Host: City of Bothell
Region: Washington
Openings: 1
Project Focus: Climate Adaptation, Climate Mitigation, Disaster Response / Emergency Management, Energy Efficiency, Renewable Energy, Transportation / Mobility, Urban Planning
Skills Needed: Community Engagement, Project Management, Community Outreach, Technical Writing, Detail-Oriented, Self-Motivated

Service Needs & Plans

The City of Bothell has received grant funding from the state’s Department of Commerce to develop a Climate Change Element as part of the 2024 periodic update to the City’s Comprehensive Plan – Imagine Bothell. Although this is not currently a requirement of the state’s Growth Management Act, the state is encouraging local jurisdictions to include climate change policies in their comprehensive plans, and model policies are being developed at the county level. The city has a capacity need for helping staff develop and review the Element for consistency with the county and regional model climate change policies, and also in developing implementation strategies. Resilience-related policies are included in these model policies. These include the prioritization of investments, policies, and programs that equitably increases the resilience of vulnerable communities to climate change impacts. Some of these policies that are relevant and important to the city include, but are not limited to urban heat resilience planning and preparing the energy grid for extreme heat events, mitigating the impacts of urban smoke, and increasing the city’s resiliency to flooding after extreme precipitation events.

Project Description

As noted in the project needs and goals description provided, the city is developing a Climate Change Element for the 2024 Comprehensive Plan Periodic Update. While a Climate Change Element is not required, there are a number of regional and county policies that relate to climate change and equity, both of which are newly increased areas of emphasis in the comprehensive planning requirements. Additionally, the state legislature has a reintroduced house bill originally proposed in the prior year, that would make the Climate Change Element a required Comprehensive Plan component. The goal of this project is to develop, draft, and ultimately adopt a Climate Change Element as part of the city’s periodic update that will ultimately support the development of a Climate Action Plan. This plan development includes equitable community engagement, and the development and utilization of a racial equity toolkit, which will serve as a key component for the entire plan’s development. Some of the areas of focus for the climate change element will include reviewing the city’s tree retention standards and canopy coverage through the lens of climate change and equity, adapting to future extreme heat and extreme precipitation events, and mitigating the impacts of wildfire smoke on the community.

The role of the fellow will be similar to city planning staff’s role; to help in developing the Element with support by the consultant team hired by the city. Depending on when the fellow is onboarded, this will likely include participation in public outreach events, putting together documents and presentations summarizing the outcomes of public outreach events, helping staff prepare for discussions with City Council and Planning Commission, and reviewing and providing comment on drafted elements.

As a city with a relatively small long range planning staff, the addition of a fellow to help with such a large project would allow us to devote more time to ensuring the Climate Change Element addresses the topics that are vital for the city to address in order to ensure we are adequately prepared for the increasing impacts of climate change on the city, its residents, and ultimately the region. We want to ensure we are developing the best document we can to reflect the vision and goals of the community and our elected officials, and additional resource capacity will help that greatly.

Desired Skills

We are looking for fellows that have knowledge of best practices in climate change-related policy and implementation measures, and/or in sustainable urban planning practices. Experience or education skills in writing and editing, with attention to detail are also highly valuable for the kind of work we are asking for assistance in. Staff will also need the fellow to be comfortable participating with the community in public engagement events and activities, which includes a range of cultural backgrounds and ages. Overall, an ability to be flexible and adapt to potentially changing needs, typical for a small and nimble planning team, will be vital for a fellow to be successful in supporting staff.

Organization & Community Highlights

The Bothell Community Development Department’s mission is to work in collaboration with residents, businesses, and colleagues to promote a community that celebrates its history, embraces its present, and envisions its future. We work to carry out this mission by acting with integrity and honesty, treating people with respect, care, patience, and empathy, and create a safe, sustainable, and healthy environment. In alignment with this mission, the city has been undertaking efforts in the last few years to more deeply integrate the tenants of diversity, equity, and inclusion into the staff and its work. We previously engaged a DEI consultant to do evaluation work by department, and are in the process of hiring a DEI coordinator who will provide assistance in the Comprehensive Plan work, as well as generally for the city. The city’s Community Development Department provides a range of professional experience opportunities both as part of the project work described in this application, as well as for getting an opportunity to be a part of the work that goes into keeping a city functioning and prospering. Our department is lucky to have a number of long-term staff members and minimal turnover, a direct result of the established team culture and work that we do.

As a city, Bothell is in a unique position both geographically and jurisdictionally. We sit to the northeast of the City of Seattle, and are considered not quite on the east side of Lake Washington and not quite on the west side, the lake serving as a commonly referred to divider between Puget Sound jurisdictions. The city is also split between Snohomish and King Counties, which provides a unique regulatory challenge for staff. Along the southern border of downtown Bothell is the Sammamish River, which is connected to a number of creeks, streams, and wetlands throughout the city. We are lucky enough to have various viewpoints in these habitats of salmon migratory and spawning habitat and take pride in our ongoing work to improve the environment needed to support this keystone species.

Bothell is growing and diversifying at a rapid rate, yet also has a historic downtown core, which atypically for a lot of suburban cities in the region, is very pedestrian-oriented. This has been further emphasized and reshaped through the Downtown Subarea plan, implemented over 10 years ago, which has driven dense, transit and pedestrian-oriented development within the downtown core.

Remote or On-Site Placement

Hybrid or On-site preferred, Remote possible