Longmire Street resident cites density as main concern with home construction in area

Maragaret MacLeod, a Longmire Street Northwest resident, cited density as her primary reason for concern over South Puget Sound Habitat for Humanity’s 22-unit development during a Yelm City Council meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 27.

The 22-unit development will be located on Longmire Street NW near Yelm Middle School.

MacLeod, during the meeting, said she’s been affected and involved in the planning process — and wanted the issues with this particular development to be “publically documented.”

“First of all, I’m not sure why we’re here or why it’s on the consent agenda. I thought this was already a done deal,” MacLeod said. “Does anybody have any idea as to why it’s not a done deal? The utilities are all in … Does anybody know?”

MacLeod said with over 20 new places of residency being added on the block, she believes that density issues on Longmire Street NW’s three-block stretch will only worsen. Additionally, she claimed the Longmire Street NW neighborhood never had an opportunity to comment on the density previously.

“The main problem is parking and traffic. The parking is going to affect Longmire Street and Van Trump Avenue because there’s no parking on Cullens and there’s no parking on Coates,” she said. “Also, these houses have no garages and there’s no on-street parking on Spring Street in the court. So, I anticipate that there’s going to be, drifting over to East Haven Villa, they’re going to be using their parking lot. They’re going to be using Sea Mar’s parking lot. There’s going to need to be more police patrols to make sure they’re not parking on the street that isn’t wide enough for parking as it is now.”

MacLeod added that the other issue at hand is she claims Habitat for Humanity told her after a public hearing that they offered to push the project through to Cullens Road.

“They had offered that to the city. The city apparently had a traffic study, and the city declined to do that,” MacLeod said. “I live there. That traffic study is severely flawed, given the middle school is two blocks away. That whole getting to (SR) 510. I just wanted to get that on the record so you guys know when there are big problems, we tried to tell you what those problems are going to be.”

Gary Cooper, City of Yelm planning and building manager, took to the mic to explain to MacLeod why the South Puget Sound Habitat for Humanity’s 22-unit development was on the consent agenda for the January meeting.

“The plat was approved, I want to guess, 18-months ago by the hearings examiner,” Cooper said. “It received its approval. After you get approval, then, you go to the next step. After you get the preliminary plat approval, which is in essence, a final approval, but you still have to go out and build the improvements that are on the civil plans.”

He added that once roads are built, frontage improvements have been completed and storm water has been dealt with, only then can the civil engineer go out and inspect it before signing off.

“Only at that time do we do a final plat. So that’s the only reason it’s on the agenda tonight. It’s been inspected and approved by the civil engineer,” Cooper said.

He added that there was a public hearing opportunity regarding the development prior to the hearing examiners meeting, however, MacLeod maintained that there wasn’t an opportunity to speak on density in the area.