Table of Contents

• Home
• Meetings
• How to Become Involved/Contacts
• Project Overview
• Documents
• Comments and Feedback
• SMP Process
• Links
• Photo Gallery

An ordinance to approve the City of Sammamish Shoreline Master Program Update was passed by the City Council on October 6, 2009. The City Council Adopted SMP and Appendices: Designation Maps 1-4, Shoreline Inventory and Characterization Report, Inventory Maps, Restoration Plan, and Cumulative Impact Analysis have been submitted to the State Department of Ecology for final review. The entire submittal, including Related Documents, SEPA Compliance, and Public Participation Documents are available for review at City Hall. The submittal is also available on CD for a processing charge of $15. Please send requests, with a check made out to the City of Sammamish to:

City of Sammamish

Att: Debbie Beadle
801 228th Ave SE
Sammamish, WA 98075

The Shoreline Master Program Update does not affect current pending development applications for shoreline areas. Changes to shoreline regulations will not take effect until after Department of Ecology approval. Please note that the maintenance of existing landscaping – such as mowing your lawn or removing fallen tree limbs, etc. – is not affected by this program. All in-water work requires a permit. If you have questions regarding development on a specific parcel, please contact the City’s front desk at 425-295-0500 to have a planner assist you

Meetings  

Currently, there are no meetings scheduled regarding the Shoreline Master Program Update.

How Can Citizens Become Involved? 

The City of Sammamish thanks the many citizens who have actively participated in the Shoreline Master Program Update by attending meetings, learning about the issues, discussing their concerns with City Council, and submitting written comments. The City is maintaining the contact list that has been developed during the update process. Citizens that want to add or update their contact information should call or email:

For questions related to regulations and policies affecting your property, please call City Hall’s main desk (425-295-0500) and ask to speak to the planner on duty. If these questions are related to property specific plans, the planner may recommend scheduling a pre-application meeting.

Project Overview 

The City of Sammamish continues on track toward the update of the city’s Shoreline Master Program (SMP), in compliance with the Washington State Shoreline Management Act and the state SMP Guidelines adopted in 2003. This program will help the city balance shoreline development with preservation of shoreline ecology. A Shoreline Master Program is a plan that contains both policies and regulations that apply to “shorelines of the state” and their associated shorelands. In Sammamish, these areas include Pine Lake, Beaver Lake, Lake Sammamish and all lands 200 feet landward of these waters, plus any associated wetlands. The SMP is intended to provide for environmental protection and appropriate water-oriented use and development, including single family residential development and public access on public property. The Existing Shoreline Designations Map shows the designated shorelines and associated shorelands. Note that this map is for general purposes only. Determination of exact boundaries is made on a site-specific basis.

This SMP update is in the last year of a three-to-four-year update process. Phase I ended in June 2007 with the submittal of the Draft Shoreline Master Program Update to the State Department of Ecology. Phase II began in the summer of 2007 with an expanded public participation process and City Council adoption on October 6, 2009. See the Major Aspects of the SMP Process to learn more about each stage in the process.

In 2005, the city applied for, and was awarded, a $70,000 grant by the State Department of Ecology (DOE) toward meeting this goal. The City developed the scope of work to carry out Phase I for the grant agreement with DOE in March 2006. Since May 2006 the City has been utilizing the consultants ESA Adolfson to carry out the bulk of the work. In July 2007 the City received an additional $79,200 in DOE funding, which subsidizes ESA Adolfson’s work until SMP adoption. To see the DOE scopes of work, view the SMP Scope of Work Agreement with Ecology. See also the Timeline/Update Schedule.

One of the initial tasks in the update process was to collect existing shoreline data from a variety of sources. Information from this step can be read in the City of Sammamish Shoreline Inventory and Characterization Report, which was completed in November, 2006. With this step complete, the City gained solid information to seek a balance between State Guidelines and local needs and conditions. The information-gathering phase connected the public with organizations for relevant shoreline information. The information was then analyzed and displayed on maps, tables and illustrated in a way that characterized the shorelines’ ecological conditions. The findings were presented to the public in an Open House at City Hall on October 19, 2006 and to the Planning Commission on December 7th, 2007.

Planning Commission meetings are the primary forum for shoreline discussions, and they are open to the general public with opportunity for public comment. The first documents reviewed by the Planning Commission were the Inventory and Characterization Report, and the Draft Gap Analysis and SMP Consistency Review. The Gap Analysis identified goals and policies that need to be modified or added for the City to comply with State Guidelines. At the January 25th, 2007 meeting, the commission discussed the basis of the Shoreline Master Program Update document including shoreline goals for each of the major elements of the plan. At the March 1st meeting, the Commission engaged in discussions on the Draft Restoration Plan. They also became more familiar with shoreline policy language and shoreline considerations including regulation of single-family residential docks and piers, vegetation conservation, setbacks and buffers, and shoreline stabilization. The next several meetings covered draft policies and regulations. The draft Shoreline Environment Designations were discussed on June 7th and packaged and delivered to the Department of Ecology in June of 2008. The Draft Restoration Plan was revised and resubmitted in January 2008 to the Department of Ecology as the Final Restoration Plan.

The Public Review Draft SMP was issued in late September and presented to the Planning Commission on October 2, 2008. Following citizen comments and continued review (October hearings and November deliberations), the Planning Commission Recommended Draft was published in November and presented to the City Council on January 6th, 2009. The City Council Draft SMP, presented to Council on August 7, 2009, reflects City Council direction responsive to additional citizen concerns. Adoption by the City Council of the Shoreline Master Program, occurred on October 6, 2009 and included additional Council directed changes. These changes are documented in Table A, Table B, and Table C, as adopted on 10/06/09. The City Council Adopted SMP, appendices, and supporting documents were submitted to the Department of Ecology on February 3, 2010.

Documents 

HOW TO LOCATE SPECIFIC MATERIALS ON THIS PAGE:

In this “Documents” section you will find the most central AND/OR current materials being discussed, or already discussed, at meetings. If you do not find what you are looking for, or if your computer cannot print or absorb the file size or type, please let us know and we will accommodate you.

For meeting-specific materials: please view the city council meeting list.

Click here to view archived documents.

NOTE: Comments are accepted throughout the SMP update process, and posted online in batches, as you see below. Your comments will be posted as soon as possible. However, because packets for Council are prepared a few weeks in advance of each of their meetings, and because the volume of comments varies, we cannot guarantee when you will see your comments online or printed for Council.

Major Aspects of the SMP Process 

1. Public Participation and Coordination

We intend for the public participation process to be transparent and inclusive. As draft documents are developed, they will be reviewed by the public at open houses and by the Planning Commission at regularly scheduled intervals, and through other outreach mechanisms. These include a City webpage dedicated to the SMP, posters at key community locations, press releases, legal notices, email lists, and articles in the City newsletter and the Sammamish Review.

The Public Participation Plan will identify specific objectives, meeting dates, and key parties, including but not limited to the Planning Commission, general public, property owners, stakeholders, state agencies, King County, the Tribes, neighboring jurisdictions and special interest groups. Our goal is to identify the most effective opportunities for public involvement within the available timeframe.

2. Shoreline Inventory and Characterization

We will identify and collect information about the City’s shorelines to the extent that such information is relevant and reasonably obtainable. Then we will analyze the information and data collected as it relates to development of an effective Shoreline Master Program. This information will be presented as an Analysis Report and Map Folio that will present findings and make recommendations regarding shoreline protection and restoration, public access and accommodation of water-oriented uses. The report will provide the foundation for the consequent stages of the SMP process.

3. Draft Shoreline Goals, Policies, and Environment Designations

The City will establish shoreline goals to guide policy development, with the overall goal being “no net loss” of ecological function. Using this guide, the City will review our existing Shoreline Master Program as it relates to current DOE requirements and address the gaps between them. Based on the Analysis Report, the SMP guidelines and the City’s planning efforts and Comprehensive Plan goals, we will develop draft policy options and recommendations. In some cases, these draft policy options and/or recommendations might lead to new shoreline designations. The City will apply new language for these designations which may include some of these terms: “natural”, “rural conservancy”, “urban conservancy”, “high intensity”, “aquatic”, and “shoreline residential.”

4. Shoreline Development Regulations

We will review the City’s existing SMP development regulations and develop a Draft Update for proposed shoreline development regulations that will provide the City with the fair and workable tools it needs to administer the findings of the SMP process. The City’s Critical Areas regulations provide a solid basis to begin work from.

5. Draft Restoration Plan and Implementation Strategy

We will identify current and proposed restoration programs that contribute to the improvement of shoreline ecological functions in the City. In light of these programs, we will develop a Restoration Plan that takes into account the findings of the inventory and analysis, and goals developed under Task 3.

6. Draft SMP

We will consolidate the results of this process into a Draft Shoreline Master Program document that meets the requirements of the first phase of our SMP grant agreement with the Department of Ecology by July 2007.

7. Final SMP/Phase II

The Draft SMP will involve a high level of public participation in the second phase of SMP development, between July, 2007 and December, 2009. During this phase, “policy and regulatory options” that were reserved for public debate in Phase I —those that contained more flexibility with regard to DOE requirements--- will be examined by the public, Planning Commission, City Council and agencies involved. Also during Phase II, consistency between the SMP and other important planning documents of the City, such as the Comprehensive Plan and the Critical Areas Ordinance, will be evaluated. Final approval from the City Council and the Department of Ecology will be sought at the completion of Phase II in the year 2009.

Related Links