Yelm City Council unanimously approves development agreement with Yelm MPC LLC

During a Yelm City Council meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 13, councilors unanimously approved a development agreement with Yelm MPC LLC to establish a long-term framework for the creation of the city’s 640-acre property as a master planned community.

The agreement between the City of Yelm and Yelm MPC LLC addresses development standards, project phasing, residential and commercial development, parks and open space, emergency services, transportation improvements, utilities, public infrastructure, mitigation requirements and the respective responsibilities of both parties.

A big component of the development agreement is the timing, construction and financing of Tahoma Boulevard and other transportation improvements needed to serve the development, according to the Yelm City Council packet from Tuesday, Oct. 13.

The agreement also establishes both parties’ responsibilities for major water-system infrastructure needed to serve the development, including the addition of a water tower and well, along with a pond.

The development agreement presented during the Yelm City Council meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 13, is the product of months of negotiations between the City of Yelm and the developer, with assistance from the City of Yelm’s legal counsel, consultants, engineers and other professionals.

Councilor Tracey Wood was curious about the name change from Blue Fern Development to Yelm MPC LLC in the development agreement. Duana Koloušková, Chief Legal Officer on behalf of the applicant, said this is how the developer has to set up their different corporate roles.
She noted this changes “absolutely nothing” about their responsibilities under the development agreement. Blue Fern Development still exists, but Yelm MPC LLC is a “uniquely formed” liability corporation. Koloušková believes this is what Yelm wants for the property at stake.

“It’s a funny thing. We had to essentially set up appropriate legal entities for our projects,” Koloušková said. “We are not unique in this. Before my role with Blue Fern, I represented builders and developers for nearly 30-years, and every single applicant does exactly this.”
Councilor Griselda Arias said she’s not an expert in all of the development talks pertaining to the 640 acres, but based on what she understands, she wanted to understand how the traffic element fits together.

“Mitigation can be reviewed during the SEPA process or even during traffic impact review, which we are currently going back and forth with their traffic agent,” Yelm Public Services Director Cody Colt said. “They’ve submitted a report and we’re about to provide a response back to their most recent traffic report.”

He added that through each phase of development, Blue Fern might have to do different litigation processes.

Prior to the Yelm City Councilors commenting on the development agreement, members of the community had the opportunity to testify for or against the development of the 640-acre property.

During the community comments portion of the segment, several community members addressed that the proposed 640-acre property currently sits within the Rainier School District (RSD).

Councilor Joseph Richardson attested to the concerns about RSD’s potential role in all of this.

“It sounds like there’s a lot of moving parts here. We’ve got to honor our neighbor, Rainier, and it’s always important to acknowledge that,” Richardson said. “Before you ask someone to dance, you have to have a conversation. What I’m hearing is Rainier needs the capital facilities plan in order to have a conversation first. Then, development agreement is second to that and is prior to any type of mitigation that is possible. Correct?”

Colt nodded yes to Richardson’s question.

Richardson then added that what all parties involved need to do is be accountable to each other.

“I think what we need to understand, as well, is that a development agreement has different components,” Richardson said. “We’re at a different step than we think we may be, and I think that’s what the confusion is.”

Councilor Brian Hess said that Yelm City Council and the City of Yelm have discussed the topic of the 640-acre development for well over a year. He noted it wasn’t until last November that the city council voted to sell the 640-acre property through different phases with Blue Fern Development.

“Since then, we’ve had updates almost once a month,” Hess said. “Where I am getting a little confused is did we hide any of this from the public? Did we not publish anything in the paper? Did we not publish anything online? Did we keep it so that when the meetings occurred, we had closed doors or anything else like that? That is a serious question I have?”

DePinto answered, and said the City of Yelm has been very transparent throughout this process.

“That’s what I thought,” Hess said. “I thought every study session was recorded. The public is always invited to come. Every meeting, the agenda is put out and if there’s going to be discussion about it, they were invited to come and participate. To all of a sudden come now and say, ‘put a hold on it,’ which we know that the development agreement, if it doesn’t get approved soon enough, will cause a lot of issues down the line when it comes to mitigation fees.”

Hess added there’s been a year-and-a-half of discussions taking place in the open forum of council meetings. He feels the city has been open and transparent throughout the last year-and-a-half of discussions.

“I’m very surprised that Rainier School District didn’t approach us sooner knowing that the 640 acres sat in their school district, not Yelm Community Schools,” Hess said. “For us to push this off any longer, as I said to my fellow council member, we’ve been open and transparent. We reached out to the community. We’ve had a discussion. It’s been published in the newspaper multiple times.”

Councilor Tracey Wood, stating he was looking for clarification, asked for confirmation that this is not the point in the process where they’d be having that conversation with Rainier?

“What we’re looking at doing today is creating the umbrella where all the discussions will take place, where we will come to the conclusions of the mitigation,” Wood said. “Did I hear that correctly?

Colt responded, stating he and Yelm City Administrator Todd Stancil both spoke at an open house study session in Rainier. He added that both parties have been in constant communication.

“This is not the spot for Rainier mitigation,” Colt said. “That comes later during a different process. The DA is our agreement with Blue Fern.”