City of Kent to allow light manufacturing downtown

Light manufacturing could be coming to downtown Kent under a zoning code amendment approved by the City Council.

The council adopted the change to allow light manufacturing at its Tuesday meeting in an effort to bring more jobs and revenue to vacant sites, including the city-owned Naden property just north of Willis Street and east of Highway 167. City leaders first discussed the proposal at a council workshop led by city staff in December.

Matt Gilbert, city Economic and Community Development deputy director, gave an example at a council committee meeting March 11 about a business Kent turned away from downtown because of the restriction against light manufacturing.

“We had a gentleman whose company built custom coffee machines,” Gilbert said. “He was excited to be in the downtown area and do the custom work, but our zoning doesn’t allow it. That got the ball rolling for our workshop to open up uses in a responsible way to allow clean and compatible uses that can activate downtown.”

City staff has attracted interest from hotel developers in about 2 acres of the Naden property. But initial plans to sell the remaining 5 acres to retail, commercial office or residential developers failed to attract interest.

Robotics testing and industrial research are examples of the type of businesses that will be allowed under the new ordinance. Freight-intensive uses such as packaging, wholesale trading and distribution are not permitted.

The ordinance also includes restrictions to limit truck storage to sites with close access to principal arterial streets to make sure downtown streets are not impacted by increased truck traffic. Dock-high doors for truck loading are limited to one door per 25,000 square feet of building area.

“The amendment is a surgical approach,” said Hayley Bonsteel, city long range planning manager. “We are not updating the entire zoning code.”

City staff pointed out that advanced manufacturing has changed significantly over the past several decades and the current zoning code has outdated restrictions on where to locate manufacturing facilities. Many specialty or advanced manufacturing operations do not produce the kind of noise, truck traffic or pollution often associated with manufacturing of the past.

Those type of businesses that are noisy, require a lot of trucks or pollute are still prohibited downtown. Any proposed business also would need to meet downtown design guidelines.

The city’s Land Use and Planning Board approved the zoning change last month and the council’s Economic and Community Development Committee recommended March 11 that the full council pass the amendment.

The city began to purchase the Naden properties in 2002 with plans for an aquatic center. But city leaders later abandoned that plan because of the high costs and then agreed to partner with the YMCA to build a fitness facility on the East Hill that’s expected to open this fall. Kent bought the properties for $7.2 million using $5.8 million in bonds and $1.4 million from other city funds, according to city documents.