specific questions of the staff regarding various elements of the plan.
The council tasked Rogers with tracking down information regarding traffic impacts, residential development plans and accompanying affordable housing requirements, open space requirements, access for emergency medical services and fire trucks, the age of certain studies and if they are still sufficient, and impact to traffic.
In the Committee of the Whole discussion, the council also asked the planning commission to do a comprehensive look at the landmark district ordinances to determine if any changes are needed, specifically regarding building heights for flooding. Council member James Mayhew introduced the motion because in looking at the recent work done in regarding to changing the stated height limit in the downtown area, it was brought up that the ordinances in the area had not been examined or updated in 17 years.
The motion was approved unanimously, but due to the commission’s workload for the rest of the year, they may not address that topic until 2019.
Museum update
The council heard from Northwest Railway Museum Executive Director Richard Anderson who said the summer had been successful despite some attendance numbers being down since 2017 while others, like Labor Day trains, were much higher.
The museum is planning a big event for next year’s Railroad Days which will be the 80th anniversary of the festival.
The museum will install a new way-finding sign on the corner of 202 and Stone Quarry Road.
Anderson asked the council to consider the possibility of offering some operational assistance for the next year.
