Following the recommendation of its planning commission, Kenmore City Council has placed several conditions on the pending approval of a master plan for Bastyr University.

City officials held a roughly three-hour discussion and public hearing on the issue Nov. 17.

According to City Councilman Allan Van Ness, officials want clarification on when the public will be invited to use Bastyr’s ball fields, some details on plans for emergency access to the campus, as well as added information regarding water runoff or drainage from the campus. Finally, they want some details on the university’s required commuter trip reduction plan.

Still, it’s the drainage issue that probably has attracted the most attention both from city officials and local environmental activists.

In the spring, Bastyr held a groundbreaking for 11, two-story dorms being built on the northern edge of school property. The city approved the dorms despite objections and a formal challenge from a group of residents who charged the dorm project would add to water runoff coming from Bastyr and ultimately to flooding problems in the neighborhood of Arrowhead Creek.

Van Ness said he isn’t clear how much the pavements and buildings of the Bastyr campus really add to Arrowhead’s flooding woes. He talked about what he called the major floods that struck that area in 2007, but he also said the city only can impose so many restrictions on Bastyr, that the school has the same rights as other property owners.

“I really think Bastyr wants to do the right thing and to be a good neighbor,” Van Ness said.

As revealed over the summer, Bastyr’s 10-year plan calls for, perhaps most notably, a new academic building and a parking structure. Van Ness noted any future Bastyr development will be subject to what he called much stricter drainage and runoff rules that should be adopted by council early next year. Councilwoman Laurie Sperry later added those rules are meant to require runoff from developed land equal the runoff from the same land if it never had been developed.

“The drainage would have to be the same as if the land was forested,” Sperry said. As the dorm project is under way, Sperry admitted it won’t be held to those increased standards.

Chief of Staff to Bastyr President Daniel Church, Greg Goode said Bastyr would have nothing more to say on any drainage issues related to the dorms. He said the challenge mounted by residents had properly gone before a hearing examiner who ruled over the summer in favor of the school.

“Really, the university doesn’t have any further comment on it,” Good added.

On other fronts, Goode said city officials and residents have been asking for access to Bastyr’s open spaces, which he admitted to some means the school’s athletic fields. He said that in a letter sent to Kenmore City Manger Frederick Stouder, Church had indicated the university’s willingness to make its spaces available. He said details are being worked out between Bastyr and Kenmore staffers.

Over the past summer, there were plenty of rumors about Bastyr seeking to create another access road to its property. Currently, the lone way in and out of Bastyr runs off Juanita Drive and is shared with the adjacent St. Edward State Park. Among officials and some park supporters, there is a question as to what might happen should that road become blocked. Most importantly, the argument goes that emergency crews would have no way in to either the university or St. Edward.

Goode said instead of a new road, Bastyr is in the final stages of negotiating with the state park system an understanding over increased monitoring of the road. In the past, Goode has said the intent is to ensure that if the road becomes blocked for whatever reason, either Bastyr or the parks would have the ability to quickly remove that blockage.

Goode said he expects to have a finalized agreement regarding the access road to show the city within the next few weeks.

Regarding any new buildings on Bastyr property beyond the already begun dorm project, Goode said the potential for a new academic structure exists, but he indicated those plans are not finalized. He said an agreement reached between Bastyr and the city over the summer still is in effect.

Most notably, according to the city, the deal calls for the school to bear the cost — estimated at $350,000 — of placing a traffic light near Juanita and the Bastyr/St. Edward access road by 2012. The city would complete all design and construction.