Looking at Issaquah of the Future - Part Three

This is the third in a series of articles exploring the proposed Central Issaquah Plan and its implications for the people who live and work in Issaquah. The Central Issaquah Plan is a blueprint for converting 1100 acres of valley floor from an area of strip malls, storage units, and parking lots to high-density multi-use development. The City Council hopes to approve a final version of the plan by the end of this year. The introduced the Central Issaquah Plan and the factors motivating its development. The explored how the future might look if a Central Issaquah Plan is not adopted. This article examines a future Issaquah as envisioned by a Central Issaquah Plan Advisory Task Force appointed by Mayor Frisinger.

Imagine sitting in a room with eleven other people. You have all been appointed by Mayor Ava Frisinger to develop a plan that will guide the redevelopment of Central Issaquah to support the City’s commitment under the State’s Growth Management Act to accommodate 5000 new households and 20,000 more jobs by 2031.

How do you even begin?

The Central Issaquah Plan Advisory Task Force first met in September 2009. It was a diverse group including residents, environmentalists, a developer, large property owners, and representatives of Costco and Swedish Medical Center.  

Given the group’s charter, the first decision was easy. “The Task Force decided to look at Issaquah as an urban city,” says Joe Forkner, Task Force Chair. To accommodate population growth, Central Issaquah would have to assume a more urban character with the building density and increased population of a modern city center.

Beyond that, the Task Force was daunted by the variety of approaches it could take. “Initially the Task Force tried to develop a vision by attempting to look ahead twenty years,” said Trish Heinonen, Planning Manager for the City of Issaquah. This approach proved unsuccessful, “so, the Task Force members started thinking of what characteristics they wanted to Issaquah to still have in that many years”

Despite the Task Force’s diverse membership, it wasn’t difficult to settle on the primary characteristic to preserve: Issaquah’s connection with its natural environment.

Retaining the best of Issaquah 

“The challenge was planning for the new features that come with a small scale urban community without losing the open space, the friendliness and sense of community, the school system, and other characteristics that make Issaquah really special,” said Mark Hinthorne, the City’s Senior Policy Advisor, in a recent interview.

The Task Force set about doing this by separating into four subcommittees focusing on land use, design standards, capital investment, and development. The Task Force met each month to review, refine, and synthesize the findings of the subcommittees.

After investing almost 1000 hours, the Task Force had a vision focused on enhancement of Issaquah’s trail and park system, dense mixed-use development, and improved mobility. 

“We should be creating a model community as an example for the rest of America,” says Task Force member Ken Konigsmark. “We should be leading the way.” 

Leading the way

To see how the task force envisioned Issaquah of the future, let’s imagine it is 2032. A resident of the future awakens in an apartment midway up a 12-story high-rise on 12 Avenue NW just north of the freeway. Through one set of windows, she sees the rising sun glance off of Lake Sammamish. Through the other, she sees the mists lifting off Cougar Mountain. The traffic is already buzzing on I-90, and a loud bang indicates construction of the light rail station has recommenced.

She heads downstairs. She waits a few minutes and then climbs aboard an automated ‘pod car’ that forms part of the personal rapid transit system. It whispers past pedestrians, bikers, and cars as it heads south across the Interstate on the new 12th Avenue NW overpass.

Across the freeway, 12th Avenue heads into a mixed-use district where it is intersected by pedestrian-oriented streets. Tall construction cranes break up the skyline, and a few new twelve and fifteen story buildings rise in a stepped fashion out of the shorter structures that surround them.

Where the buildings do not adjoin the sidewalk, people are gathering in outdoor seating areas to grab breakfast or a morning coffee. A breeze rustles the trees overhead as well as the leaves of the vertical gardens that cover many of the building walls. Up above, workers are washing windows and cleaning solar panels. Some people are taking advantage of the nice weather to tend vegetable and flower gardens on their balconies and roofs.

If we were to look out over this Issaquah of the future, we would see an extensive greenbelt surrounding forested suburban neighborhoods and urban villages. They, in turn, would surround a “green necklace” of parks and trails that encompass Central Issaquah. “In the middle of all that,” says Konigsmark, “would be a dense urban environment where people can live and work, but where they can they can also breathe the fresh air and get away from the maddening crowd.” 

Paying for change 

“What is certain is that many significant investments in transit [and] mobility, parks [and] open space, and storm water facilities will be necessary to support our new vision for Central Issaquah,” wrote the Task Force in its recommendation. “It will take a strong, focused financial commitment to Central Issaquah by the City Council to break the inertia of the way things are. Significant investment in public infrastructure will be needed early to encourage private sector investment in this vision.”

When the City administration started converting the Task Force recommendation into a plan, questions about infrastructure investment and some differences in outlook motivated increasing deviation from the Task Force vision.

“The recommendation that the task force brought forward is a holistic plan,” says Forkner. “If you start tearing it apart, the plan starts to fall apart.”

So, the City administration began to develop a concrete plan based on the Task Force recommendation but differing from it in some significant ways.

The Task Force’s recommendation is available at http://www.ci.issaquah.wa.us/Page.asp?NavID=2574. The fourth article in this series will examine the City administration’s proposal, which features higher density housing in the urban core.