CITY OF DES MOINES SHORELINE MASTER PROGRAM

Des Moines Shoreline Inventory and Characterization
restaurant, and the Des Moines Chamber of Commerce (business promotion office). According
to the Marina Master Plan (2002), commercial development in the marina will increase in the
course of implementing that plan.
Comprehensive Plan / Zoning Designations
Comprehensive Plan
According to the City of Des Moines Comprehensive Plan Map (2004), the City’s shoreline
jurisdiction is largely comprised of properties designated as low to medium-density residential
(1–6 dwelling units per acre). Parks and Public Facilities/Utilities designations comprise the
second largest portion of the shoreline. Small areas designated as commercial and multi-family,
located in the Downtown and Redondo neighborhoods, comprise the remainder.
General goals and policies established in the City of Des Moines Comprehensive Plan (2002)
relate to the preservation of existing residential neighborhood character, protection of
environmental resources, and the promotion of economic development. The Comprehensive
Plan seeks to balance these social, environmental, and economic goals through land use and
zoning regulations, critical areas regulations using best available science, and development
regulations. The Comprehensive Plan also seeks to protect surface water quality, shoreline and
nearshore habitats, and aquatic, marine, and upland habitats by managing these resources using a
watershed approach (City of Des Moines, 2004).
The City’s existing Shoreline Master Program goals and policies are included as an element of
the City’s current Comprehensive Plan. These goals and policies encourage water-oriented uses
and existing residential uses in balance with protection of the Puget Sound shoreline’s natural
resources (City of Des Moines, 1991). This document also establishes shoreline environment
designations as either Urban Environment (UE) or Conservancy Environment (CE), depending
on the land use and intensity of development (City of Des Moines, 1988). The existing shoreline
environment designations are shown in Table 3 and on Figure 8. The City of Des Moines has
grown since adoption of the 1988 Shoreline Master Program, therefore some areas of the current
shoreline were not originally classified. The City adopted the King County SMP shoreline
environment designation “Urban Environment” for areas annexed since 1988 (specifically, areas
south of and including Saltwater State Park, Segments D-G).
Zoning Designations
Zoning designations in the City of Des Moines generally follow land use designations as
discussed above under Comprehensive Plan Designation (Figure 9). Within the City’s shoreline
jurisdiction, Residential: Single Family (RS-15,000, RS-9,600, and RS-7,200) predominates.
Areas in the shoreline jurisdiction that are not zoned Single Family include the Des Moines
Marina, which is zoned Downtown Commercial (D-C) and a small number of properties in the
Redondo Neighborhood, which are zoned Residential: Multi Family (RM-2,400, RM-1,800, and
RM-900) and Community Commercial (C-C) (City of Des Moines, 2004). Table 3 identifies the
relative percentages of existing land uses and zoning areas in each planning segment, based on
current zoning maps.
Page 16 March 2005