Blaine City Council will host one more public hearing on a proposed rezone between 14th and D streets near the truck route and vote on a $110,000 change order at tonight’s meeting.

The land that’s the subject of the proposed rezone is currently zoned for light manufacturing or commercial use, but Blaine planning staff say this designation no longer makes sense given the inability to access the land via the truck route. Planning staff are recommending the land’s zoning be changed to reflect the area’s primarily residential surroundings and a different commercial zoning designation be added closer to the truck route.

Click here to see a PDF document explaining the changes.

City council will also vote on a change order that would add an additional $110,299 to a contract the city has with Bellingham-based Boss Construction. Sales tax will bring the total additional cost to the city to $119,674.

Boss Construction has been working for the past few months to install sewer lines that will transfer sewage from the pump station on Semiahmoo Spit to the Lighthouse Point Water Reclamation Facility at the end of of Marine Drive. The work is expected to wrap up before spring.

The construction project called for new sewer pipe to be threaded through the old one, which already runs underneath Drayton Harbor. This process, called sliplining, hit a snag when a section of pipe sent through as a test broke and got stuck.

The additional work to extract the broken pipe delayed the project by a month or two. The extra work had to be done at extreme low tide and only after getting separate permissions from regulatory agencies from Whatcom County and the state.

Click here for a PDF of the change order.

Click here for the city council’s full agenda for tonight’s (February 13) meeting.