drive aisles drive ways drive drive drive

We finished the Roadways and Internal Vehicle Access code last night. It was interesting-- whenever a councilmember is gone and we have a controversial ordinance, it makes it that much harder. The ordinance needed four votes to pass, and with Kevin and Tony voting no, it had that.
I feel like we did the right thing-- it was a complex code, but we need the definitions of drive aisles that were added.

We didn't address traffic, for a reason-- that depends on site specific issues and we have many different ways to address those during other stages of development approval. Our professional staff, public works director, planning director, fire marshal, have opportunities to add conditions to projects almost unilaterally. The SEPA process allows for mitigation of impacts. If a development agreement is used, the city can add conditions that are more strict than the code and ask for specific improvements. Rezones can be approved with conditions. The City Council doesn't always have the chance to be involved in that discussion (such as the staff review, development agreement negotiation, SEPA approvals), but the city has the tools and uses them all the time.

It was also interesting to me to see the connections with the county's LDMR code. In our case, all those extras that aren't mandated in the code-- sidewalks, driveway space in front of attached-garages-- make for difficult living situations. Those have cropped up (or not shown up) in developments in the county that look very similar to single family developments without the amenities needed. In Mukilteo, we have Island View Ridge, high-value condos that have great views (probably have gorgeous interiors, I would assume), priced very high, but with the same lack of driveway space, sidewalks, etc. We need to address those items in future developments. Planning staff said they would bring all that back to us before annexation. That's a good thing.