Three Tree Point and Lake Burien residents packed Mick Kelly’s Irish Pub on Saturday afternoon to discuss the Burien Shoreline Master Program.

The City of Burien is the middle of updating their Shoreline Master Program, which is the properties along the shore what the City Master Plan is to the rest of the City.

Although the process has been going on for over a year, many residents who will be affected by the new regulations just found out about the process barely a month ago. Nearly 200 people came to the last Burien Planning Commission meeting on Feb. 9. Many of them said this meeting was the first they had heard about the Shoreline Master Plan being updated.

On Saturday almost 50 people came to a community meeting at Mick Kelly’s to discuss their concerns and plan course of action. Their biggest focus was making sure the Planning Committee received input from the residents most affected from it.

Dave Douglas, a permit coordinator for Waterfront Construction gave a presentation about his experience with Shoreline Master Programs and answered questions about Burien’s proposed Shoreline Master Program, providing an outside perspective.

One of the biggest concerns residents along Three Tree Point have is the wording in the Shoreline Master Program which says any structure damaged more than 50 percent of it’s assessed value cannot be replaced. This includes the bulkheads as well as the houses. The State law is 75 percent.

Douglas said bulkheads are not grandfathered in, like the houses could be. Meaning as the wording is now if a bulkhead was damaged beyond 50 percent of its value it could not be replaced.

At the last Planning Commission meeting Burien Senior planner David Johanson said the wording was ambiguous but the intent was that anyone whose house is damaged beyond 50 percent of the assessed value would still be able to rebuild on their original footprint.
Johanson said they used 50 percent because it conforms with the rest of the City.
Douglas said no other place he has heard of has gone as low as 50 percent. Land uses are different from surface uses, he said, and should be treated differently. He also said if the Master Program goes through with the 50 percent number you are going to see a lot of people rebuilding 49.9 percent of their bulkhead one year and another 49.9 percent the next. “People will always find a way around things.”
The Shoreline Master Program being worked on says the City should look to create public access to shorelines where there is not any currently. This has Lake Burien residents concerned about their privacy, as well as the ecology of the Lake, which is carefully looked after by the people living around the Lake.

Currently there is no public access to Lake Burien. The only land where public access would be possible is on the Ruth Dykeman Childrens Center property. The Ruth Dykeman Center said last year, when there were getting part of their land rezoned, they had no desire to have a public park right next to them and they would refuse any offers by the City to buy it.
Burien has made no attempt to acquire the property, but homeowners around Lake Burien are afraid the language in the Shoreline Master Program could open that door.

Douglas told people he did not get the impression from reading the Master Program the City was looking for a way to take property away from homeowners.
One of the organizers Carol Jacobson one of the things they can do is provide their own input to the City, giving the Planning Commission possible solutions instead of just complaints.

Sign up sheets on various topics, such as bulkheads, grandfathered in etc., were passed around. The people signing up agreed to research a particular topic and provide their own ideas to the Planning Commission.

Planning Commission Member Jim Clingan was present at the meeting. He stood up and took questions, answering them as best he could.
The Planning Commission received the Shoreline Master Program in the Middle of December and Clingan said the original plan was for the Planning Commission to send the Master Program to the Council by the end of February, something he said it is obvious will not happen.

Clingan said the Planning Commission does not have to have the Shoreline Master Program to the City until December 2010.
The next Planning Commission meeting will be Tuesday at 7 p.m. in the Burien City Council Chambers.

The Shoreline Document can be viewed on the Burien website at http://www.burienwa.gov/index.aspx?NID=851.