City of Yelm close to bringing development agreement with Blue Fern forward

During a Yelm City Council study session on Tuesday, Sept. 1, Todd Stancil, Yelm city administrator, told councilors that they city is close to bringing a development agreement with Blue Fern Development forward.

He noted that before the agreement comes to council for a vote of approval, there will need to be another study session meeting to allow Yelm City Council to “really dive into it.”

“We are close to hopefully bringing the development agreement forward,” Stancil said. “We should have the final edits back this week from Blue Fern’s side. We have conversations, sometimes multiple times a day, to work through some of those. We are confident that we should have a development agreement to bring forth.”

He noted that city officials last spoke with Blue Fern Development on Monday, Aug. 31, and claimed the organization would prefer to be part of that study session meeting discussion relating to the development agreement.

“We believe it would be best to have a separate work session just for that, just because to take up the amount of time it would need be,” Stancil said. “We would like to propose the fifth Tuesday of this month, which is the 29th. We have a rare fifth Tuesday, so if we could take advantage of that. We would like to do it a little bit earlier. If council can’t, we’ll make it work where council can be here. We’re thinking we’d like to do it from 4 to 6 p.m. on that day so we’re not adding another late night on the 29th.”

Yelm City Councilor Brian Hess asked Stancil if they will receive a copy of the development agreement before going into a study session? Stancil said yes, and they want to pencil this time in and allow Blue Fern Development to do the same. He added that Yelm is currently assuming they’ll be able to finalize the development agreement before bringing it forward to council on Tuesday, Sept. 29.

“There’s still a chance that we can’t,” Stancil said. “If that’s the case, we’ll let you know and we’ll cancel the meeting until we can work out whatever final pieces are in there. The bottom line is once we get it back from them, all our side goes through it with a fine-tooth comb, we use Bob (Stowe) again to go through it with his fine-tooth comb. If everything looks good, we can bring that forth.”

Stancil noted that council action toward the development agreement with Blue Fern Development would trigger the organization’s ability for the master planned community to move forward as well, which would also go before council.

“It starts the chain of progression,” Stancil said. “The piece that will come forward in this development agreement, it will be referenced that the development agreement is still tied to the creation of the CRF ordinance that we are still working through. At the end of the day, if the ordinance fell apart and we just couldn’t get the taxing districts onboard, there still is a chance that the entire thing goes away.”

Stancil added that he doesn’t want to slow down the development agreement signing because if that slows down, the entire process is held up.

“We’re meeting with the fire department next week. We’ll meet with the county again,” Stancil said. “One of my conversations afterwards with the EDC was regarding the CRF. That’s obviously an economic impact, significant for all taxing districts and obviously us.”