Lakewood Planning Commission pushes back on tax incentive to replace trees and shops with apartments

Summary of the following post: The majority of Lakewood Planning Commissioners voted Wednesday, April 16, 2025 against including a stretch of Gravelly Lake Drive in a tax incentive to promote multifamily housing. Their recommendation will go to the City Council for a final decision. There will be more said, this time by the public, at the Monday, April 21, 2025 Lakewood City Council meeting.

Wednesday, April 16 was a great day for Lakewood. The Planning Commission majority voted against incentives that threaten the tree-lined area along Gravelly Lake Drive and the former library site. 

This will surely come up this coming Monday, April 21 at 6 p.m. when many of us will attend the Lakewood City Council meeting and express concerns about the drive to build apartments over the crushed dreams of small business owners. 

The topic, of course, is the proposal by some city leaders to use a tax incentive to encourage landowners to displace small businesses and replace them with apartments. Some of us believe the tax incentive might make a lot of sense for the many vacant places in Lakewood. But many of us don’t like the idea of manipulating tax dollars to evict small businesses.

The majority of planning commissioners pointed to the thriving and healthy neighborhood and said there  are better places to promote redevelopment. Their recommendation now goes to the City Council, which makes the final decision.

Let’s hear from the planning commissioners

It was clear most of the commissioners had listened to concerns from the neighborhood and other people in Lakewood. I’m going to get out of the way and you can hear from them, remarks that they delivered either at a meeting two weeks ago or at the meeting this week:

Vice Chair Ellen Talbo: “I’ve lived in cities that have experienced decades of long blight, such as Buffalo, New York. (The multifamily tax exemption) is a tool that’s been well used in Buffalo because much of the city is very blighted…I don’t feel like (Gravelly Lake Drive) looks or feels blighted… I don’t think this area is blighted at all, to be honest…There are other areas of Lakewood that have this tool and we should be focusing on improving those areas rather than extending the boundary…The most compelling reason we’ve heard is that one or two developers want it.

“We’re making it sound like this is such a wonderful tool that we just need to use it everywhere and anywhere. And the ‘anywhere’ part is what I struggle with. To me, this area is not ‘anywhere,’ this is an area that has established commercial use and maintained a long time, the same law offices, the same religious uses, the same small business shops…It’s not the type of area that is profuse with many vacant lots. We need to improve the underutilized areas of the city.”

Commissioner Mark Herr called for acting in a way that makes sense “for the long-term vision of the community but also considers the people who are the community. We’ve had extensive discussion with the community. The message is very clear. This change is not a desired change.” 

Commissioner Philip Lindholm: “I’ve spoken to residents and gone door to door in the Clover Park Shops. It’s not clear to me that the city has made a sufficient case for that part of the expansion.”

Lindholm is already declared as a City Council candidate. I give him points for visiting the Shops. I doubt if many city officials have been knocking on the doors up and down Gravelly Lake Drive telling business owners that this great tax incentive will dash their hopes and dreams of owning a business.

Commission Chair Phillip Combs “The zoning, in many degrees, was a surprise to many people. I’m glad we had such a turnout from the public. It’s been very educational.”

Combs gets at an important topic, that many of the people that I have approached about the tax incentive had no idea the city was planning to promote so much apartment housing in an established neighborhood with historic uses and unsuspecting homeowners. This all gets very confusing – as we are about to see. 

Concern about apartments looming over homes

There was a twist to comments by Commissioner Linn Larsen, who favored the extension. Early in the debate two meetings ago, he said something that I think a lot of neighbors have not said. But they’ve been thinking it: 

“I’m supportive of the (Residential Target Area (RTA)) expanded in that area, but I caution that if the existing buildings (on the south side of Gravelly Lake Drive) were to be removed for any reason (such as) fire, earthquake, anything that would require them to be destroyed, that going up to the new RTA densities would, could, make for buildings that were incompatible with the surrounding and adjacent single-family residential neighborhood and that Clover Creek district there. I point out that I live in that subdivision.

“So I would ask that the RTA expansion be stated in such a manner that the density that’s currently (there) on the south side of Gravelly Lake Drive (and 112th) not be allowed to increase…I want to be careful that it doesn’t impact the neighbors.”

Now, what Larsen wanted was not possible, for density is determined by zoning, not the tax incentive. But it was validating for residents imagining looming apartment buildings to hear a planning commissioner note the tax exemption may promote uses incompatible with the most adjacent homes. 

This is something that I and a lot of my allies have been hesitant to say, because we don’t want to be typed as people against any housing at all. I do think there’s a lot of uncertainty about what the City of Lakewood’s passion for pushing higher density along the Gravelly Lake Drive corridor could do to neighborhoods. 

And I remind you that there are a lot of places in Lakewood where you could build apartments that won’t loom over houses. 

What an incentive does

So we can’t stress enough that the tax incentive debate is not about housing density. The council already zoned the neighborhood for multifamily housing and higher densities. The council did that back when very few members of the public were paying attention. It’s a done deal, for now, though I expect it to come up during future City Council races.

So while lots of people want to talk about density, the current debate is about an incentive. So what’s an incentive? Here’s a comparison. Let’s say I offer a kid 20 bucks to do a chore. That’s an incentive. And it says two things:

• I want the chore done (or in the City of Lakewood’s case, I want Gravelly Lake Drive lined with apartments)
• I’m encouraging the child to do the chore. I’m not forcing the kid. So it’s not the city tearing down small businesses or paving over the former library site; the city is just using our tax dollars to make it easier for landowners to reach the city’s desired goal. If it’s not the city’s desired goal, it’s pretty weird to have it as an incentive. 

Anyway, I’m looking forward to seeing what happens at 6 p.m. Monday, April 21, at City Hall, whether people talk about density, the tax incentive, or any other aspects of growth. Some of us will make remarks during public comment encouraging the city to value small business. We will find out who cares. 

Whatever happened to the idea for Oakbrook, Springbrook, and Tillicum?

OK, new subject. So here’s something that happened Wednesday that even surprised the planning commission.

The city has been considering this tax incentive for other areas. The city has been circulating maps of Tillicum, Springbrook, and Oakbrook, during several meetings, and then suddenly, mysteriously, Wednesday night those disappeared from the agenda. And even the planning commissioners were stumped – why were those areas floated to both the City Council and the Planning Commission and then suddenly removed by the staff from consideration Wednesday?

“I guess I’m a little discouraged, because we have been talking about this for quite some time,” Combs said. “These areas need any extra tools to get stuff going. They need a spark, a catalyst.”

“THOSE are the areas that we should be talking about,” Talbo said.  “Those are the areas that need strategic planning.”

The other thing going on is that the idea of expanding the tax incentive to other areas actually came from the planning commission a year ago, so maybe they had to be the ones to get the ball over the goal line.

It was still odd, at least to me, that after seeing this idea in front of the City Council last year, Springbrook, Oakbrook, and Tillicum simply vanished from the agenda. 

But not for the planning commission. Not Wednesday. Commissioners said that they did think the incentive makes sense for parts of those three neighborhoods where there are vacant buildings. 

What’s coming up next

Monday, April 21. So why are many of us showing up to the City Council on Monday?

Members of Save Our Unique Lakewood originally chose that date because for a long time, April 21 was going to be the formal public hearing about the tax incentive. But the formal proposal has been delayed because the planning commission has taken multiple meetings to make a recommendation. 

I also like April 21 because it’s just a few weeks before when people can file to run for City Council May 5 to 9. I’m assuming that based on the drive for this tax proposal, at least one person is planning to run for election or re-election on the platform “Let’s transform Lakewood into Apartmentwood.” I’m hoping that at the public hearing Monday the public can weigh in on whether we’re all on board with that. Perhaps these discussions can inform some City Council races. 

May 12: Meanwhile, in regards to the tax incentive, the planning commission and the City Council were scheduled to have a joint meeting on Monday, May 12. So that’s going to work out as a time to discuss the tax exemption. After attending several planning commission meetings, I have confidence the commissioners will speak truth to power.

The council will then have their own public hearing about the tax exemption, I’m assuming either the week after May 12 or in June. This proposal is not going away. There’s at least one silver lining. Whether we’re talking about density or tax incentives, this discussion has brought many of us together to show we care about the special character of Lakewood.