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The Bellevue City Council is scheduled on Monday to take up again two topics that have drawn a lot of discussion: raises for the mayor and council members and a rezoning request for land near a soon-to-open hospital.
Votes on both matters were postponed at the March 8 meeting.
The salary proposal calls for increasing council pay from $7,000 to $14,000 per year and a bump for the mayor from $15,000 to $17,000. While the proposal did have supporters at a public hearing, many others felt the increase was ill-timed.
The rezoning request involves the Bellevue Medical Center's plan to buy an adjacent residential property and turn it into a 200-stall ground-level parking lot. The plan is opposed by a group of nearby homeowners in the Castle Ridge neighborhood who fear a multilevel garage or building on the land in the future.
Because the homeowners submitted a petition against the rezoning request, a supermajority
--- five of the six elected council members --- would have to approve the request instead of a simple majority.
The plan to convert the adjacent residential lot with a 4,000-square-foot home on it into a 200-stall parking lot started to develop last year, said Bellevue Medical Center CEO Martin Carmody. He said data showed medical center planners that the facility would need to expand sooner rather than later to find adequate space for employee parking.
“This is truly a necessary need,” Carmody said.
The council asked the medical center to consider a change to the zoning of the hospital property to reassure neighbors, and Carmody said he and his staff have been working to find resolution.
With the hospital's opening date of May 17 fast approaching, the project needs to begin soon, he added.
Carmody said one alternative to rezoning from residential to mixed-use would be to enter into a covenant with the city that any future changes would have to be approved by the council.
He said the land definitely would not become a parking garage. And he said that though there could be a need to construct a medical building on the site in the future, there would be height restrictions to limit interference with the neighbors.
Residents would rather the hospital stick to its original plans for expansion, which included a parking garage on the west side of the hospital. However, medical center officials have said a surface-level lot is more cost effective early on.
Among the other items on Monday's agenda are votes to:
• Require the mayor to issue any vetoes on City Council actions immediately after the council vote. Currently, the mayor's vetoes come at the next council meeting. Supporters of the change said the process is unfair to parties who are awarded contracts from the city only to find out two weeks later (at the next meeting) that the mayor has vetoed them. Opponents say the change wouldn't give the mayor enough time to research a given issue before making a decision.
• Add the designation of “seasonal merchant” to the Bellevue master fee schedule. The new designation would apply to vendors selling seasonal agricultural products like Christmas trees and sweet corn in temporary locations. Those individuals now fall under the city's peddlers license designation and have to pay $300 per year per person or $50 per day to operate in Bellevue. Under the new designation, they would be charged $25 for a one-month license or $50 for a four-month license.
• Lift restrictions on the number of signs that can be displayed on private property, including residential lots. Under a sign ordinance designed to restrict the use of temporary signs outside businesses along busy thoroughfares, residential property owners were also included and limited to displaying a maximum of two signs on a single property. The change would allow temporary signs such as campaign signs to be placed on private property with the owner's permission but without a permit.
The council also will hold a public hearing to:
• Establish a City Tree Board and allow for the regulation of planting, maintenance and removal of trees in Bellevue. The ordinance would put more emphasis on valuing and maintaining Bellevue's trees, said Councilman Don Preister. Also, in order to become a Tree City --- something Preister and the Green Bellevue committee are working toward --- a city must have a Tree Board.
An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated councl action on the proposed Tree Board.
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