Published August 2002

Official: Shoreline plans meet city, nature’s needs

By John Wolcott
SCBJ Editor

With the exception of Kimberly-Clark’s huge waterfront pulp mill and tissue plant, the pulp, paper and lumber plants that created Everett’s “mill town” image in the last century are gone, but the city’s image in the next century will be determined by how its shoreline is re-created to meet business, recreation and environmental goals, city planner Paul Roberts told members of the Everett Area Chamber of Commerce in July.

“These plans — the city’s Shoreline Master Plan and the Shoreline Public Access Plan — represent a major opportunity to change the city’s image. It’s a major quality-of-life issue for the people of Everett,” said Roberts, the city’s director of planning and community development.

The master plan was adopted in April by the city and approved by the state’s Department of Ecology, whereas the public access plan — adopted in 1989 — will be updated by the end of this year, he said.

Planning has been developed over the past nine years, working in conjunction with the DOE, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Fish & Wildlife, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the state departments of Fisheries and Natural Resources, he said.

“These plans will enable us to compete for grants and other funding for restoration, mitigation and development. In the next 10 years we hope to develop parks, viewpoints, trails and recreation uses, along with business developments, that will make Everett one of the best cities in the state,” Roberts said.

Some environmental groups are still leery of the plans, he said, though they have been developed in conjunction with state and federal environmental protection agencies.

The Everett Shorelines Coalition — composed of People for Puget Sound, Pilchuck Audubon Society, the Snohomish Group of the Sierra Club and the League of Women Voters of Snohomish County — filed appeals to the city’s shoreline plans in mid-July.

Also, members of the Tulalip Tribes have filed a separate appeal, claiming the city’s plans would negatively impact tribal fishing rights, and another appeal has been filed by the Washington Environmental Council.

“The plan that Everett has adopted has the highest level of shoreline protection of any other in the state,” Roberts said. “A decade ago only about 100 acres of shoreline was set aside for conservation. This new plan will protect more then 4,000 acres, be sensitive to the protection of endangered species — such as chinook salmon and bull trout — and use the strict standards of the federal National Marine Fisheries Service to evaluate projects and proposals.”

The coalition is particularly concerned about five sensitive areas: the Maulsby Mudflats on the city’s western waterfront, Smith and Spencer islands to the north, the former Simpson Paper Co. mill site in Lowell, an area of marshland and the 200-foot buffer zones along the Snohomish River.

Commenting on the coalition’s concerns, Roberts told the chamber members that the shoreline plans do not emphasize development over environmental protection, noting that the 136-acre Simpson mill site previously planned for development now only has 40 acres for development in the new plan, with the rest of the site labeled for a conservancy designation.

“Our plan is remarkably similar to The Herald’s Renaissance Plan (that gathered public comment on ideas for the city’s shoreline development and preservation), which tells us we were hearing the public right,” Roberts said. “But in line with the state’s Growth Management Act, we also have to plan for appropriate development in appropriate places.”

With the city nearing 100,000 population and the Everett urban growth area expected to reach 150,000 people by 2020, the city needs to develop more recreation trails and facilities, create a more attractive entry to the community along I-5, and keep development out of environmentally sensitive areas, Roberts said.

“This is an opportunity for the city to redefine itself in the direction the community thinks it ought to take. We have that opportunity as we go through public hearings on this plan,” he said.

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