“I just finished reading through the Legal Notices in the May 25, 2007 issue of the Nisqually Valley News. (I’m a few days behind the locals because snail mail takes a little time to get to Chicagoland.) Netting out at nearly one full page of teeny-tiny type were four notices of “Mitigated Determination of Non-Significance”. Yes, Yelm is on a building spree, the likes of which hasn’t happened in this area before.

First: SEPA # 05-0755, by Windshadow LLC c/o Trinity Land Development Company. Their proposal: 56 multi-family units and 163 single-family homes on 24 acres (30 less 20% open area) on Berry Valley Road.

Second: SEPA # 07-0094, by Regent Mahan, LLC. Their proposal: 66 townhome units on 4.4 acres (4.89 less only 10%) on the corner of Durant Street and SW Berry Valley Road. Durant Street is being considered the open space on this project.

Third: SEPA # 07-0097, by Petra Engineering, LLC. Their proposal: 61 multi-family units on 3.68 acres (4.6 less 20%) on Berry Valley Road.

Fourth: SEPA # 07-0128, by Windshadow II Townhomes, LLC, c/o Trinity Land Development. Their proposal: 24 townhomes on 1.95 acrea (2.43 less 20%) on (you guessed it) Berry Valley Road.

The totals: a combined 370 units on 34.03 acres (maximum). That’s an average of about 4006 square feet per “home” – including the land!
[Ed Note: This compares to the record 217 Housing Starts (SFD & Duplexes) reported for 2005 on City Development Director Grant Beck’s presentation to the Yelm Planning Commission on March 19, 2007. There were 178 Housing Starts last year. Looks like another record year!].

Oh yes…the traffic. The City indicates that these combined proposals will generate an average of 2895 trips per day, including 291 during the “PM Peak Hour”. That’s a mess of cars. They figure that having that many trips will take the Level Of Service (LOS) at Longmire Street and Yelm Avenue West (SR 510) from “C” or “D” (depending on which paragraph you read) to “E”. By ordinance, the lowest permissible LOS at that intersection is “D”.

The City’s “mitigation” is to add a traffic signal to the intersection. Their simulation suggests that this will bring the LOS back “up to the accepted LOS D.” Whether LOS D is acceptable to Yelm residents is irrelevant; this is what the ordinance says is the minimum requirement, so that’s as far as they need to take it.

By the way, traffic mitigation for the first proposal is dependent upon the completion of migitations from another development – Berry Valley I – at the intersection of Berry Valley Road and Tahoma Boulevard.

That’s right! I’d forgotten that Tahoma Terra is building Tahoma Boulevard, which empties its hundreds of homes and thousands of daily trips out to a signalized intersection at the corner of Killion Road and Yelm Avenue West. Not to worry…that’s at least a couple hundred feet down the road.

Welcome to the Big City.”

James Zukowski