At its regular meeting on Monday Dec. 7, the City Council voted 5-2 not to implement a moratorium governing residential development on Mercer Island in front of a packed house. The vote came after a second reading of an ordinance that would halt applications for short and long platting and impervious surface deviations for six months.

The first reading of the ordinance passed by the same margin, 5-2, at the Council meeting on Nov. 16. It prompted a community conversation about property values and the impact of subdividing lots and building mega-homes on the characters of Island neighborhoods. Developers, realtors, Master Builders and homeowners both for and against the moratorium addressed the Council, which also received a couple hundred emails before the meeting.

City staff said that the outcome of a moratorium would be a rezoning and long range planning process that would be a “significant effort, time consuming, costly and controversial.” Development Services Director (DSG) Scott Greenberg suggested that the Council allocate $168,000 for the creation of a higher-level long-range planning position in his department.

DSG was never set up to be a long-range planning department, with staffing levels to accommodate permit processing, but has led several public engagement and planning processes over the past three years; notably the Town Center visioning and code revision.

Deputy Mayor Dan Grausz proposed the moratorium in somewhat of a strange fashion at the last meeting. It was not a regular agenda item and ended up being discussed at the end of the meeting, after midnight.

“You don’t always have to replace a 1950s rambler with a $2+ million home,” he said on Monday. “Every time you wait, another neighborhood will be impacted.”

On Monday, Councilmember Mike Cero said that the way the conversation came forward “hasn’t been pretty, but hasn’t been unordinary.” He echoed Grausz’s comments, noting that the problem seems to move from neighborhood to neighborhood, and that the community hasn’t come together to work through the issues.

Grausz said addressing density in neighborhoods was on the Council’s work plan for 2015-16, and saw a moratorium as a way to force a discussion in the community.

After extensive discussion and public comment, the Council decided that more time was needed for deliberation, and that two new council members (to be seated Jan. 4, 2016) should have an opportunity to weigh in.

The Council voted 4-3 in favor of a plan to discuss the topic at its annual Planning Session in late January, to have staff define the work required to consider revisions to the city’s single-family development standards and not to fund the DSG long-range planning position right away.

Jeff Sanderson, newly elected and sworn in at the Dec. 7 meeting, said the Council candidates ran on two promises: protection of the character of the Island and good governance. He said this moratorium might accomplish the former, but not the latter.

He, with Jane Meyer Brahm, Debbie Bertlin and Bruce Bassett agreed that the extent of the problem and scope of work should be better defined. Bassett said that the Council already has a full work plan for next year, with the Town Center, I-90 loss of mobility negotiations, the Mercer Island Center for the Arts (MICA) lease, the city’s budget, a potential levy lid lift and hiring a new city manager.

Cero, Grausz and Benson Wong voted against the plan to discuss the topic at the Planning Session. Wong said that waiting to address the issue of short-platting would “send the wrong message to the community” in which it has struck a distinct chord.

“Everybody agrees that there’s a problem, and the question is, what resources will we allocate?” Wong said.

Grausz ended his comments by asking what, in the Council’s upcoming work plan, is more important than neighborhoods.

Marc Rousso of JayMarc Homes, one of the developers on the Island, said that there were “no winners or losers” in the decision, and he is looking forward to working with stakeholders, “the Council and our neighbors to achieve a successful outcome.”

The City Council Planning Session will be Jan. 22-24 at the Community and Event Center.

Island housing inventory low

Inventory on Mercer Island is at a record low, according to analysts from John L. Scott. Pending sales in November dropped 21.1 percent, and inventory dropped 24.4 percent from two months’ supply to 1.5 months; six months is a healthy supply.

2015 has been a tough market for homebuyers. New listings fell 72 percent last month, from 25 listings down to a scant seven, and were 41.7 percent lower than a year ago.

“Many of our listings are selling within a few days with multiple offers,” said Julia Nordby, managing broker of John L. Scott Real Estate’s Mercer Island office. “Buyers are becoming very creative in their approach to constructing offers in order to win in these situations.”

There’s one exeption to the inventory shortage: waterfront homes.

“If you have been toying with the possibility of moving up to waterfront, now is the time,” Nordby said.