Public Meeting on Preferred Use of Everett’s Kimberly-Clark Site Set For Tuesday Night

The City of Everett’s Planning Commission will hold a public hearing Tuesday night to discuss their preferred alternative for the future of the Kimberly-Clark site on Everett’s Waterfront. The meeting is scheduled for Tuesday October 23, 2012 at 6:30 p.m. in the Weyerhaeuser Meeting Room at Everett Station, 4th Floor, 3201 Smith Street in Everett. Everett’s Planning Department has been working on the plans for some time and came up with 4 alternatives for the commissioners to consider. After a public meeting on September 18th, the commissioners listened to public testimony and directed the planning department to come up with a fifth alternative plan. This plan is now available online and will be the focus of Tuesday’s meeting.

In addition to the alternative plan there is also an addendum to the draft and final supplemental environmental impact statements. It addresses impacts to the site that were not envisioned when Kimberly-Clark was in full operation. One revelation shown on page 5, section 2, is that the Kimberly-Clark employee parking lots on the east side of West Marine View Drive would revert to zoning that would allow apartments to be built there if those parking lots are not used by the new Kimberly-Clark property owners within two years.

It’s worth noting that at the Everett City Council meeting on October 10th, Tim Nord, from the Washington State Department of Ecology, predicted it would take three years just to adequately clean the upland portion of the Kimberly-Clark site for development, (Nord’s time-frame does not include the waterfront portion of the property). That could mean apartments may come to the neighborhood. The City of Everett planning department has prepared a chart of height restrictions on page 16 of the addendum.

The City of Everett is encouraging residents and anyone else interested, to attend the public meeting Tuesday night and provide input. Once the meeting is over, the planning commission is expected to endorse a final alternative plan and present it to the Everett City Council who would then make a final decision on the types of uses to be allowed at the Kimberly-Clark site. That will only come after the council holds its own public hearing. Click here to view all of the Central Waterfront Planning Area documents on the city’s website.