Josh Brown, Executive Director of Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC), presented the City of Mountlake Terrace with a VISION 2040 Award for its innovative Regional Stormwater Facility at Monday’s City Council meeting.

This is the second consecutive VISION 2040 Award for Mountlake Terrace and a third award since 2009.

“Your community has done an outstanding job putting the right land use policies and plans in place and you have worked tirelessly to be able to secure the infrastructure to build out your Town Center,” Brown said. “Today, we wanted to recognize your work on implementation of those plans.”

VISION 2040 Awards recognize regional innovations in managing growth and sustaining quality of life. The city’s Regional Stormwater Facility provides a creative solution to support and encourage efficient redevelopment of the Town Center by using an innovative investment in infrastructure to protect critical areas in the McAleer Creek and Lake Ballinger Watershed basin.

Due to the density of the Town Center area and scarcity of vacant land, stormwater facilities are expensive to build and are best suited underground. A basin of about 13 acres, or 20 percent of the total Town Center area, drains into the Stormwater Facility. Use of the facility is an incentive to developers by allowing full optimal use of their private property and it eliminates the need for maintenance on a private facility.

A developer pays a proportional share of the cost of the facility based on the amount of impervious surface area that the subject property creates. Basing the fee on impervious surface area encourages private development to use Low Impact Development (LID) techniques resulting in a more sustainable Town Center.

The first development to utilize this facility is Vineyard Park at Mountlake Terrace, a senior assisted living facility that just opened in March. Use of the facility saved the developer about $50,000 in costs and maximized the buildable land.

“Stormwater is one of those issues that doesn’t seem like perhaps the most glamorous of topics,” Brown said. “As a former County Commissioner, I know maximizing infill development to be able to help edge the development community along so that projects can pencil out makes a lot of policy sense investing in regional stormwater facilities instead of using regulations that work on a parcel by parcel basis.”

Brown concluded his presentation saying, “Your community has been ahead of the curve for many years. You are continuing to step up and do wonderful things. I congratulate you and it wouldn’t surprise me to be here again next year and maybe the year after that honoring the great work your city is doing.”