SEQUIM — The struggle over how to promote affordable housing while holding on to Sequim’s spacious feeling continues, as the City Council wrangles with how many homes per acre to allow.
During Monday night’s council meeting, the members held another long discussion over Sequim’s residential densities law — and then voted 5-2 to table the issue until its next meeting at 6 p.m. May 10 in the Transit Center, 190 W. Cedar St.
The majority of members wanted to give the Sequim Planning Commission more time to review the law, and make a recommendation to let it stay as is or be repealed.
Members Susan Lorenzen and Erik Erichsen voted against that postponement.
The densities ordinance — Title 18 of the Sequim Municipal Code — now permits 15 to 22 dwelling units per acre in areas zoned R-4, six to 14 units per acre in the R-3 zone and three to five per acre in the R-2 zone.
These high densities, which allow for multistory, multifamily buildings, were aimed at encouraging the construction of lower-cost housing.
Keeping small-town atmosphere
But now, some members including Laura Dubois and Lorenzen are expressing concern over Sequim losing its country feel.
The Sequim Comprehensive Plan, Dubois pointed out, starts with a vision statement that addresses this very issue.
Sequim is to be a North Olympic Peninsula center of commercial, cultural, recreational and medical services, the plan states, “while maintaining its friendly small-town and rural atmosphere.”
Dubois and other members of the council wanted to talk, then, about repealing some of the high-density standards, and replacing them with lower numbers.
A proposed amended ordinance would reduce density in the R-4 zone to 11 to 16 dwelling units per acre; in R-3 the range would be six to 10 units while R-2 would stay at three to five units per acre.
The Sequim Planning Commission, however, has yet to make a recommendation on those reductions, though that advisory panel has had many months to consider them.
Lorenzen and Erichsen, however, opposed tabling the ordinance since Erichsen wasn’t satisfied with the changes, while Lorenzen wanted to vote on it Monday night.
Since the City Council majority did opt to wait, the Planning Commission will have another chance to review the proposed density reductions during its next meeting at 6 p.m. Tuesday in the Sequim Transit Center.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
