23.35.060 SEPA policies.
The City designates and adopts by reference the following policies as the basis for the City’s exercise of authority pursuant to this section:
(1) The City shall use all practicable means, consistent with other essential considerations of state policy, to improve and coordinate plans, functions, programs and resources to the end that the state and its citizens may:
(a) Fulfill the responsibilities of each generation as trustees of the environment for succeeding generations;
(b) Assure for all people of the state safe, healthful, productive and aesthetically and culturally pleasing surroundings;
(c) Attain in the widest range of beneficial uses of the environment without degradation, risk to health or safety or other undesirable and unintended consequences;
(d) Preserve important historic, cultural and natural heritage;
(e) Maintain, whenever possible, an environment which supports diversity and variety of individual choice;
(f) Achieve a balance between population and resource use which will permit high standards of living and a wide sharing of life’s amenities; and
(g) Enhance the quality of renewable resources and approach the maximum attainable recycling of depletable resources.
(2) The City recognizes that each person has a fundamental and inalienable right to a healthful environment and that each person has a responsibility to contribute to the preservation and enhancement of the environment.
(3) The City incorporates by reference the policies in the following plans, ordinances and resolutions, as may be amended hereafter:
(a) Comprehensive Plan;
(b) Comprehensive Parks and Recreation Plan;
(c) 3-R Area Action Plan;
(d) Solid Waste Plan;
(e) Shoreline Plan;
(f) Urban Parks Recovery Program;
(h) Ordinance No. 3255.
(4) The City establishes the following additional policies:
(a) Require land development to include appropriate measures to prevent air pollution and deterioration of ambient air quality;
(b) Require land development to utilize vegetation, topography and on-site drainage systems or methods sufficient to prevent runoff onto public ways;
(c) Require land development where necessary to employ dust abatement, wind erosion and/or site restoration methods where construction or subsequent operations involve grading or excavation activities;
(d) Avoid the dumping or discharge of any unauthorized substance into the surface water or groundwater systems;
(e) Preserve the physical capability of lands to support urban development and use;
(f) Recognize the intrinsic value of riparian wildlife habitat and, to the extent possible, prevent its deterioration;
(g) Utilize the noise standards set forth in Chapter 173-60 WAC, for proposals not covered by City standards, to regulate noise levels generated directly or indirectly by the use of lands;
(h) Utilize natural and manmade visual barriers to separate to the extent possible, residential land development from commercial and industrial land developments and other nonresidential uses;
(i) Require accident contingency plans in conjunction with all land developments posing a threat to vicinal properties when such operations involve a substantial risk of explosion or release of hazardous substance;
(j) To avoid unnecessary congestion and hazard at the intersection of arterial streets, driveways should be no closer than 60 feet to the intersection, and in no case be closer than 20 feet to the intersection;
(k) To avoid unnecessary hazard associated with the movement of vehicles from public or private properties onto public streets, any off-street parking lot, other than for residential development requiring three or fewer off-street parking spaces, should be designed to allow vehicles to enter public streets in a head-on fashion rather than by backing out; and
(l) Require the dedication and/or improvement of right-of-way to promote the logical extension of public streets concurrent with development. [Ord. 3297 § 8, 1998; Ord. 2512 § 1, 1984; Code 1970 § 23.07.060.]