Bonney Lake Faces Annexation Hurdles in Pierce County

In three communities on Bonney Lake’s southern border, residents say they want faster police response, better services, access to elected officials and the ability to be more involved in local decision-making. The city is eager to oblige and wants to annex the 1,860-acre area, growing the city’s population by about 40 percent and adding about $576 million to its assessed value.

But Pierce County says the city hasn’t properly planned for the growth and isn’t playing by state rules.

The city and the county plan to lay out their arguments Tuesday in front of the Boundary Review Board about whether the land should be considered for annexation. If the board approves, the annexation would go to a general vote later this year or early in 2012.

Bonney Lake favors annexation because it could provide needed services that the county can’t provide at an acceptable level, according to city leaders.

“Pierce County has proven in the past that the way they go about planning is very poor,” said Bonney Lake Mayor . "[Bonney Lake] works very hard to plan for the future. People are asking us for representation because they want to feel part of a city.”

An annexation study the city did last fall found that citizens in the potential annexation area wanted:

• Lower property taxes
  
• Faster police response
• Participation in city government, including the opportunity to be appointed to city boards and commissions and run for City Council
• The opportunity to vote in city elections, permitting greater access and influence with local elected officials
• Land value protection through the city’s comprehensive plan, land use controls and code enforcement program
• Reduced need to travel to Tacoma for permits, court, etc.

Pierce County, for its part, says the annexation plan is “premature” and doesn’t follow state law governing growth.

In a 29-page brief filed with the Boundary Review Board last month, Pierce County accuses Bonney Lake of “putting the cart before the horse” by attempting to incorporate the area into the city without first amending its capital facilities and comprehensive plans, as stated in the state Growth Management Act.

“The city’s proposed annexation of this area flies in the face of the goals of GMA in that it was not planned for the city and it is not consistent with the planning that the city has done over the years,” Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Jill Guernsey said in the brief.

But Mayor Johnson said in a statement to Pierce County Executive Pat McCarthy in early January that the proposed annexation area “is within an urban growth area, is urban in nature and accordingly should be served by the City.” He noted that Bonney Lake is the only city contiguous to the area, and “it is not feasible nor in the public interest for the area to incorporate as a separate city.”

Guiding growth

The 1990 Growth Management Act is supposed to guide cities and counties in comprehensive planning, with 13 goals that address everything from urban growth and economic development to housing and open spaces. It mandates that urban growth areas should accommodate the growth projected by the state Office of Financial Management in the next 20 years. Those areas are identified by existing public facilities and service capacities. Bonney Lake’s current designated urban growth area is 500 acres near Victor Falls Elementary School, bordered by Rhodes Lake Road East.

The three sub-areas Bonney Lake hopes to annex are home to about 7,000 residents in the Ponderosa, Rhododendron and Timber Ridge communities, including the area surrounding Liberty Ridge Elementary. Included in the annexation plan is the yet-to-be-realized Plateau 465 development, a 465-acre parcel owned by Investco. Not included is the adjoining Cascadia development.

“We are not saying that area cannot be annexed into Bonney Lake,” said Al Rose, Executive Director Justice Services for Pierce County. “We are saying that we have to go through this process together. We’ve told them that you can amend your comprehensive plan, you can update the capital facilities plan and we can do a pre-annexation agreement, but we have to do these things under the Growth Management Act.”

Rose stressed that the city has to file the necessary paperwork and do the proper planning in order to annex the land. “It’s really about them not having followed the law.”

City Administrator disagrees with Rose on the obligation to include detailed plans in the city’s comprehensive and capital facilities plans because the disputed area is part of Pierce County’s existing comprehensive urban growth area, even if it’s not part of Bonney Lake’s UGA.

“The county is trying to cloud the issue,” Morrison said. “The comprehensive plan does address much of it, as does our utility plan, but not to the extent that the county would like.

“Notwithstanding, state law doesn’t require it to be included, as the area is an existing comprehensive urban growth area, not a proposed new one.”

Police response

Bonney Lake Police Chief Mike Mitchell says residents in the annexed area would get better police service if they join the city of about 17,370. Currently, the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office responds, sometimes aided by city police.

“Pierce County Sheriff’s response time isn’t always driving out there and seeing someone; sometimes it’s a phone call, checking in and seeing if the issue can be handled over the phone. Or, they don’t go at all,” Mitchell said. “I think we would be more visible, we’d be out in the neighborhoods. You could expect to see an officer if you called 911 on a routine call, and they’d be there in five to six minutes or less. We’d also have the resources close by to have multiple people there.”

The city estimates it would need to hire three patrol officers, fill a vacant lieutenant slot and add a community services officer and another records person.

Developer opposition

While many residents have written to the review board supporting annexation, opposition has come from Investco, the owners of Plateau 465, and Homestreet Bank, the owner of the Cascadia development.

“The proposed annexation of the Plateau 465 (master planned community) is premature and ill-advised given the City’s lack of smart growth zoning and comprehensive planning tools necessary to realize master planned communities,” Plateau 465 LLC wrote in a letter to the review board.

Plateau 465 is an undeveloped project envisioned to create up to 2,968 residential units and provide 22 acres of commercial development. It would include infrastructure improvements and, eventually, a wastewater treatment facility. It was planned to supplement the anticipated Cascadia development, which would have been a self-contained community of 6,500 housing units, a golf course and open spaces that would sit on top of a 5,000-acre hill.

Since the Cascadia project and defaulted to Homestreet Bank last fall after almost 10 years in the making, Plateau 465 has been hesitant to continue with its plan and continues to hold out until the economy improves. Its parent company, Investco, is planning another large mixed-use residential and commercial community just down the hill – the in Sumner.

Homestreet Bank also objected to the annexation plan in a letter to the review board, stating that while Cascadia is not included in the annexation plan, its traffic mitigation agreements with Pierce County would be affected by it.

Plateau 465 agreed to donate 15 acres and pay $2.5 million toward the development of a regional park site that would connect with 80 acres owned by Pierce County. The proposed Buckley-Bonney Lake Plateau Regional Park would accommodate the increased density of people living in what was a very rural area. Between 2003 and 2008, Pierce County Parks and Recreation spearheaded a master plan for the park and invited area residents, Bonney Lake staff and a state representative to help develop it. While that study determined that most residents wanted a “passive use” open space area, Bonney Lake has visions of athletic ball fields.

“Plateau 465 is concerned because they are obligated through agreement with the county to put up money for this park,” said Pierce County’s Rose. “And now Bonney Lake is saying, ‘We don’t want that plan at all, we’ll just start from scratch.’”

City administrator Morrison counters that the county was wrong to agree to the deal with Plateau 465 in the first place.

“In all of those other 7,000 people that need service, not once were they mentioned in the county’s brief. It did not address what was good for them, only what would be good for the developer,” Morrison said. “It was premature in the first place that they ever rezoned that area for Plateau 465, to create a pre-planned community. All of these arguments are just the county groping at straws to distract the board from the real issues, which is that it is a logical boundary, the people want it and it does make sense.”

Public vote

In a Jan. 5 letter to the county executive, the Bonney Lake mayor offered a pre-annexation agreement that would include pledging all future traffic impact fees from the annexed area back into that area, and the city would assume all street and stormwater systems as-is. The city also agreed to pledge all park impact fees to the Buckley-Bonney Lake Regional Park development, once the land was dedicated to the city. The city also expressed a desire to work with Cascadia and other developers on any future plans.

If the Boundary Review Board approves, a special election originally planned for May would be held between August and April 2012, with annexation taking effect in 2013 if approved. If the review board rules against Bonney Lake, the city could reapply for annexation in a year and move toward a vote in 2013.

For more information on the annexation, visit the City of Bonney Lake Annexation information page.