A 40-plus acre parcel in northeast Lacey — the last parcel of that size with a particular type of zoning — can now be home to warehouses up to 500,000 square feet.
Lacey City Council voted unanimously Thursday to approve the zoning text amendment, despite some reservations expressed by Deputy Mayor Cynthia Pratt and Councilman Michael Steadman.
The request for the zoning text amendment came from Hill-Betti Business Park LLC, the owners of the parcel, which is north of Britton Parkway and west of Marvin Road Northeast. They made the request because parcels zoned light industrial commercial were previously not allowed to have warehouses larger than 200,000 square feet.
Although there are a total of three parcels with light industrial commercial zoning in the city, only the Hill-Betti parcel is big enough to accommodate larger warehouses.
You might be asking yourself: How can there only be three parcels when I see warehouses all over northeast Lacey? That’s because those other large warehouses are on property zoned light industrial, not light industrial commercial.
Deputy Mayor Pratt reluctantly approved the amendment.
“I always find it a little difficult to accommodate one person’s vision when it doesn’t really apply to anything else,” she said about the private party request.
However, she was won over by some city requirements tied to a future warehouse proposal. The developer will have to set aside some acreage to retain the small businesses that already do business on the parcel, and within two years, the developer also will have to convert those smaller buildings to city sewer from septic systems.
“We didn’t want to lose those smaller buildings if a larger building is built on that site,” said Ryan Andrews, planning commission manager, during his explanation of the zoning text amendment.
Councilman Michael Steadman raised concerns about truck traffic on Marvin Road.
Smaller warehouses tend to see a higher volume of smaller trucks, while a larger warehouse sees a lower volume of larger trucks, Andrews said.
Before the council vote, the zoning text amendment also came before the city’s planning commission. They voted 8-1 to recommend approval to the council.
Planning commission member Daphe Retzlaff voted against the recommendation, saying that northeast Lacey didn’t need to accommodate more large warehouses, according to Andrews.
Rolf has worked at The Olympian since August 2005. He covers breaking news, the city of Lacey and business for the paper. Rolf graduated from The Evergreen State College in 1990.
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