By Laura Lee Bennett, Programs Chair
On February 8th, 10:30 am at the Old Redmond Schoolhouse, the Redmond Historical Society welcomes Jeff Churchill, the City’s long-range planning manager, for a discussion on how Redmond’s past shapes its future.
Jeff will share from some of Redmond’s earliest planning documents and describe how―in some ways―the more things change, the more they stay the same.
We caught up with Jeff for a bit of Q&A.
RHS: In a nutshell, what is Washington's Growth Management Act?
Jeff: The Growth Management Act governs local planning for fast-growing cities and counties in Washington. It ensures that cities and counties adopt and regularly update plans and development regulations that are consistent, comprehensive, and will accommodate anticipated growth for a 20-year planning period.
RHS: When did planning begin for "Redmond 2050"?
Jeff: Work on Redmond 2050 began in 2020. The City Council adopted the Redmond 2050 Comprehensive Plan in November 2024, and work on development regulations will wrap-up in mid-2025.
RHS: What growth pain points does the plan address?
Jeff: Housing supply, affordability, and variety were high priorities in engaging with community members. The Redmond 2050 Comprehensive Plan increases capacity for housing, especially in Redmond’s centers (Downtown, Overlake, and Marymoor Village); broadly enables the construction of “middle housing” like duplexes, cottages, and townhomes in residential areas; and focuses Redmond’s affordable housing programs at delivering housing affordable to households with incomes up to 50% of area median income.
Community members also prioritized having better access to goods and services within a short walk or roll from home, without requiring the use of a car. The Comprehensive Plan creates a new zone to allow small-scale commercial in mainly residential areas. It also enables revisions to development regulations to reduce restrictions on home business operations.
Related to that, community members prioritized the ability to get around Redmond with less reliance on cars. People value the ability to access amenities in Redmond’s centers, light rail transit, and goods and services in other neighborhoods using bicycles, transit, and other modes. The Comprehensive Plan advances those ideas through the development of connected non-motorized networks. Plans for those networks are contained in the Transportation Master Plan, which is being updated this year.
RHS: What can you tell us about the proposed "innovative trail network" of Redmond parks? What is meant by "a Frederick Law Olmsted-inspired Emerald Necklace,” and how does it apply to the new park system?
Jeff: We consistently heard how much community members appreciate Redmond’s parks
and trails. They are treasured. The text quoted in the question comes from the vision statement in the Parks, Arts, Recreation, Culture, and Conservation chapter of the Comprehensive Plan. It’s a word picture of the kind of community we are collectively working to create over time. The “Emerald Necklace” is a name given to a park system in Boston, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted in the late 19th century. It refers to a connected chain of parks and open space. In Redmond, the vision for an Emerald Necklace–like system includes completion of the Redmond Central Connector and connecting it to the East Redmond Corridor (ERC) to create a Green Ring of parks and trails around the city. The ERC Master Plan and nearly completed ERC Implementation Plan advance this vision.
RHS: How will the new transit centers affect traffic? Parking?
Jeff: Two light rail stations are open in Overlake and two will open this spring: one in Marymoor Village and one in Downtown Redmond. Frequent and reliable light rail service provides Redmond community members an excellent way to get around the region without sitting in traffic. Redmond and Sound Transit are making improvements to streets and trails around the stations to accommodate people accessing transit. Parking around the Downtown Redmond Station is already in high demand and is managed to facilitate access to local businesses. Parking management to provide access to local businesses will continue to be important after the Downtown station opens.
"Cities are well known for reinventing themselves, and yet land development patterns can have surprising durability."
RHS: How does Redmond's past help to shape its future? Can you give some examples of Redmond's "earliest planning documents"?
Jeff: Cities are well known for reinventing themselves, and yet land development patterns can have surprising durability. In London, for example, many plans were submitted to re-envision the area destroyed by the Great Fire of 1666, but property ownership issues contributed to buildings being rebuilt in basically the same pattern, albeit with fire resistant materials.
Past decisions and investments still shape Redmond today. For example, arrival of the Seattle Lake Shore & Eastern Railway helped establish the center of town that remains today. More recently, decisions by Microsoft founders to occupy a cluster of office buildings in Overlake had a dramatic impact on not just Overlake, but on the city as a whole, contributing to decades of rapid development of homes and businesses to serve a growing and diverse workforce.
I searched the city’s planning library for early planning documents. A zoning plan from 1964 shows a land use pattern that is very similar to what we experience today. An undated History of Public Works in Redmond (likely 1990’s) talks about 1913 (!) plans of the Puget Sound Traction, Light, and Power Company (forerunner to Puget Sound Energy) to build a light rail trolley system serving Redmond.
RHS: What is the pattern, if any, of land development? Did Redmond's "founding fathers" have a cohesive vision?
Jeff: Redmond has a land development pattern that shows up in everything from transit service patterns to heat island data. Broadly, there are three nodes of dense development: Downtown, Overlake, and to a lesser extent Marymoor Village, together with a corridor of commercial and manufacturing land uses along Willows Road and a cluster of the same in Southeast Redmond. All of this is surrounded by residential neighborhoods, many on hills.
I do not know if Redmond’s leaders in the late 19th and early 20th century had a cohesive vision for what Redmond could or should become. Some of the events that put Redmond on the modern map―for example, the completion of the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge and the location of tech companies in Overlake―were still decades in the future. Still, choices made decades ago, such as to log the area, grow around a historic downtown, and create connections to the region by street, trail, and rail, strongly influence the Redmond we experience today.
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