Advertisement

Annexation | City hosts meetings to define neighborhood boundaries

By on September 2, 2010 in Featured Slideshow, Headlines, Neighborhood News

In recent months, the City of Kirkland and many annexation neighbors have been working together to define neighborhood boundary concepts for the Finn Hill, North Juanita and Kingsgate areas. Seven preliminary concepts have been developed and the City is seeking further feedback from annexation residents and businesses. The concepts will be discussed at upcoming meetings and are available online at www.ci.kirkland.wa.us/annexation. Residents and business owners who are unable to attend the meetings are encouraged to review the concepts on the City’s website by September 30, 2010 and submit their preferred concept online.

The Totem Lake Neighborhood Association is hosting a meeting for Kingsgate residents and businesses on September 15, 7 p.m., Kamiakin Junior High School, 14111-132nd Avenue NE, Kirkland, WA.

The Denny Creek Neighborhood Alliance and Finn Hill Park and Recreation District will co-host a meeting for Finn Hill residents and businesses on September 22, 7 p.m., St. John Vianney Church, 12600 84th Avenue NE, Kirkland, WA.

The Juanita Neighborhoods Association invites North Juanita residents and businesses to meet on September 23, 7 p.m., Holy Spirit Lutheran Church, 10021 NE 124th Street, Kirkland, WA.

At the neighborhood meetings, participants will further review and discuss the existing concepts. Feedback received will be forwarded to the City’s Planning Commission as it begins its work on annual amendments the City’s Comprehensive Plan. The Commission will hold a public hearing on October 14, 7 p.m., Kirkland City Hall, 123 5th Avenue, to receive additional public comment and discuss the proposed boundaries.

Kirkland’s annexation area has traditionally been defined by King County as the Northshore planning area which includes the three neighborhoods of Finn Hill, North Juanita and Kingsgate. Once the neighborhood boundaries in the annexation area are formalized, they will join the existing 13 neighborhoods as defined by the City’s Comprehensive Plan.

For more information about neighborhood planning for the Finn Hill, North Juanita and Kingsgate neighborhoods, contact Jeremy McMahan, Kirkland Planning & Community Development Department at 425-587-3229 or su.aw.dnalkrik.icnull@nahamcmj.

About Rob Butcher

Editor and Scribbler of Kirkland Views.
View all posts by Rob Butcher →
  • Jorge

    Is there a disadvantage to the city to acquire areas of lower income and much lower property value, such as Kingsgate and Finn Hill. The same services will need to be provide but is the revenue to the city the same as areas like Houghton and West of Market?

  • Bill Henkens

    Jorge,
    You might be right about Kingsgate but you are dead wrong about Finn Hill. Finn Hill has the best views in the whole area and boasts of multi-million dollars homes. Maybe you should take a drive up here and see for yourself, just take a drive to the end of 84th Ave . Not to mention all of the waterfront on Holmes Point. We should be recieving the exact same level of service.

  • Anonymous

    Jorge,
    Going to start taking a walk through some other areas of existing Kirkland and deciding who should get what service? There are some areas of Rose Hill and Totem Lake that might not meet your elitist standards. Maybe you should ask if the existing level of services is really necessary in an environment of reduced sales tax revenues and reduced incomes for the common people. Have your butler take up some of the slack.

  • Jorge

    I’m not saying, for instance, that Totem Lake is better than Kingsgate, but it is already part of the city. I am questioning the benefit to existing residents of adding areas that bring down the averages. It seems like it is just the mindless inexorable growth of government that is behind it, but bigger is not always better.

  • Bill Henkens

    Jorge,
    We;;. you are about 1 year late to the party. I wonder why you did not know this was going to happen. There were lots of us who live in Kingsgate and Finn Hill who voted NO. We could have used your help. Now all of us will learn to live with this much bigger city. My hope is that the city council is up to the task. They have yet to convince me.

  • Anonymous

    Jorge,

    To your point about the property values, the annexation neighborhoods have nothing to do with existing city of Kirkland home values. The annexation areas already had Kirkland addresses. So there won’t be any change there, despite what proponents of annexation touted during the process “Higher property values”.

    It’s funny… the MAJORITY of the people in the annexation area opposed the annexation. Your city council decided to override the public vote and annex us anyway. Now a lot of us are working together to try and come up with solutions for proposing reasonably sized neighborhoods. Where we can work with the city council and staff so that we can have our say in how the community works. And improve what is still a very tense relationship between Kirkland and the majority of the people annexed.

    At the heart of that tension is (and was during the annexation) an overriding sense that people in Kirkland (like you) feel that the North end of the city is some sort of low-income dump for all of the things Kirkland doesn’t like to have in its lily-white. Such as low income housing, tent cities, food banks, outreach court house expansions, and proposals for turning our superior county parks into poop-drenched off-leash dog parks, and so on. All of which has been done to us already.

    Now that our taxes are being collected, we’re going to have our say too. And we’ll have it on all of the things mentioned above, as well as on things like why there is no parking in downtown Kirkland which makes it inaccessible to those of us who do not live within walking distance of it. We’re being positive about it overall. And everyone who is involved today hope that you and your neighbors will be too.