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This free class taking place at Lake Hills Library on Wednesday, May 19, 7-9 p.m. will feature talks from Emergency Management staff and Crime Prevention police officers about getting prepared for disasters and protecting your house from crime. Attendees will also learn from Bellevue Citizen Corps Council representatives how you can combine these two concepts when organizing your neighborhood.

Residents will have the opportunity to engage in a facilitated discussion about neighborhood organizing programs and what city officials can do to improve them.

This is a great opportunity to socialize with like-minded individuals around the topic of preparedness and/or crime prevention and become a trusted public safety partner with the City of Bellevue. For more information on this program, please contact Sophia Le (425-452-6935 / sle@bellevuewa.gov).

Make a date in your calendar. The LHNA is having our spring meeting on APRIL 23RD, between 7 and 8-30 at the exciting venue of the new Lake Hills Shopping Center. The tentative agenda includes a talk on the history and new layout of the center, the election of officers for the upcoming year (President, Vice-President, Secretary, Treasurer, Communications Chairperson, Programs Chairperson), an update on the single room rental ordinance, and we plan to announce a date for this year’s summer picnic.

We hope for a great turnout and plenty of input on how we can shape the future of Lake Hills. Hope to see you there.

At City Hall on November 20th – 7pm, Puget Sound Energy are holding a public hearing on the new transmission lines that will stretch between the Lake Hills and Phantom Lake substations. If approved, this new line will be installed along NE 8th St and 148th Av, with future plans to also run down SE16th St.

The line’s purpose is to make our electricity service more reliable – a topical issue for us during this stormy season – and to increase capacity.

Drop in, get informed and have your say.

Description:

Proposal to construct a new, 115kB transmission line to connect the existing Lake Hills Substation with the Phantom Lake Substation. The route and new poles will be in the rights-of-way along SE 16th Street, 148th Avenue SE and NE and NE 8th Street. Work will also include upgrades to the existing substations and required mitigation for tree removal and construction within a floodplain and wetlands along the route.

Construction continues to move along at the new Lake Hills Village development.

For those who don’t know what to expect, the mixed-use complex will include retail, office and residential space, with underground and surface parking, a central pedestrian plaza with a bell tower, and a gateway terrace with a covered arcade. The residential units include apartments (to be available as condos in a few years time) and townhomes situated around the north and west perimeters of the complex.

For more details, try these links…
Bellevue Reporter article
Site map and Leasing information

We’d like to give a big shout out for Lake Hills resident Tracy Brown, who has just launched the East Bellevue Bulletin, a blog and facebook site giving updates on everything that’s happening east of the 405.

According to Tracy, the Bulletin aims to:

Report on news & events affecting all of the East Bellevue neighborhoods that feed to Sammamish and Interlake High Schools

Encourage community involvement by promoting our neighborhood schools, churches, businesses and neighborhood associations

Practice community advocacy by keeping open communications with local authorities and elected officials about the needs and concerns of our neighborhoods.

Well, we at the Neighborhood Association are all over that too, and we look forward to working closely with Tracy in the months to come.

Next weekend, crews will start grinding and repaving 148th Avenue Southeast, along Lake Hills Boulevard, and along several side streets. This pavement replacement work is the last step in the recent Puget Sound Energy gas main replacements.

Lanes will be closed on 148th Avenue Southeast, from Southeast 16th Street to Lake Hills Boulevard and along Lake Hills Boulevard to 150th Avenue Southeast, on Saturday and Sunday, August 16-17, between 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.

The following week, August 18-22, Monday through Friday, 8 a.m.-4 p.m., crews will be grinding and overlaying the area east of 148th Avenue Southeast:

Lake Hills Boulevard, from 150th Avenue Southeast to 156th Avenue Southeast;

156th Avenue Southeast from Lake Hills Boulevard to SE 11th Street; and

Several side roads, including Southeast 9th Street, Southeast 10th Street and 158th Avenue Southeast.

Message boards will alert drivers to upcoming traffic impacts and lane closures. Drivers are advised to take alternate routes, if possible, and watch out for peds and bikes.

The picnic was terrific!

Thanks so much to everyone who came to Evergreen Park on Saturday. We must have had a couple hundred people through over the 4 hours, and everyone seemed to really enjoy it.

And thanks so much to all our sponsors. We couldn’t have done it without you.

Financial support from:

Bashey, Hutchinson and Walter, CPAs.
Law Office of Mendi Carroll
Mindy Garner, Realtor with Coldwell Banker Bain
Nick Sooy Insurance Agency
Ken Young at Crunch Gym

In-kind support from:
City of Bellevue
LA Fitness
Brown Bear Car Wash
Beautiful People Hair Design, Mary Hayes and Julie McMorran

Firstly, The Lake Hills Neighborhood Association picnic is almost here: Hope to see you at Evergreen Park between 11 and 3.
Hot dogs will be served – bring a salad or dessert if desired, along with a non-perishable item for Hopelink.

An Update on the 7/9 Planning Commission meeting: The Commission was pleased with the city’s resubmitted draft on permanent laws for Single Room Rentals.

This draft in part proposes:  
1) Individual room rentals (now called Rooming Houses) would no longer be permitted in any single-family zoned neighborhoods, and only allowable in multi-family and mixed-use districts. (Owner-occupied registered houses may still rent out 2 rooms.) The current zoning of Lake Hills is shown here, or on the City’s zoning map for the whole of Bellevue.

2) Those Rooming Houses can have up to 6 persons. They would have to be approved by the city, operate under a strict set of rules/regulations, and monitored for over-saturation.

3) House rentals to tenants on a single lease is limited to six persons (currently no limit), unless ALL tenants are related by marriage, blood or adoption.

Scheduled Next Steps:
July 21st or Aug 4th The City Council will vote to extend the Emergency Ordinance another 6 months, as the permanent laws won’t be completed by its expiration.
Sept 2nd If passed by the City Council, the East Bellevue Community Council will vote on extending the Emergency Ordinance.

A Planning Commission meeting on Wednesday, 7/9, is discussing a second draft of proposed permanent laws to regulate Single Room Rentals in Bellevue. (The first was not well-received by the attendees or the Commissioners.)

This draft proposes:
1) Individual room rentals (now called Rooming Houses) would no longer be permitted in any single-family zoned neighborhoods, and only allowable in multi-family and mixed-use districts. (Owner-occupied registered houses may still rent out 2 rooms.)
2) These Rooming Houses can have up to 6 persons. They would have to be approved by the city, operate under a strict set of rules/regulations, and monitored for over-saturation.

Please take the time to download the Packet Materials and read the 5-page City Memorandum dated 7/2 that explains the background, what has transpired to date, and the Current Proposed Draft Permanent Regulations – there is much more on the table than listed above.

Also, come meet your neighbors and have some fun at the Lake Hills Neighborhood Association’s (LHNA) first BBQ on July 19th from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. at Lake Hills very own Evergreen Park. We hope to see you there!

Taken from ‘Lessons from Spiritridge’ by Community Councillor Gerald Hughes

“The single-family neighborhoods are changing. And many feel not for the better.

Stephanie Walter and her Spiritwood neighbors (Barb Benson, Steve and Nan Fricke, Irene Fernandez, David Pater and others with common concerns) have been successful in slowing the process in their neighborhood. The problem in Spiritwood was that small houses were being converted to multiple-room rentals, and a 7,000-square-foot, single-room rental property with up to 10 bedrooms was under construction. After numerous meetings at City Hall with the initial response “The city codes are being met.” the team persisted.

They continued to ask ‘why?’ and to educate themselves on codes and laws. They appeared before the EBCC with their story, and got the attention of the City Council. Once the council was informed, they responded quickly and went to the Spiritwood neighborhood to see the issue firsthand.

With the help of an attorney hired by Spiritwood and city staff, the city wrote ‘an emergency ordinance for residential room rentals’, which was quickly approved. These new rules are in place until September 23.

Since then, the Planning Commission has taken on the task of developing a permanent ordinance. Over 60 people were at the commission’s meeting in Lake Hills on April 23. With additional public input at its monthly meeting on May 28, the commission decided it needed more public input before implementing a permanent ordinance, even if this meant extending the emergency ordinance. This seems to be a wise decision.

Of course, you cannot stop change. But if you want any control over how this process takes place, and the how it evolves, then you must follow the Spiritwood model and get organized and get involved.”

We cant wait to see you!

Lake Hills Neighbors:

Welcome to the brand new Lake Hills Neighborhood Association website! We will be bringing you current information on what’s happening in Lake Hills, from our upcoming events and meeting topics, to general news about the area. To do so, we’ll need your help. As you hear about events and news items that affect us in Lake Hills, please let us know.  Our communications committee will make sure your information hits the public, where we can react to it, attend events, or just increase our knowledge about our neighborhood. As we progress as an association, we’ll be adding in other ways to communicate, including linking to a Facebook page, where you can post your comments and opinions.

Currently we have an opening for a Membership Committee Chairperson, so if you’d like to be involved in the association, please let us know.  We also need members for our Communications Committee and our Membership Committee.  We could use liaisons for each of the schools in Lake Hills, as well, so that we can get timely reports about activities there.

Our next event is our First Annual Lake Hills Neighborhood Picnic, at Evergreen Park! Put July 19th, Saturday, from 11:00 to 3:00 on your calendar. There will be food and fun for everyone, and if you bring a donation of food for Hopelink, you’ll be entered for a drawing. Prizes include two sets of Mariner’s tickets (9/14, Mariners vs the Oakland Athletics, 1:00 pm) and 10 free carwashes at Brown Bear! Hot dogs and drinks will be served, and you can bring your favorite salad or dessert to share.  Evergreen Park is at 15655 Lake Hills Blvd, Bellevue.

We’re looking for donations from Lake Hills businesses to support our picnic, and our future events. If you donate, you’ll be rewarded with a place in our list of sponsors, on this site. What a great way to advertise your Lake Hills business to your Lake Hills neighbors!

Watch this site for more information about the picnic, and about future Lake Hills Neighborhood Association events and meetings. We’re so glad to have you join us, in your interest in Lake Hills!