Beach plans start
September 23, 2008
By J.B. Wogan
Park would be public beach on Lake Sammamish
At the Sept. 17 public meeting on Sammamish Landing Park, Bob Hamilton sat through a presentation and listened to his fellow residents’ concerns about launching docks, fishing and eagles. Finally, it was his turn to speak.
“One of the things I haven’t heard is safety and security,” he said. “This area has a great deal of history of abuse.”
Guy Michaelsen, a consultant for The Berger Partnership, said he was aware of problems with teenagers drinking and partying on the shoreline property. It is a common concern with any new park, Michaelsen said.
One solution would be to design sight lines within the park to allow for law enforcement to easily patrol the area, he said.
“If there’s a sense that they’re going to be observed, it can make a big difference,” said Reid Brockway, another resident attending the meeting.
In all, 12 residents attended the meeting, including councilwoman Nancy Whitten and three parks and recreation commissioners.
The first phase of Sammamish Landing Park, a 3,000-foot strip of shoreline property, would rely on $3 million planned to come out of the $19 million Parks Bond measure. That measure will appear on the Nov. 4 ballot when voters will decide whether to allocate their tax dollars in favor of the overall Bond and its supplementary levy.
“If the Parks Bond doesn’t pass, we’ll probably have to go back to the council and talk about other funding mechanisms,” said Jessi Richardson, city parks and recreation director.
If voters pass the bond and levy, construction could begin by 2011, she said.
At the meeting’s start, Michaelsen laid out his goal for presentation: to provide a master plan, big in scope, but vague in detail. Much of the specifics would be determined in the coming months at meetings with the community, city council and city staff.
While the meeting marked the beginning of the planning process for the park, Michaelsen said he had some notion of the park’s eventual design based on its current attributes. The wetlands and their buffers would have a hand in shaping the park. Also, the shoreline itself was stable and not eroding, which led him to believe the public could use the existing beaches. King County also plans to pave the East Lake Sammamish bike trail, which runs through the area.
“This is a park design where you’re working with the land, not rebuilding the land,” Michaelsen said.
But he also painted the scene of a park that would be integrated with its current natural setting with small, interspersed additions for public use.
“It seems it’s going to have to be a naturalist’s park,” Brockway said.
Michaelsen said there could be man-made features such as a promenade with benches winding over the wetlands. Still, he said there probably were realistic limitations to what the city could do.
Later in the meeting, Brockway broached the topic again, asking if power boats and a launching ramp, marina or loading dock might be possible. He added that he imagined residents from the plateau would want to use motorboats.
Michaelsen said anything was possible in theory, but such additions would probably be difficult and costly because of the work necessary to build and grade access roads and to meet permit standards.
Unrelated to the boat discussion, Hamilton and his wife suggested two additional ideas for their dream park: family amenities such as a swing set or playground and historical markers along the biking trail to give visitors a sense of what or who used to inhabit the area.
The city plans to hold two more public meetings from 6:30-8:30 p.m. Nov. 19 and Feb. 4 at City Hall. Michaelsen will also meet with the City Council Dec. 9. For anyone who cannot make those meetings, there is an online survey available at www.ci.sammamish.wa.us/SammLanding.aspx.
Reporter J.B. Wogan can be reached at 392-6434, ext. 247, or jbwogan@isspress.com.
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