Height hearing may run 5 hours

By Matt Batcheldor | The Olympian • Published August 05, 2008

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OLYMPIA – Coming soon to a theater near you: a five-hour public meeting on a proposal to raise building height limits on the downtown isthmus.

The date: Sept. 16 at The Washington Center for the Performing Arts.

That is what the Olympia City Council is preparing for, and will discuss at its meeting tonight.

The council will consider the logistics of having people in the audience speak in a venue set up for performing arts, including:

• Should testimony alternate between proponents and opponents or should people be heard in the order they sign up? Even with four hours of testimony planned, only about 75 out of the hundreds of people are likely to have time to talk. One possibility is to seat opponents and proponents apart from each other to streamline testimony.

• How long should the meeting be?

• Where should people be seated?

"How do you manage the meeting flow and hear from a variety of perspectives?" city spokeswoman Cathie Butler said.

Butler said staff recommend The Washington Center because it can seat nearly 1,000 people. It's likely to be deja vu; about 600 people showed up to a City Council meeting at The Washington Center on a similar proposal to raise height limits in 2002.

This year's proposal is to raise height limits on about 5 acres of land between Budd Inlet and Capitol Lake. A South Sound developer, Triway Enterprises, is asking for the change so it can build proposed 5- and 7-story mixed-use buildings with 141 upscale condominiums, offices and retail on 2.3 acres. The other properties belong to other owners.

After having its own public hearing, the Olympia Planning Commission recommended a more-limited height-increase on 3.92 acres, allowing Triway's project but dropping two lots north of Fourth Avenue and two lots next to the Heritage Park fountain, which the city wants as park space.

Building heights would be set at a range of 35, 65 and 90 feet and require an 8-foot building "stepback" above 35 feet on all building sides. They also recommended the city strike an agreement with Triway that would cover specifics of the buildings.