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The Mountlake Terrace City Council at its May 13 work/study session discussed making changes to the zoning code to allow carports, covered porches and patios, along with temporary uses for food trucks. Separately, two proposals to enter into professional services contracts were also considered.
The Mountlake Terrace Planning Commission previously held several discussions before recommending the proposed amendments to the zoning code that would modify standards within both the single- and multi-household residential zoning districts and also regulate mobile food vendors within the city. This includes regulations relating to allowing their use on public and private property.
The recommended code amendments for carports as accessory buildings would require that storage uses within the structures be enclosed and not visible from the right-of-way or adjoining properties. It would not allow tent structures to be used for vehicles or storage.
“There was a lot of discussion from planning commission about allowing carports in all zones versus just particular zones as it is in the code right now and planning commission was pretty adamant about making sure that that’s done in a way that it doesn’t become an eyesore in the community and become full of storage type uses instead of what it is intended for which is to park a vehicle under the carport,” Community and Economic Development Director Christy Osborn said. That is why the language about enclosed storage, which she said is common to other cities’ codes, was included.
Yard exceptions to allow for covered porches and patios would limit the structures’ height relative to the type of roof, require that they not be fully enclosed above 36 inches in height and allow them within 6 feet of a front-yard setback.
Temporary uses for mobile food vendors would limit their hours and times of operation, require they obtain necessary city business license, health and fire district approvals and provide for daily waste collection and removal. There are additional requirements for locating within the public right-of-way or city owned properties. Mountlake Terrace does not currently have regulations in place governing food trucks.
“We did our best to work with the code as it is and it’s just not a clean way of doing it, so that’s why we are trying to get some specific regulations for mobile food vendors,” Associate Planner Kevin Johnson said. “The intention of this code that’s being proposed is that if a food truck is in the right-of-way (they) are required to get the permit. If the food truck is going to be hosted on private property, then the private property owner would get the permit for hosting the food truck.”
He explained that with no current way in the code to hold food trucks responsible, the city has been requiring Hemlock State Brewing Company to get permits for the vendors parked outside of its establishment — to provide some measure of code enforcement.
With the temporary-use permits, food vendors would be able to then operate at a specific location, on a temporary basis, for a limited period of time. They are also not allowed to sell alcoholic beverages or cannabis-related products. The temporary-use permits are valid for 12 months and such approval is required even when those activities are located on private property. A special events permit is required for allowance of more than one food truck/vendor on a property and also for a truck located in residential zones.
Vendors could be parked once a day for up to six hours on a site and their hours of operation can occur no earlier than 6 a.m. and no later than 9 p.m. Trucks can be parked at a location no more than four days a week and overnight parking or storage of the food truck and/or vendor’s equipment would not be allowed. A right-of-way use permit is required when a truck is located in a city right-of-way and a concessions permit would be needed to locate in a city park or any other municipally owned land.
Osborn said she thought the city’s permits for mobile food vendors would be “a bargain compared to other jurisdictions and what they’re charging.”
“There’s been a lot of requests to have this type of thing,” she said, adding the proposal has been carefully considered by the planning commission over the course of several meetings. “We can road test it and see how it goes and then if we have some issues that pop up we can always take a look and tweak what’s before you and correct those problems,” she said.
Several councilmembers voiced that they thought the city was moving in the right direction with the proposed zoning code text amendments. A public hearing will be held on the matter at the council’s Monday, May 17 regular business meeting.
In other business, city staff recommended entering into a contract with Aktivov for the use of “asset management” computer software that will track the maintenance on a variety of infrastructure such as utility lines and roadways. Mountlake Terrace has used similar software in the past for this purpose, but discontinued doing so during the past few years after determining the last program was not user-friendly and was inefficient.
The city has been seeking a different system that works both for staff in the field and in the office. Efforts have been focused on obtaining software that is mobile, based on Geographic Information Systems (GIS), user friendly for employees who are less computer proficient and provides the various features needed by the city.
The Aktivov software would include modules for work order, inspection, recurring and preventive maintenance, citizen requests management, and administrative management tools.
If approved, costs for the software, initial setup and annual maintenance for nearly unlimited use of the program would be approximately $118,000 through 2024. That would not include additional expenses associated with the purchase of mobile devices for staff and ongoing annual costs of service for mobile access and replacement devices over time.
Costs for the software would be shared between the water, sewer, stormwater, streets, and parks budgets. The city council will vote on a motion to approve the contract with Aktivov as part of the consent calendar at Monday night’s regular business meeting.
Public Works Operations Manager Peter Dressel said the software would be a step up from using paper work orders and would provide the city with a better, more-efficient system for helping to maintain its infrastructure assets. He said the “usability of the program in the field” was a primary reason why the Aktivov software was chosen and other cities or utilities he’d spoken with had indicated they were satisfied with using it. “At the end of the day it provides a valuable repository of information for us,” Dressel added.
In another matter, council subcommittee members in charge of conducting the annual city manager review process said they would like to hire an outside company to do the evaluations. The subcommittee consists of Mayor Pro Tem Doug McCardle and Councilmember Laura Sonmore, both of whom said they felt doing so would improve the overall process. The council has previously utilized such professional services to conduct performance reviews.
They recommended the council authorize the city to enter into an agreement with the Prothman Company to facilitate the City Manager Scott Hugill’s 2021 performance evaluation. The company’s work would speed up the review process, which has been finished late in the past, and provide the council with better information on which to base its annual evaluation conclusions and compensation recommendations.
“We felt like the last couple of years have been somewhat cumbersome and clunky with using a SurveyMonkey (software) and we have never been able to really meet our deadline,” of starting and finishing the review process in June which then gets pushed out further, McCardle said.
If the contract is approved, the company would use a two-part process over the course of a month to conduct the evaluations and reach an overall agreement with the council on the city manager’s performance. It would cost the city $4,950 in professional fees, plus mileage, travel time and any other client-required licenses, fees or taxes. The city could cancel the contract at any time.
Some councilmembers said they would like language included in the contract about exploring the possibility of using those review materials from this year to then help develop options for their own in-house capabilities for future use. Doing so would enable the city to use the contracted services in the short term with an eye on limiting or eliminating those expenses in the coming years.
The council will vote on the proposal as part of its consent calendar on Monday night.
The city council will hold its next regular business meeting May 17, beginning at 7 p.m. It will include two public hearings on potential zoning code text amendments. See the agenda here.
— By Nathan Blackwell
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