City of Lakewood announcement.
The meeting of Feb. 14 began with a tour of Lakewood’s new permit portal. Lakewood now shares a familiar interface with the Pierce County PALS system. Users may research permit history, pay fees, schedule appointments, request updates, and perform other tasks from a single dashboard.
Assistant City Manager Dave Bugher reviewed the City’s Climate Change Work Plan. Recommended by the Planning Commission, the work plan proposes 35 measures to lower emissions, advance sustainable development standards, and influence urban planning. City Council requested that each measure be scored for importance and for target metrics and estimated costs to be established.
Bugher additionally reviewed the City’s Annual Housing Report. The report is highly detailed. It contains information about market conditions, housing quality, subsidies & assistance, environmental factors, accessory dwelling units, mobile home parks, and other topics.
Rents rose (+14% YoY) three times faster than local incomes, although Lakewood remains the second-most affordable Pierce County municipality after Spanaway. One challenge is surging material costs (+188% since the pandemic began), adding over $24,000 to the cost to build a single-family home.
Long-Range & Strategic Planning Manager Tiffany Speir and Councilmember Linda Farmer briefed the council on the activity of the South Sound Housing Affordability Partnership. Farmer serves on the SSHAP Executive Board. Lakewood’s stated priorities will include low- and moderate-income homeownership, senior housing, multifamily rental housing, and displacement prevention.
City Manager John Caulfield briefed the council on state and federal legislative sessions. A proposed state transportation package, Move Ahead Washington, would fund several important infrastructure projects in Lakewood and the 28th Legislative District, including $75 million to redesign the I-5 bridge across the Nisqually Delta and $244 million to extend HOV lanes along I-5 from Tacoma to Lakewood.
If the City can publish this summary in 2 days after a Council meeting so can the Clover Park School District after a Board meeting! Thank you!
A couple of points.
The “climate change” plan is something of a joke given that Lakewood’s population is less that 1% of that of Washington. It’s just a plan to keep some environmentalists employed for the foreseeable future. To do it for the ambiance (saving trees), common sense work from home, more effective transportation and other such reasons is fine as long as we recognize that each of these efforts have their own value rather than placing them under the rubric of “climate change” for which they have not real value other than political. We do them because they make common sense in their own right, not that they are going to have any impact on climate. To do otherwise is a politically correct fraud.
On the subject of housing, the claim is made that: “Rents rose (+14% YoY) three times faster than local incomes”. Well that’s because many people did not have their rents adjusted since 2019, the leases of which were carried over with the mandates in early 2020 through November 2021: nearly 3 years! Add to this inflation over 2021 and the added expenses landlords had to absorb out of pocket: loss of rents from tenants who refused to pay, unpaid utilities landlords couldn’t shut off, excessive wear and tear from tenants you couldn’t evict, increases is real estate tax, rules favorable to tenants against landlords, etc. It’s also of note that in just 2021 housing prices went up 17% and thus rents haven’t even kept up with home cost inflation. I hope this isn’t a portend of some kind of “rent control” by the City under the guise of “equity” or “social justice”.