Newcastle City Council candidate Allen Dauterman takes his unique situation in stride.

Dauterman, chairman of the city’s Planning Commission, is running unopposed for council Position No. 3. Yet, the general election ballot will tell a different story.

Allen Dauterman

Rob Lemmon’s name will appear alongside Dauterman’s, but Lemmon, a former planning commissioner himself, has made it clear that he is not a candidate.

He said “logistical issues” prevented a successful attempt to withdraw his name from the race in time, so he is on the ballot.

“I can’t take anything for granted,” Dauterman said. “So I am doing what I would call a light campaign. I’m putting out signs and I’m also going to events where I have a chance to meet voters and talk about my views.”

Dauterman has served on the city’s seven-person Planning Commission since 2010. He has lived in Newcastle for eight years and has 30 years of experience in the architecture field.

He said he decided to run for City Council after seeing “how our city code can allow our Community Business Center to be overly developed with urban scale densities.”

In his Planning Commission role, Dauterman said one of his main objectives was to open residents’ eyes to what the city’s code allows in terms of development.

“If someone actually decided to build to the full extent of what our code would allow, people won’t like it and people are already voicing that,” he said.

Over time, the code has evolved into something that allows “grossly oversized buildings with thousands of parking stalls in our small downtown area,” Dauterman said. That reality, he argued, is vastly different from the small, bedroom-type community founders originally conceived.

“Ultimately, the whole development code needs to be rewritten from scratch and I just want to be there to kind of help move that along,” he said.

He envisions a zoning code that is designed to maximize quality, rather than quantity, he said.

Dauterman said he also believes the city needs to increase its retail tax base as a means to up revenues. The best way to do that is through redevelopment of Newcastle’s downtown area, he said.

“With new codes, I will push for creative incentives to encourage redevelopment that brings quality retail, restaurant and hospitality amenities to Newcastle,” he said.

As an architectural planner and development manager, Dauterman said he deals with different municipalities and their codes every day, something that he said will aid him as he joins the City Council.

Dauterman added that his five years on the Planning Commission have allowed him to understand the city and get to know the staff and council members.

“I’m fair. I’m not close-minded,” Dauterman said. “I’m very open to ideas and making decisions as a team.”

Newcastle City Council Position No. 3 is currently occupied by Mayor Steve Buri who announced earlier this year that he would not seek re-election.

Our neighborhoods are Newcastle’s real identity

Almost three decades ago, a small group of local visionaries carved a modern-day vision of Newcastle out of rural King County. Doing so, we placed our bets on the wisdom and ideals of our old-timers. Most of their wisdom and ideals are contained in the original Newport Hills incorporation study. So, what did we learn?

We learned that our current and newer neighborhoods could never be just ZIP codes. Many of our other areas would develop and evolve into beautiful, successful and stable neighborhoods, but they had to be sub-parts of the bigger picture — our city as a whole. There would be very real, future restrictive “location demographics” that could forever affect us, but we could survive, depending on the ongoing concern from our locals.

Additionally, allowing outsiders to redevelop, in our neighborhoods, could change the fundamental dynamics of how and where we live. Our way of life could become somewhat transitory, if those outsiders can readily exploit it. The respect for our future, therefore, must come from inside, because we’re betting that our leaders and staff will honor the wisdom in the founder’s visions.

Newcastle neighborhoods are not just places on a city zoning map. They are living entities, created and built over time, by caring people. Most of our neighbors cherish what they have accomplished, and many want to be able to live here a long time, around friends and neighbors.

Newcastle needs the value its neighborhoods contribute to community stability; that’s what they do. We appoint city leaders, specifically to represent us, thus our citizens should reasonably expect them to have concern for existing neighborhood community connections. These connections are very personal. They must never be secondary to redevelopment processes or someone recreating part of our city vision, either for personal gain or exploiting a new dream, of what might be.

Our original vision is a living history of why we are a city. It belongs to all of us. Those seeking new opportunities or just passing through should consider leaving it alone.

Giles Velte

Newcastle