Avoiding sidewalks to nowhere: Chelan takes long view on street planning

CHELAN — Chelan City Council approved two frontage improvement deferral agreements at its Jan. 27 meeting, but not before a wide-ranging discussion that turned what could have been routine ordinances into a deeper look at how the city should plan streets, sidewalks, and long-term fairness to property owners.

At issue were two properties — one on Wapato Street and one near the Lookout development along State Route 150 — where city standards would normally require immediate construction of sidewalks, curbs, gutters, and other frontage improvements as a condition of development. Instead, the city chose to defer those requirements for up to 15 years, preserving the obligation while postponing construction.

Public Works Director Jake Youngren said in some parts of Chelan, requiring small, disconnected pieces of infrastructure can be counterproductive.

“In some of these areas, you end up with 50 or 60 feet of sidewalk in the middle of nowhere, with nothing connecting to it on either side,” Youngren said. “Then five or ten years later, when the city or adjacent properties are ready to do a larger, coordinated project, you end up tearing out what you just built.”

On Wapato Street, he said, the right-of-way is wide and largely unimproved, and the city does not yet have a clear long-term design for how the corridor should ultimately be built out.

“We don’t really have good information yet about where improvements should go in that 100-foot right-of-way,” Youngren said.

The Lookout property presents a different challenge. The maintenance facility there currently has access off the state highway, but the long-term plan is for traffic to be served internally through the development rather than directly from State Route 150.

“In that location, we wouldn’t want to encourage pedestrian use along the highway shoulder,” Youngren said. “The pedestrian network is intentionally on the other side of the road and inside the development.”

Councilmembers focused much of their discussion on what deferrals mean for future property owners.

Councilmember Tim Hollingsworth noted that while the obligation is recorded against the property, the real impact may come years later.

“Somebody five or six years from now buys this property, and yeah, it’s buried in the title report,” Hollingsworth said. “But then one day the city comes along and says, ‘By the way, there’s a $30,000 improvement you need to build.’”

Youngren agreed, warning that deferred projects do not get cheaper over time. “A $20,000 project today is not going to be a $20,000 project in 10 years,” he said.

The deferral agreements sunset after 15 years, at which point the city can require the improvements to be built or revisit the terms.

Youngren said staff is working to better track deferred obligations citywide and to use them more strategically when planning larger projects or pursuing grants.

He also acknowledged the city may eventually need different tools altogether.

“I do think there are better options out there,” he said, noting that systems such as traffic impact fees could allow developers to contribute to coordinated projects instead of building isolated pieces of infrastructure. “But that would require changes to city code.”

For councilmembers, the discussion made clear that the issue is not about giving individual properties a break, but about building infrastructure in the right order and at the right scale.

“This is about trying to avoid waste and avoid surprises,” Hollingsworth said, “and still do right by the city in the long run.”

Andrew Simpson: 509-433-7626 or andrew@ward.media