Maren Murphy, Senior Planner, 509.625.6737
Friday, March 10, 2023 at 11:59 a.m.
The South Logan Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) Project will support more connectivity and livability for the community, businesses, and organizations in the South Logan area of the Logan Neighborhood.
The recently built STA City Line bus rapid transit route through this area that will begin service in July presents an opportunity to create a focused community vision and policies that encourage mixed-use, walkable places close to transit. The South Logan TOD Project will leverage and support this investment with the development of a subarea plan and a planned action environmental impact statement.
An environmental impact statement (EIS) is both a process and document that identifies, describes, and analyzes potential environmental effects. The EIS ensures state and local agencies consider the potential environmental impacts of proposed developments or policy changes, as well as ways to mitigate those impacts, during their decision-making processes.
A planned action is like a bulk EIS and provides more detailed analysis of the impacts of many potential projects all at once during the planning stage, rather than each project one at a time. The goal is to facilitate development that will help achieve goals for the area by simplifying and expediting environmental review of future individual projects. This can help create predictability and streamline permitting, help attract economic development to a priority planning area, and be more responsive to community needs identified throughout the process with immediate action. The outcome will likely result in land use changes and new development opportunities.
As part of the EIS process, project consultants and City staff have crafted preliminary development “alternatives” for the South Logan area. The alternatives, guided by community input, show potential future scenarios that examine a mix of uses and intensities, public improvements, and other actions that meet the identified community values.
The Preliminary Alternatives Memo provides an overview of the values and future development options. The potential environmental impacts of development under each scenario will be studied and documented in the EIS. The plan values will be used along with the results of EIS analysis to choose a preferred alternative.
The Final EIS and Subarea Plan will include mitigation measures to address potential negative impacts from planned growth, a framework to direct public and private investment, and strategies to improve neighborhood livability and connectivity, and advance the community’s vision for South Logan.
After a series of recent presentations on the preliminary alternatives to Plan Commission, City Council, and an online open house, the project consultants have been working to identify the range of impacts and any mitigation measures necessary. The Draft EIS will outline four different alternatives for future development:
The Preliminary Alternatives Memo provides an early overview of these alternatives, including land use changes and priorities and investments. The full analysis of the alternatives, impacts, and mitigation measures will be evaluated in the Draft EIS.
The full Draft Subarea Plan and Draft EIS are projected to be released in April 2023 for public review. There will be an accompanying 30-day public comment period and public workshop TBD during the comment period to share about the alternatives analysis and gather formal feedback from the community and agency partners on the different scenarios. The received feedback will ultimately inform the development and identification of the preferred alternative to help guide the future framework and development in the South Logan area.
Following the public comment period, project staff anticipate the Plan Commission and City Council will consider the Final Subarea Plan, Final EIS, and Planned Action Ordinance for adoption by ordinance in Summer 2023 with a series of workshops and public hearings.
To stay up to date on the project, sign up for the project email newsletter on the project webpage, where you can view all the materials and latest updates-- including the community survey results, online StoryMap, existing conditions report, the summary of what we learned at the community planning studio, and recordings of previous meetings.
