Yelm City Council approved an amendment to the Tahoma Terra Master Planned Community to allow a combination of residential and commercial development as the applicant, Tahoma Terra Holdings, LLC, seeks to construct several new amenities within the community.
Councilor Ashley Brooks was the lone no vote opposing the amendment.
Gary Cooper, Yelm’s planning and building manager, said the Tahoma Terra Master Planned Community was originally approved by Yelm City Council in 2005 and has been in the works for many years. He described this phase as the final portion of that community.
The original plans of the master community called for 220 acres featuring a variety of housing types, including townhomes, single-family residences and apartment buildings of various sizes. The applicant, Tahoma Terra Holdings, LLC, is proposing to build nine apartment buildings along Tahoma Boulevard and Berry Valley, which would have 102 apartment units.
Two commercial buildings were also proposed, including an 855-square-foot commercial building that features a drive-thru. This was originally intended to be a coffee stand. The other building will be approximately 1,690 square feet and is intended as a commercial office building.
“There would be two either restaurant or retail buildings, depending on who wants to occupy the buildings,” Cooper added. “That would total approximately 7,030 square feet.”
Additionally, a 12 building self-storage facility with 769 total units in the back of the apartment complex was proposed.
Cooper said the master community needed to meet eight standards, including: meeting the 200-acre minimum to accommodate for a “full range of uses,” compliance with Washington State’s growth management act, public service availability, creation of safe, efficient use of land and increased alternate modes of transportation. Cooper added that access to public transportation is within walking distance for “most folks, but not all.”
“The reason there’s so few standards in there as opposed to a commercial or residential zone, is because the intent is to try to incentivize a more-creative approach to the area,” Cooper said. “Ideally, it would be a fully self-contained community, but that isn’t always possible because the market drives a lot of this stuff. But it is designed to provide a neighborhood feel where there is a mix of housing types and commercial uses.”
Cooper noted, when the master community was originally approved in 2005, the area at hand was considered a commercial area of the master planned community and was meant to be commercial only with five commercial pads to be developed.
“There was actually a condition in the original approval that said, ‘for any residential units constructed east of Thompson Creek, the five commercial areas had to be developed.’ Well that never happened for a number of reasons,” Cooper said. “In 2008, we had the recession, [and] over the years, there have been different developers that’ve taken this master planned community on and each and every time said the commercial aspect of the proposal wasn’t economically feasible.”
Cooper said at the initial meeting to discuss the final phase, city staff were also told the proposal wasn’t financially feasible.
“We came up with a proposal that could accommodate the economic needs of the developers while still fulfilling the intent of what this was supposed to be in 2005,” Cooper said. “We prefer this to [be] just the five commercial pads because we’re getting the five commercial uses, but at the same time we’re getting the housing units that we need. As we all know there’s a housing shortage in the city and county, and every additional unit we can get is what we want.”
The City of Yelm held a public hearing on Sept. 21 related to the Tahoma Terra Master Planned Development, and Cooper said some of the attendants weren’t “necessarily happy” with the then-proposed commercial uses. He said other complaints included the lack of a planned medical facility.
“The city can’t require a medical facility to be there,” Cooper said. “We’d certainly like one, I’m sure.”
A concern with the proposed storage unit was that, in other commercial zones, the units must be 500 feet from neighborhood streets, Cooper said. He said this particular zone doesn’t require that rule and allows for the storage units to sit behind the apartments.
Councilor Brooks stated she didn’t like the storage proposal.
“I’m curious, when you do that, can you make sure it’s one level? Is that in the plan to make sure it isn’t stacked on?” she asked.
Cooper said, from what he’s heard, the storage center would be one level. This was later confirmed by Evan Mann with Tahoma Terra Holdings, LLC.
Councilor Amanda Johnstone said Cooper mentioned the traffic requirements had been “addressed and taken care of” and asked what the specifics of those conditions were.
“There are no particular conditions, but what we did in the review of it, there was a traffic study done in 2005, and we required the applicants to revisit that 2005 traffic study by having a traffic consultant review it to see if it was still applicable,” Cooper said. “They did, and the consultant reported back to us that this proposal would actually generate less traffic than what was originally proposed.”
He added part of the original proposal included a gas station, which Cooper described as a heavy traffic-type of commercial use. The formerly-proposed gas station is no longer in the works for the master community.
Councilor Brian Hess asked if Mann or the applicants had reached out to the Yelm Chamber of Commerce to find out how many small businesses are looking for commercial space, or if they’re looking at stores like Best Buy, Lowes or other big, national chain stores.
“In our efforts to figure out how this piece would position commercially, we reached out to numerous different small businesses, mostly local chains or local businesses,” Mann said. “You have Farrelli’s down on the corner, but the reason Farrelli’s picked where it is, is because it’s on the main street. Every business we spoke to, the primary goal for them was visibility on that main street.”
Mann added they’ve enlisted the help of commercial real estate consultants and found the demand and desire of 99% of commercial ventures for this area is visibility on Yelm Avenue.
Hess responded, “What you’re telling me is that when it comes down to retail and commercial for the city of Yelm, if we don’t develop it on 507 or 510, we aren’t going to be able to get any kind of commercial development? In other words, we won’t be able to get day care centers, fitness centers, beauty salons, small, little restaurants that might be nice treasures within the community. Do we need to redesign the city to get the commercial we need, and we just need to give up on trying to have commercial development within the communities such as yours?”
Mann says he can only speak on experience at this particular property. Brooks then asked if the developers reached out to Yelm’s Chamber of Commerce to seek potential businesses. Mann said he doesn’t believe a conversation took place.
Councilors Johnstone, Joseph Richardson, Joshua Crossman, Holly Smith, Hess and Terry Kaminski all voted to approve the amendments to the Tahoma Terra Master Planned Community.
