On Thursday, July 23, 2020 the City of North Bend Planning Commission will hold an online public hearing to solicit feedback on a proposed developer agreement with Si View Park District regarding The Tollgate Farm Park – Farmstead Improvements Project.
Si View Parks has been working to transform the old Tollgate Farmhouse and surrounding property since 2016, envisioning it as a community space for farming education programs and events.
A $150,000 grant funded the farmhouse exterior rehab, which was completed in 2017. Another $270,000 grant is funding the historic building’s interior rehab, which is still in progress.
Now Si View Parks is working on the ‘Agricultural Development’ portion of the project, which includes construction of a barn, an agricultural wash station and a parking lot near the farmhouse.
Per North Bend municipal code, such a project requires street frontage improvements like sidewalks and curbs and under-grounding overhead power lines in the right-of-way fronting the land parcel.
The City of North Bend is proposing a developer agreement (DA) with Si View Parks District to alter some of those [often expensive] development requirements.
According to the public notice for the hearing, “Given the more rural
context of the park and the cost of these right-of-way improvements relative to the cost of the Farmstead improvements project, a Development Agreement is proposed to exempt the requirement to underground the overhead utility lines and to allow for reduced street frontage improvements, given public pathways that otherwise exist within Tollgate Farm Park.”
Anyone wanting to participate in the online public hearing and comment on the proposed agreement needs to get an invite to join the meeting. To request that invitation, email Senior Planner Mike McCarty at mmccarty@northbendwa.gov.
The planning commission is expected to make a recommendation on the developer agreement at its online meeting that immediately follows the public hearing. The agreement would then be brought to city council at a future meeting.
See Planning Commission Meeting agenda that contains the full proposed Tollgate Farmstead Improvements Development Agreement HERE.
