About Issaquah

“Becoming a Cascade Agenda Leadership City fulfills Issaquah’s long-standing commitment to environmental excellence and sustainability; and further reflects the values of our community.
 
The benefits; we implement and strengthen what we cherish, our environmental goals for healthy cities and protected, healthy wildlands.  We can leave no greater legacy than this, a life-affirming region for generations to come.”

Ava Frisinger, Mayor, City of Issaquah

The City of Issaquah has adopted innovative policies to improve livability in and around the City.  Issaquah adopted a Transfer of Development Rights program in 2005 to protect land in the Issaquah Creek basin and focus development in areas of the City that makes sense.  Issaquah passed a “Complete Streets” resolution in 2007 to make transportation investments work for pedestrians, bicyclists, automobiles and transit.  

The East Lake Sammamish trail and the new Issaquah Transit Center help to make Issaquah more connected.  Issaquah is currently working to update its Central Issaquah Plan to create a more walkable, lively town-center.  In addition to these steps, Issaquah continues to  focus on the surrounding environment through its annual Salmon Days Festival, trail building and maintenance on the Mountains to Sound Greenway and investments in parkland, such as Cougar Mountain Regional Park.

The Cascade Agenda Cities Program enlists the region’s cities to improve the livability of their neighborhoods—making them complete, compact and connected—and spectacular enough for people to choose to live there, saving the region’s natural and working lands from poorly planned development.

Examples of Policies that Issaquah is working on to improve its livability include:

• Rainier Boulevard Low Impact Development Project
• Complete Streets Ordinance
• Mountains to Sound Greenway
• Central Issaquah Plan
• Transfer of Development Rights Program
• Tree Preservation Amendments
  

Additional work between CLC and issaquah

Tour of Mixed-Use Development - CLC partnered with the City of Issaquah Planning Department to lead members of the Issaquah City Council, Planning Policy Commission, Development Commission and interested residents on a tour of five to six- story mixed-use development on Mercer Island and in Old Bellevue.

The tour took place on July 15th, 2008, and more than 50 participants joined Mark Hinshaw of LMN architects and representatives from CLC and the City of Issaquah.

Reaction from the group was generally positive, as indicated by a follow up survey to understand what elements might be appropriate for Issaquah and how citizens felt about mixed-use development.  Fifty nine percent of the participants said the trip changed how they thought about mixed-use development in Issaquah and eighty seven percent found the field trip sites relevant to Central Area Planning.

Links and resources

• City of Issaquah Planning Department
• Issaquah Press
• Issaquah Alps
• Issaquah Environmental Council
• Issaquah Historical Society