by Ralph Nichols

Burien’s Shoreline Master Program will be in the spotlight again tonight (Tuesday, March 9) when the Planning Commission meets at 7pm to continue working through the details of proposed revisions to the document.

Tonight’s meeting comes in the wake of recent requests by residents of Burien’s affected shoreline areas – Three Tree Point and Lake Burien – that the city council extend the time for planning commission review of public input before sending a final draft to the council.

A petition bearing the signatures of 401 shoreline residents requesting an extension of the review process was submitted by Carol Jacobsen to the city council at its March 1 meeting.

“We’re still confused about what’s going on,” Jacobsen told the council at that time. “We are requesting an extension of time for review of the Shoreline Master Program before the planning commission submits it to the city council.”

She said the shoreline residents want a six-month delay. Here’s a copy of her cover letter from the city’s public record:

But, Mayor Joan McGilton told The B-Town Blog last week, “The timing is up to the planning commission. Let the process move forward [at the planning commission]. The last thing the council needs to do is get involved inappropriately.”

Asked whether council members might consider setting aside the draft revised Shoreline Master Program for a month or two after receiving it from the planning commission, before proceeding with their review of the document, McGilton added, “That’s up to the council” to decide.

She said the council will look to city staff for advice on whether to proceed with their discussion of Shoreline Master Program revisions soon after receiving the draft document, or whether to postpone consideration for a few weeks.

Commenting on the possibility of a time extension, planning commission Chairman Joe Fitzgibbon said, “I think we’re just going to move through the document at the same pace as we are now. When we’re done we’ll forward it on to the council. It’s not going to take six months….

“I think people who saw us at our Feb. 23 meeting see how serious we are … I think at this point we’re doing a good job of taking into account all the ideas and concerns we’ve heard.”

The planning commission stopped receiving public testimony at that meeting, and began the process of working through citizen comments point by point.

Written comment is still being accepted, addressed to either the Burien Planning Commission or Senior City Planner David Johanson, at 400 SW 152nd St., Burien, WA, 98166, or by emailing DavidJ@burienwa.gov.

Although a general time frame for Shoreline Master Program review indicates the planning commission will complete its work by the end of March and forward the draft document to the city council, which then will adopt a final plan by July and submit it to the state Department of Ecology for final approval, Fitzgibbon suggested this is not a strict timetable.

The planning commission is “not trying to guess when we will finish,” he said. “We would like to finish soon, but we will take as long as it takes. We’re not looking at any date and saying, ‘that’s our deadline.’”

Requests for the city council to extend the time for planning commission review of the draft plan were repeated at their March 8 meeting.

Tades Kisielius, an attorney representing the Burien Marine Homeowners Association, urged the city council to add another public hearing to the process or to extend the time for planning commission review, noting that the petition with 400 signatures had made such a request.

There has been “no real substantive discussion … on significant regulations,” he said. These include a 65 foot setback from the average water line, non-conforming structures, and public access.

The homeowners want the planning commission to work out these and other concerns before the plan goes to the city council, Kisielius added.

Shoreline resident Dennis Reed said they wanted the opportunity to review a final planning commission draft that includes all changes before it is sent to the city council.

City Councilwoman Lucy Krakowiak later asked City Manager Mike Martin to direct the planning commission to extend the review process – apparently overlooking the fact that such a request must come from the council and neither staff nor an individual council member.

by Ralph Nichols

Burien’s “highest priority” in updating its Shoreline Master Program should be assessing “reaches of shoreline where there is no public access,” City Councilman Brian Bennett told The B-Town Blog in a recent interview.

But Bennett, who served on the Shoreline Advisory Committee before his election to the City Council last fall, stressed that this view is based solely on his work as a member of that committee.

He vowed as a councilman to listen fairly to the concerns of all shoreline property owners when the council reviews proposed revisions to the plan later this year. He added that private property rights should be protected in the final document.

“There are certain areas of shoreline in Burien without any public access,” Bennett noted. Yet “public policy at the state and federal levels [calls for] access to public waters.”

Burien has two reaches of shoreline along “public waters” as defined by state and federal laws – Puget Sound and Lake Burien. Seahurst Park affords access to Puget Sound, and there are also limited access points at Three Tree Point.

But there is no public access to Lake Burien, and “the lake is public property,” Bennett said. “It is owned by the city and the state.”

The question to him then becomes how to create public access to Lake Burien without impacting property owners around the lake.

“I would like the community to consider limited secure access, gated with secure buffers” to the lake, he continued. This access would not allow boats and would have only “limited parking to promote people walking.”

His preferred point of access would be on lakeside parcels adjacent to the Ruth Dykeman Center that center directors hope to sell. Bennett hopes the city will consider buying one or more of these last remaining lots on the lake.

“If they are built on, there will be no opportunity again in our lifetime to gain access to the lake. It’s important for us to consider this…”

“There are kids just a couple blocks away wondering, ‘Why don’t we get to play on the lake?’” Bennett said. “It concerns me that this is a debate about us against them. It’s important that as a community we all be together helping each other out.”

He recalled that Lake Burien is considered the birthplace of Burien, and is just a block from SW 152nd Street – the city’s “main street” – making it a natural link to the downtown business district.

Bennett also said he has “heard from a lot of people” about this issue and understands their concerns. Any access to Lake Burien would have to protect the shoreline environment as well as the privacy and property of lakeside residents, he declared.

(Photo of Brian Bennett by Joe Mabel)

The City of Burien currently has openings on three of its four resident-run Advisory Commissions, which is a great way to become involved with your city and give something back to your community, with an application deadline of 5pm Friday, Feb. 19th.

Burien residents, as well as residents of the North Highline Annexation Area, which will become part of the City on April 1st, are encouraged to apply for current openings on these boards:

• Arts Commission
• Planning Commission
• Parks & Recreation Board

All appointments are made by the City Council and are for four-year terms (ad-hoc committee appointments are for the duration of the study or special purpose).

To apply, please fill out the city’s Online Application Form.

You can also download an Advisory Board Application and mail it drop if off at city hall:

Citizen Advisory Board
City of Burien
400 SW 152nd St, Suite 300
Burien, WA 98166

Please note that applications are continually being accepted for future board openings.

For more information, please call Monica Lusk, City Clerk at (206) 248-5517 or via email, or visit the city’s Advisory Board website here.

Burien’s Shoreline Master Program will not accomplish its goals without the active involvement of Burien residents.

The largest owner of shoreline property is the City of Burien, and city managers have chosen a hands-off approach to managing over 170 acres of shoreline parks.

One remedy for this would be a Park Ranger system—something that will never happen unless Burien citizens ask for it.

The first four goals of the Shoreline Master Program are:

1. The Shoreline Master Program shall result in no net loss of shoreline ecological functions and processes.
2. Regulation and management of Burien’s shorelines should be guided by ongoing and comprehensive science.
3. The City should be proactive in managing activities within the shoreline jurisdiction.
4. Implement an adaptive management approach to respond to changes and to ensure continued effectiveness.

The requirement of “no net loss of shoreline ecological functions and processes” is the same requirement we have always had since the Shoreline Management Act was passed 38 years ago. During those years, I have walked along the beach at least several thousand times, and I have witnessed gradual and continuing degradation. While I have not seen new bulkheads, and few if any new houses have been built near the shore in the last few decades, I have seen an increase in off-leash dogs, graffiti, vandalism, and trash. These types of shoreline degradation come from public parks with no enforcement of laws or park rules. The City has not been “proactive in managing activities within the shoreline jurisdiction.” They have been entirely inactive.

Every day, I witness people walking their dogs to the park, usually on a leash, and when they get to the sign that says “Obey Leash and Scoop Laws,” that’s when they let their dogs off leash. They usually don’t grab any blue bags from the dispenser. At Seattle beaches, it is a $500 fine to have your dog at the beach at all, so people drive to Burien to let their dogs run free, where they know the rules will never be enforced. I have three dogs, I live next to a Burien park, and I drive to Grandview or Westcrest to let my dogs run free, legally and safely. Since Burien’s incorporation in 1993, I’ll bet that not one single citation or arrest has ever been made for off-leash dogs, vandalism, graffiti, littering, or fires in Burien’s shoreline parks. If anyone from the City can provide documentation that proves me wrong, I would like to see it. I know that on my several thousand visits to the beach I have witnessed tens of thousands of violations of the rules, and never once have I seen any sort of enforcement officer asking anyone to change their ways. It is a small minority of park visitors that disregard the rules, but these same people come back day after day, inflicting damage on shorelines owned by all of us.

What would it cost for Burien to have a Park Ranger system? It might cost about $300,000 a year, or it might cost as little as $40,000 a year if the City hired a volunteer coordinator and implemented a volunteer Park Ranger system like the City of Kirkland has. With either a volunteer system or paid professionals, the emphasis could be on education and encouragement rather than strict enforcement and punishment. If the regular park abusers knew that someone was watching, and that enforcement was even a possibility, most of them would change their ways. Whatever the cost of a Park Ranger system, it has to be measured against the cost of having no enforcement at all. This daily abuse of our public spaces by a handful of miscreants costs all of us real money. The environmental degradation they cause is not some abstract concept. I can’t give you an exact dollar amount of the damage because government has not amassed the “ongoing and comprehensive science” the Shoreline Management Act requires. I do know that Burien citizens have suffered millions of dollars of lost property value. Many studies have shown that property values decrease up to 15% in areas with graffiti and vandalism, such as is currently allowed in our parks. Burien homes and businesses are worth billions of dollars, collectively, and even a 1% loss of property value would total millions of dollars. Not having a Park Ranger costs all of us real money. If the citizens of Burien require their government to comply with the Shoreline Management Act and “be proactive in managing activities within the shoreline jurisdiction,” then the environment and the citizens will benefit.

As a member of the ad hoc Shoreline Advisory Committee, I have attended about a dozen meetings over the last two years. It is my impression that the process of developing the Shoreline Master Program is merely a formality, a process the City is required to go through. No one in government or on the Shoreline Advisory Committee believes that the final document will actually result in “No net loss” as required by law. All this document will do is to create a new set of rules that gather dust on a shelf somewhere, ignored like the old rules have been for decades. Only when the citizens of Burien take this seriously and demand environmental protection will real change happen on our beaches. Please attend one of the upcoming meetings and ask that the City begin to enforce environmental regulation, for the benefit of us all.

- Jim Branson

[EDITOR'S NOTE: Have something you'd like to say? Then email us your "Letter to the Editor" by clicking here. Be sure to include your real name and a way to contact you, and, pending our review, we'll most likely post it. Otherwise, feel free to leave a Comment below...]

Our cities surprise and confound us by scrambling the categories we use to plan and understand them. At once dense and sprawling, crowded and empty, urban but centerless, dynamic and stalled, the landscape where we live defies planning and leaves us with little grasp of its meanings or pleasures.

Yet it is the product of our choices, individually and as a public: we live here now. So, what can we make of it?

Suddenly will bring art and food and public conversation to bear on the common cause of making meaning and life in the landscape where we live now — as it is, as we are, as best we can. 

Borne of the insights of German urban planner Thomas Sieverts, suddenly accepts the paradoxical “in-between’ condition where we live — an inextricable mix of urban and rural, natural and manmade, global and local — and looks to the creative capacity of citizens, artists, writers, and others to articulate meanings and relationships that can sustain us and enrich our lives within that condition.

A festive convocation of planners, activists, neighbors, friends and strangers alike, with food, films, art, music, and frank, ranging conversation, suddenly seeks common ground and new tools for living here now.

In Seattle and Burien, three days of events, occasioned by Thomas Sieverts‘ visit to the area, will bring diverse communities into common conversation around art, writing, film, public policy, and great food.

Come and discuss the wonderful things happening in Burien, and your thoughts for the future with this esteemed urban planner.

The schedule of events is as follows:

• Thurs., July 2nd 4pm-6pm: Burien through Community Eyes: Walk the City with Thomas Sieverts (gather at B/IAS, located at 5th Ave SW & SW 150th St at 3:45pm, Burien; free and open to the public).
• 6pm-8pm: Conversation and Nosh with Thomas Sieverts, Burien political and civic leaders and neighbors (also at B/IAS, 5th Ave SW & SW 150th St., Burien; food by The Mark & Sal’s Deli.)

For more information on Burien events please go to www.burienparks.net or call 206-988-3713.

Seattle Schedule:

• Wednesday, July 1st, 

9 am – 10 am: KUOW-FM radio interviews with Thomas Sieverts
• 12:00 pm – 2:00pm: Thomas Sieverts in public talks with Seattle City Council and regional policy makers (at Seattle City Council chambers; free and open to the public).
• 7:30 pm: “Urban Aesthetics,” lecture by Thomas Sieverts (at Town Hall, 1119 8th Ave., Seattle, $5 suggested donation)
• Friday July 3rd 1 pm – 4pm: NW Film Forum presents “Police Beat” (written by Charles Mudede and directed by Robinson Devor), with after-film panel discussion with Thomas Sieverts, Matthew Stadler, and Charles Mudede (NWFF, 1515 12th Ave., Seattle, Tickets $7).
• Evening: Corridor Project closing dinner hosted by Michael Hebb, with Matthew Stadler and Thomas Sieverts in conversation, including a celebration of “suddenly: where we live now, the visual chronicle;” (location TBA, price TBA, see www.onepot.org for details).
• Ongoing: A portable version of the exhibition, “suddenly: where we live now,” organized on the occasion of German urban planner Thomas Sieverts’ visit to Seattle, will be on view throughout the four days at a location to be determined.

The exhibition includes work by:

• Elias Hansen & Oscar Tuazon
• Molly Dilworth
• Michael Hebb
• Michael McManus
• Marc Joseph Berg

The exhibition opens July 3, 7 p.m., and coincides with a Corridor Project dinner. Exhibition and dinner location TBA.

Please visit www.onepot.org for dinner location and exhibition hours.