the August 7th, 2017 City Council regular meeting to order and ask all of
those who'd like to join the council and myself in the Pledge of Allegiance to
please stand. I pledge
allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic
for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty
and justice for all.
First order of business is a...
Here they come. All right.
there are... Thank you, Stacey. As is all proclamations, there are a lot of whereas's.
So, whereas Little League's primary objective is to implant
family in the children of the community and ideals of good sportsmanship,
honesty, loyalty, courage and respect for authority, so that they may
be well-adjusted, strong, and happy children and will grow to be good, decent, healthy,
and trustworthy citizens. And whereas the Issaquah Little League
U10 basketball team won five out of five games to remain
undefeated in District 9. And whereas
as District 9 champions, the team moved on to the state tournament where they
played five games undefeated to become state
champions in their age category on the 17th of July.
And whereas facing strong competition, the team moved on to the state
tournament and displayed athletic talent and
sportsmanship along with their coaches, and teammates.
Whereas the City of Issaquah is proud of these young men and their coaches for
the hard work and dedication to their team as representatives of the Little League
program, now therefore I, Fred Butler, Mayor of the City of Issaquah, do
hereby proclaim August the 7th, 2017 to be
Issaquah Little League U10 Baseball
In the City of Issaquah, I invite all citizens in joining me to recognize the
team's hard work and outstanding skills, and I further commend the team for being such
fine representatives of the Little League program and our city.
And witness whereof, I here unto set my hand in steel of the City of
Issaquah the seventh day of August, 2017.
Coach, this is a fantastic honor. Coach, congratulations. Coach, congratulations.
And here is the proclamation. I hope you'll find a place to
probably display that. Congratulations. Congratulations. What
position did you play? Good for you. Congratulations.
Congratulations. What position did you play?
Did you strike anyone out? Good.
Congratulations, congratulations, congratulations. And finally, what position did you play?
Did you strike anyone
out? Good for you. OK.
Congratulations.
Thank you. Here we go, guys.
Okay, our next order of business under special business is agenda bill 7454
storm ready certification. And with that, I would call Ted Bruner,
the warning coordination meteorologist with the National Weather Service who
will present us, I believe, with a certificate. And I'm gonna come on up there,
Ted. Yeah, eventually, you're absolutely right. How do you follow Little League?
By the way, I do high school baseball umpiring. Been doing it for 42 years,
so I suspect I'm gonna see those guys out down the street at the high
school level here in probably about another eight years or so. All right, again, I'm
Ted Biener with the National Weather Service Warning Coordination Meteorologist. There's one of us in
every forecast office around the nation, and our primary role is working with all of
our communities to help save lives and property. Tonight, we're recognizing the city of
Issaquah as a storm-ready community. Now, you're going to ask yourself, what does that mean?
That's a good question. The program's been in place since 1999 and it recognizes
communities that have a strong, effective preparedness program to address
hazardous weather and flooding. Now, we know Issaquah Creek right out here
has a tendency to do that. You don't get any snow in Issaquah, particularly up
on the highlands. No, wind never comes out of the east or out of the
south. Okay, you got the idea. No rain, yeah, we're tying
the record today at 51 days. The old record was set in 1951, so 51
and 51. Easy to remember. Now it's not going to be so easy to remember
anymore unless we have 117 days and 17. Maybe that'll do it. So what is
a storm-ready community? First of all, there's five main components. One, have a 24-hour warning
point and an emergency operations centre. You do. Multiple ways to receive National Weather Service
warnings and disseminate them throughout your community. Monitor your local weather conditions and that
includes monitoring Issaquah Creek. Have a formal hazardous weather operations
plan including response, recovery and exercises to test and improve that plan,
which is exactly what you're doing. And finally, a community education preparedness program helping raise
public readiness. All of these activities involve a strong partnership with the National Weather
Service to help create what is called a weather ready nation. That's all about mitigating
the loss of life and property in advance of the storm. There are over 2,600
storm ready communities across the country. Issaquah is the 63rd here in the state of
Washington, which includes county, cities, tribal nations, universities, and military facilities.
Of course, preparedness is important, right? everybody's nodding here in the audience? Okay, very good.
Washington State averages about one federally declared weather-related disaster going back
to 1950 per year and just in 2015, just two years ago, we had four
of them. Wildfires, winds, floods, ah, it was a good year. So what are the
benefits of a storm-ready community? Here's the financial part, Mayor. The community rating system points
assigned by the National Flood Insurance Program help lower your costs and those for your
residence and your business. Storm Ready logo on your stationary
website, social and media releases, all those kinds of things. Here's a byproduct that nobody
thought of, real estate. If you were going to buy property, would you like to
be in a community that is better prepared or one that isn't? And they have
found in the real estate community that that's where people tend to go.
And finally, another benefit I have here for you, a storm ready road sign, which
we'll take a photo here. And if you want more of these, they're available for
about $60 a piece.
Take our photo op here. All right, thank you.
So what's ahead? Preparedness is an ongoing process. I want to remind everybody that storm
ready doesn't mean you're storm proof. Everyone in the community must work together to better
prepare each citizen and business. Again, Weather Ready Nation program. Your renewal for Storm
Ready is three years from now and I strongly encourage the city also to become
a Weather Ready Nation ambassador. Your emergency manager and I talked about that a little
bit ago. I urge the council and yourself to continue to support emergency management.
They do pay dividends in the long run. They really do. It's all about getting
the community better prepared. And remember, when you're prepared, you're not scared.
That's really true for the tsunami community, by the way. I've used that there a
lot of times. So on behalf of the National Weather Service, again, congratulations. Thank you
very, very much. And I'm going to pass this along to Brad Keat.
This is Brett Geek, the emergency manager, for those who are not familiar with him
already. Can we be in front of your logo on the wall over here? We
can do whatever you want. Okay.
Okay.
Okay, we'll move now to audience comments and
A few rules or guidelines. Citizen
comments are an important part of the public process. We take them seriously and factor
them into the decisions that we make. Anyone from the public who wishes
to comment on tonight's agenda items or other topics should do so at this time.
Just as a reminder, we have three public hearings this evening.
One, amending parking requirements in the central Isquad development area. Two,
consider additional extensions to the temporary moratorium related to certain permit applications.
And finally, financial management policy. That would be
the appropriate time to speak to those three items if you would like to.
When recognized, Please approach the lectern, speak into the microphone, state your name,
address, and relationship to the city. Limit comments to five minutes. And if you have
written comments, please submit those to the city clerk. Visual timer
has been placed on the lectern. When it turns yellow, you are within the last
minute of your comment period. If you use the full five minutes, the timer will
sound to indicate the end of your allotted time. Again, citizen comments written and
verbal are an important aspect of the public process. The city takes them seriously and
we thank members of the public for taking the time to address us during our
meetings. With that, I would ask, has anyone signed up to speak this evening?
Yes Susan
Neville. My name's Susan Neville. and I'm 2825 Northwest Pine Cone Drive, 21 year resident
and hello to everybody. Let me pull this up.
Okay, on June 19th, every city council member denied the Bergsma
Windward Cluster DA proposal. I'm here today asking you once again to honor
the Issaquah Com Plan and vision by protecting the same Cougar Mountain Hillside
from future development. Just recently, Bergsma submitted a new
traditional plat plan which was deemed vested by the City Planning
Department which means the new plat is not affected by the current moratorium
and can move forward for approval. I wanted just to reacquaint you with this.
The new plat includes 57 homes and eight additional new
homes bordering Newport Way. So this is Newport Way, which going
east leads into SR 900. This is the road up the side of the mountain.
These are the additional eight smaller units. They could be affordable in front of a
storm vault. And the road is leading up to the rest of the homes.
All the same issues and concerns exist with the new plat, including in order to
complete this construction, all three original variances are needed. The stream
buffer reduction allocation to build the road and
road is located in critical areas and the third variance was stormwater
vaults located within the critical area. The other major effects
were removal of wetlands, crossing of streams, and building on steep
slopes with slide potential. The new plat also adds 125
more feet to the road and another storm vault for a total of four.
We superimposed the newest addition to the bottom. So what you're
looking at is from SR 900 and the development is on Cougar
and the same 45 acres of Cougar Mountain are at risk today as
they were when the cluster agreement was denied. And today you have the opportunity to
change the outcome by helping acquire this property for open space. And the
benefits are pretty obvious. It's a beautiful gateway to Issaquah Alps, an entrance to our
city. It protects our hillsides for future generations as outlined in the
Issaquah vision. It offers unique opportunities for easy hiking,
play areas within a mature forest setting. It also puts access to over 3,400
acres of city and open space less than three blocks from our Issaquah
Transit Center. And over here on the right side is the current King County
Cougar Mountain Park, which butts right up against the property. So it's almost like
that's pretty easy just to push it all in together. So anyway,
other partners may be willing to explore the acquisition of the Bergsma property. Could be
King County Parks, Mountain to Sound Greenway, King County City
representatives and organizations such as for Terra in order to start the process City
Council and Mayor Butler need to lead the effort We appreciate your
consideration and willingness to saving and protecting this important part of Cougar Mountain for future
residents in all of Issaquah and Seattle. Thank you Thank You Susan
Next is Kay Haynes.
Kay Haynes, 2830 Northwest Pinecone Drive. I'm a 17-year
resident of Cougar Mountain. And I'm also part of the
Save Cougar Mountain Association. which has as its purpose to create
open space on Cougar Mountain for the benefit of all Issaquah residents, rather
than being sliced up for development purposes. We're asking the city to take the
lead in putting together a partnership, the last speaker referred to with
King County Parks, Fort Terra, other interested environmental groups, all of which have expressed interest,
all of which say they need the initiative to come from the city. And I
want to bracket my comments by saying we do realize that this is a project
that's in development. We do realize that. We realize the owner has the right to
do what he wishes with the property. However, there have been no other options presented
to these owners and I'm sure they would be interested in this as an alternative.
A Bergsma Parkland is far superior to a Bergsma Cut in the Issaquah
hillside. So the main thing I wanna stress is that
this is a benefit to everybody in Issaquah. This will serve the Tallis people,
it will serve the new residents and the existing residents of Newport Way, It will
serve the people who are going to have 88,000 square yards of earth
passing their doorway. And this will benefit all the lovers
of open space, hikers, and the people who appreciate the view in Issaquah. So
it does offer, this particular property offers a beautiful, entrance into Issaquah.
When you stand out at I-90 and you look at the hillsides of Issaquah, we
have something here that is so unique. It's completely unique in the urban landscape.
And it's going to take so little to inch it away, little by little by
little. It's going to be a lack of vision and commitment on our part
if we aren't able to save that space. Also it helps to form a missing
link in the trail system from Grandridge Trails, Tiger, Squawk,
Cougar to Lake Sammamish. It's an important link in that. It provides convenient
access. It would provide convenient access from Harvey Manning Park. It creates,
it puts access, as Susan said, to over 3,400 acres of city and county open
space, less than three blocks from the Issaquah Transit Center. How ideal is that? The
people can bus, within Issaquah can bus to the base of 3,400
acres of park land for their enjoyment. This is truly, truly unique.
We're really asking the city to be bold, to take a bold position.
Once this is done, once this development is done, it is done forever. It is
done in perpetuity. It is done for all generations. And I realize it would take
a very courageous act on the part of council to make this happen, to make
this become a parkland. But I really implore you to think of not only the
existing residents of Issaquah now, but our children, our grandchildren, and
generations to come. Thank you very much, Kate.
K? I said Kate. I should have said K. My apologies. Susan Haas.
Hello. Good evening, staff, mayor, and city council. My name is
Susan Haas and I live at 19524 Southeast 24th place in Sammamish,
Washington. I am a volunteer at the Issaquah Food and Clothing Bank and a vendor
for the Recology Cleanscape store in Issaquah.
And I just wanna say I support the two women that just spoke. I think
that the design is really where the rubber meets the road sometimes when you're
entering into a place, the way it looks makes a big difference in recreational opportunities.
And it's not easy to translate your visions and your goals as a council into
policies that you can implement and places that you engage in landscape
architecture sort of details in, but I think it's really amazing
when it can happen well. all your vision and goals, you want them
to be expressed and implemented and reflected and fleshed out by
everything that sort of comes from that headwaters.
And I want to say too that I am very delighted that Providence Heights campus
was landmarked by the Esquad Landmarks Commission and
helped by King County. All three parcels were landmarked, including all the grounds and all
the forested areas. And there's a 35-day appeal period. But I'm just so
delighted, because the sisters that were there in 1961 were walking those forested
areas, visiting their Stations of the Cross. And it's very meaningful to
me. And I just want to say, too, that I'm all very for kids and
for schools. And I know this is a difficult time where the school district is
needing to find places for new schools and for those places to be in the
right spots. And it could be that the Issaquah Highlands land is more expensive than
Providence Heights might be. I don't really know, but I've heard that. And
if that's the case, it really needs to be balanced out those decisions with transportation
costs a convenient sense of community of where
kids live. But Issaquah Highlands does seem to be a place that could use more
educational facilities. It's just a thought. There are just different
elements in relating to Providence Heights. I know your moratorium public hearing is later,
but I probably won't be able to stay that long and I just wanna say
if that can expressly and clearly apply to Providence Heights, that would be helpful
as the proposed demolition is what I'm talking about. And then
later on in time as you discuss the CFF zoning, whether to
change that, I just want to make sure that you, get what you want out
of that, coming back again to your vision and your goals, that
if you make any changes, it's helping make more things possible that
are good design, preserve trees, have schools in neighborhoods and walkable places,
but the forests and the hillsides and the open spaces still get as much care.
as they do now if not more. Because I think this is all possible. It's
just a crucible that all this has to go through.
So, because if you give more flexibility to the school board, I would just,
yeah, I would just hope that it is a wise decision how it's done.
The public hearing that already happened, some changes were talked about
that might not make Issaquah a better place. But there's still time and it's still
your decision. So thank you so much for listening and for all your hard work.
Thank you. Denise Darnell.
Hi, my name is Denise Darnell. I live at 2121 200th Avenue Southeast, also in
Sammamish. And I think this is a sign that there's two of us here that
have said we have addresses in Sammamish. I think at this moment the cities have
a great chance of working together to really do a lot for our environment. We
recently, as you also did, had a city council primary, and the number one concern
of the citizens of Sammamish is our environment and protecting it and not cutting down
all the trees and saving these areas before it's too late. And I agree with
the other speaker who spoke about this is the time to be bold. We're gonna
look back in history, and I feel like this time in all of us living
here is gonna make a decision of what we do in our history and what's
going to happen. the trees and the land and the chance to have this gorgeous
acreage up on Cougar Mountain that all of the people in Sammamish would also enjoy.
So I'm here for two reasons, to ask that our two cities can start working
together more. There are many of us as volunteers that are starting to get to
know volunteers in Issaquah and we have a big environmental movement. There are some very
active environmental groups now in Sammamish. I'm actually on one where we're trying to do
a plastic bag ban like Issaquah has. And we have a lot of Facebook pages
one called save Sammamish and sustainable Sammamish So this is our movement and we want
to join with Issaquah to save the trees and the land that we have still
here That's so beautiful. We don't want to become another Bellevue We want to stay
Sammamish Issaquah and the other reason I'm here is to support saving Providence Heights It's
very close to Sammamish even though it's officially Issaquah and What a great historical place.
I didn't even realize all the history about it. How many other buildings can you
go and see a bomb shelter? That's pretty cool. So that could be a wonderful
historical place for kids to go visit. There's a beautiful swimming pool, a basketball
court, a dormitory, and a history that's so interesting that they built this college
for nuns when women were not really allowed to go to college, and we're gonna
tear that down? I find that crazy as a person who loves history, like I
know many of you probably do as well. The other reason that concerns me about
the demolition of Providence Heights is the gorgeous stained glass windows, because if we were
in Europe, we would be having tourists coming to see those every single day. and
the massive amount of emissions in our atmosphere that I have recently learned will be
released if it's demolished. So in the hearings that they've been having about Providence Heights,
they've had a lot of scientists come and speak, all in favor for saving it.
And one of the scientists explained that the type of material that was used when
the building was built will let out into the atmosphere 23 miles.
metric tons, which I don't even know how much that is, but it sounds like
an awful lot, into our atmosphere. Okay, so that's the border of Sammamish and Issaquah.
That's gonna affect all the people in Sammamish. That's why, one of the reasons why
many of us are concerned. But what are we gonna do? 23,000 metric tons of
emissions for a demolition of this building? None of us even know the implication of
that. Not to mention the traffic disaster and all those beautiful trees. I know many
of them are gonna be cut down. It's a gorgeous forest if you have not
been back there. So I just encourage you to continue your moratorium, to continue
saving our trees and our environment, and to know that the citizens of Sammamish want
this too. It's not just a few of us, there's many people out there who
feel the same way but are too scared to come and speak. So I encourage
you, like the other ladies have said, to be bold and to have this moment
in history be something we can remember and be really proud of doing the right
thing. Thank you for listening.
Thank you. Cyrus
Crone.
Good evening. Hear me okay? My name is Cyrus Crone. I
live at 300 Southeast Bush Street in Issaquah, a couple blocks from here. I've got
a couple of my kids and a friend with me this evening. From the
looks of the room, this is about as crowded as their classrooms are. So yes,
I did bring them in as props. So before I get started, where's the timer?
in front of you, the green light was. All right, thank you. I'm gonna use
my allotted five this evening. First I'd like to thank the mayor for your service.
This is probably the last council meeting that I'm gonna have a chance to participate
in prior to the election, so I thought I'd take this opportunity to speak to
you directly and reflect on some of the time and effort that you've put forth
for us. First and foremost, thank you, Mayor, for your service. I appreciate it. You
know, recently you were having a few issues and you didn't let down. Yes, sir.
Comments should be directed to the entire council. I would like to thank the mayor
for his service. And as he recently found himself with some struggles, he did not
let him... to get that down and he fought through and persevered and came back
to finish his term and for that I greatly appreciate his service. I would also
like to thank the city council members and the administration. Some of them are moving
on, some of them are moving up, and some of them are moving out. And
during my tenure here and the 15 years I've lived here, I really appreciate the
things that you've allowed me to do as a resident of this community. I'd like
to share a couple of examples with you, the community, as to what the city
council has been able to help me with. I needed to remove some trees from
my property and the process to do that was very forthcoming and I actually doubled
the number of trees that I put on my property but I had three that
I needed to remove so I am actually helping the environment by removing the ones
that were problems and adding ones that will help support CO2 removal efforts. I
built an ADU in my backyard to increase population density on the valley floor
and the city council was very helpful in that regard by providing the ADU ability
for those of us who want to increase density in the community and prevent further
removal of trees around us. And then lastly,
traffic abatement research. I approached the city council several sessions ago about the traffic that
comes through our community. And while we didn't ultimately get the resolution we wanted, the
initiative to proceed with the traffic abatement effort in terms of analyzing the traffic was
greatly appreciated. So for all of the negativity and frustrations that some of us sometimes
have with those in front of us, I would like to thank them for the
various things they've done to help me as a resident. So, thank you.
I'd like to speak with you, the audience as well, about some of the issues
that our future city council and mayor are going to have to deal with. Traffic
trees and trade-offs. Traffic. I don't know how we're gonna fix this mess. You
know, several years ago, some of you were here, some of you weren't, but there
was a big debate around the bypass, and there's a lot of debate as to
whether or not the bypass would have actually mitigated some of the traffic concerns we
have. That debate stands, but it was in some parts intended to help move traffic
around the city, and now we find ourselves in a bit of a stalemate. So
I don't know what the city council and the next mayor are gonna do about
this to really resolve it. Are we gonna prevent traffic moving down Front Street into
the neighborhoods? how that's gonna happen. Are we going to have to permit our residents
and then push people out? I don't know how that's gonna happen either. A couple
of the women earlier spoke about the beautiful entrance to Issaquah. I concur. When I
drive I-90 eastbound from Seattle, the majesty of those mountaintops
is just so wonderful to see. And I know that they will stay there in
perpetuity because they've been deeded that way or they are property as such.
We need to remove the emotion from this discussion and focus on the science. So
I too have done some research and went to the Washington State University School of
Forestry and did some analysis in terms of calculating CO2 removal from the air
by looking at the canopy density. So we all know that trees capture carbon
through photosynthesis. And we have a lot of trees. We have a disproportionate amount of
trees than most places in the country. So when I hear the emotional appeals about
saving the trees, I would like to address it from a scientific viewpoint and look
at the carbon storage that our trees here possess, and then think about what it
would mean if we removed a select set of trees and the implications of that.
And then maybe if we doubled or tripled the tree planting efforts, we might actually
over time find that we're removing more carbon from the air than we currently are.
So I went and I did a quick little look around to see a little
bit more about these trees and I was studying the height and diameter and then
if you measure that times the square footage of the number of trees in that
location, you can actually quantify the number of CO2 emissions. So I would encourage all
of us who are talking about trees emotionally to stop and do the math and
let's assess what the right thing to do is to ensure that our children have
a school to go to because In a prior election, we voted to improve the
green space, and the city and the council have been doing their duty to do
such. So, you know, we can be both environmentally
conscious and support the needs of the residents, and I'm out of time, and I
had more to say, so I'll come back after the election. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Cyrus. Steve Pereira.
Steve Pereira, 170 Northeast Dogwood Street for 10 years now. I made it to double
digits and I'm kind of excited about that. So a couple thoughts. First I wanted
to start with thanks, kudos, well done. The first was for the national night out
with the police officers. It seemed a well run event, lots of audience participation booths
set up for people to come and attend. Special thanks to our police of course
but also especially those officers who were doing the grilling on that hot day wearing
their protective vests so thanks to them.
Related to the earlier comment on being a storm safe city, the setting up of
the Issaquah Senior Center as a cooling center was a great thing that was done,
so kudos for that. Third thing was
the Parks and Recreation Department recently came out with a trail head and trails map
to be used by anybody who wants it, so great job to them. One concern
was unrelated. I was walking down Gilman Boulevard and there's,
if I want to say Safeway side for lack of better terms, they cut the
grass but they also cut out the cattails and kind of the brush that's in
that area that seems like it's swamp and designated that and that seems like that
shouldn't be cut down so I don't want to make sure we work with businesses
to make sure that that doesn't get cut down going forward. So
those things haven't been said. Wanted to briefly touch base on Providence Heights. On July
11th there was an initial hearing held by the hearing examiner that was postponed until
August 8th tomorrow from 1.30 until 6 p.m. to determine if a
permit for demolition could be issued. In the interim on July 27th the
King County Historic Society met and determined that
Providence Heights meets all seven criteria for historic preservation and should be
maintained. Didn't really want to go into those because of my limited time, but three
things I think can come forward from this. One is it seems like there's an
opportunity for the city of Issaquah to update its documentation on what is historical
criteria and could be used in making its determination of whether or not there's a
historic significance That's one thing. The second is that I know
there's a Issaquah Historic Society but it seems to deal more with
stories and items of historical significance. Maybe it should be expanded along the
same scope of a library board or
a sister city commission to be more encompassing and have citizen participation. I know there's
people that lived here a lot more than my 10 years and people that have
knowledge and a passion for this topic of historic preservation. So maybe there's greater opportunity
to incorporate that. The third thing, it seems like there's an opportunity. I've
heard a lot of the people up on the, there are elected representatives talk about
things like a social service
gathering place. The Providence Heights could be used as that type of
of place, I just think there's an opportunity to work with the city as a
partner in this and maybe identify some maybe philanthropic efforts that could be worked together
to purchase the property. So I just wanted to put that out there as something
going forward that's working and partnering with the city, which I just, what I saw
was the city getting to the end point of whether or not being historically significant,
whether or not that would preserve the site. It didn't ask if there's additional opportunities
that could be used. Changing gears a little bit.
Regular business item AB7440 and I may be at a base on this. I didn't
have the latest. One of the initial parts of this is that there would be
a mobility board and at least
some of the members could be represented on that board if they have a business
here located in the city. It seems like if you wanted to have a voting
membership, you pay your city's, residents enough to live here and they get to vote
based on the residents, not vote based on being a business. If you want to
vote on based on being a business, then go to
those parts of the staff that deal with the business's involvement. If you want to
vote, then you need to be a resident. That's it, thanks.
Thank you, Steve. No one further has signed up to speak. Is there anyone who
has not signed up, desired to speak this evening? Mary.
My name is Mary Lynch and I reside at 2690 Northwest Oak Crest Drive, Issaquah,
Washington. I just wanted to put forward an idea because I haven't heard anything mentioned
like this happening, but I know the Issaquah School District is in need of land
and they need to expand. because they're running out of portables. What I would hope
that we maybe get all the municipalities that they're part of, Newcastle,
Renton, Sammamish, Issaquah, and King County together in an open forum and
sit down and talk about it. Talk about what the needs are, work with these
municipalities and maybe get some of the key developers together who are building large homes
that are gonna have major impact on the growth. and sit down in an open
forum and begin to talk on what can be done. And also what define with
these municipalities what an urban school looks like. Because what we're seeing right now
proposed in our design codes here, an urban school doesn't mean that it goes in
an urban area. The places that we're putting it right now are more in residential
or in wooded areas. And I really think we need to be progress around progress
with this pretty quickly because the school is in need but i think we need
to do it more openly and engaging all the appropriate municipalities and at this cost
school district much like you did with uh... mayor last year with the transportation forum
because the other side of it where you place those schools is going to have
major impact on the roadways the providence height is going to have major major impact
on that road coming down the hill with buses and cars that are not there
right now. And we've got some major development that's happening right now and under review.
The same thing if the middle school is to go behind IVE, Issaquah
Valley, that is along a stream which is in a flood plain. And to build
a tall building in the middle of a residential area next to a stream,
that could go up to 65 feet does not seem to me to fit the
comp plan and what we want to do for the long term. So yes we
need schools but we need to work together with all parties in an open forum
including the parents and us the taxpayers to sit down and talk about it and
not try to ramrod something through quickly because they want to have eminent domain on
some of the properties. Thank you. Thank you Mary. Anyone else?
David.
Good evening, David Kepler, 255 Southeast Andrew Street. Brett was honored, the city was honored
earlier tonight and I think that was well deserved. He's also real good on the
earthquake issues and all the other issues of that and pretty impressive record he's had
as department head for I don't know, a long, long time. So that was well
deserved and great. On Friday, the mayor was at the trailhead
direct kind of kickoff and the shuttle bus was going to the King County
Trailheads over the weekend. Sometimes it was not exactly full, but it's got a good
start, it's got some good publicity, and I think it will become a much more
popular way of getting to the over, overused or at least over
parked trailheads that are mostly King County. I think the city working with King County
can, we can come up with some different bus stops that would serve the public
better and maybe more efficiently as well. But that'll take some time.
City did a great new map, a trail map. There's a problem there if I'm
trying to go from Harvey Manning Park in Tallis, there's no trail to the Big
Tree Trailhead. There are trails there, but they're not on this map because it's not
public and they could be stopped at any time. The Bergsma area
property is a key connection to King County and Issaquah Parks
and very important. Also, for the future
it has a lot to say with the foot bike bridge over at maple
will put a transit center that has buses from early morning till late at night
seven days a week and even holidays going to just three blocks
and you're on cougar mountain from that transit center it is going to be a
major of the region getting to those parks. Now as mentioned earlier, 3,400
acres of park, that's the King County part. We have several hundred acres of Issaquah
Park on Cougar Mountain as well, that was part of the Talos.
Also, Central Issaquah. Central Issaquah is going to have access to Lake Sammamish Day Park,
which will be really important. It's gonna be a ways, this is the closest place
to actually get to hiking in a mountain from central Issaquah would be through that
corridor, the Bergsma property accessing Cougar Mountain. To get up to Squawk, you're talking
either going quite a bit more distant or a lot of elevation potentially as well
before you can get on Squawk and it's, From most of central
Issaquah, it's still a distance to tradition plateau and East Sunset. So it's a great
thing for the future and I'm glad I hear some rumblings out there
that the city and the county are working together and thinking about it plus. Thank
you. Thank you, David. Anyone else who has not
signed up to say? Ken?
Ken Eastman, 2473 Northwest Stony Creek Drive. I'm a resident of
Issaquah and I wanted to just provide some visuals for
the Bergsman discussion.
So where is Bergsma? For those that don't know exactly where the
property is, here's a map. You can see the Issaquah Transit Center. It's at the
northwest corner of the intersection of Newport Way and State Route 900.
It is literally steps away from the Issaquah Transit Center. It is that long frontage.
between the landscaping business and the county property with the big
white iron gate. It has the city property to the south
that houses Harvey Manning Park and the city water tank and then
to the south of that, the Talos community. So why is Bergsma so special?
A number of reasons that have been mentioned earlier. The most important though is at
the top, there's a very nice flat bench area that is
suitable for people that don't have advanced hiking skills. We have a huge amount of
open space available to us between the city and the county and the state properties.
But a lot of it is steep trails that require a
certain amount of capability. This Bergsma area, which has trails laced through it,
actually has quite a few acres of nice flat terrain for younger hikers,
older hikers, and maybe less capable hikers. It also has easy access to Harvey Manning
Park, and as was mentioned earlier, provides a critical link in
that loop trail from Lake Sammamish to Cougar Mountain to Squawk Mountain to Tiger Mountain,
all the way around to Grand Ridge and the Highlands.
And you can see the link to all of the Cougar Mountain trails as well
and the acreage that was earlier discussed.
And when you look up at the northeast corner of Cougar Mountain, you see the
trees there now. This would be scarred if it were developed.
It is truly the gateway to our community. whether you're coming in from the west
or whether you're coming in from the east. You can see that corner of Cougar
Mountain. It is currently wooded and unscarred.
Well, why not acquire this property and honor a founding family? We've honored the
Tibbets and the Pickerings and probably countless other Issaquah
founding families. The Bergsman has been around a long time. this
town Santa Claus milkman we all have heard those stories I would encourage you
to negotiate with that family and see if we can't protect their property and their
legacy so as many of the
previous speakers have discussed
if you create the park What you don't get is a steep road and the
scar on Northeast Cougar Mountain. You don't get the 22 acres of mature forest cut
and bulldozed. You don't get the steep slopes and the risks of the landslides. You
don't get the 88,000 cubic yards of fill that have to be carted off that
mountain and through the Issaquah streets. And you don't get another disruption on Newport Way.
So in summary, we're asking that the city council authorize
city staff to investigate acquiring this property either directly
or through partnerships. But this is worth saving. And I think the previous speakers
did an excellent job in terms of exactly why. So I thank you.
Thank you, Ken. Anyone else desiring to speak? Anyone
else desiring to speak this evening? Third and final call, anyone else
desiring to speak? Seeing no one, then audience comments are closed and we'll now
move to committee and regional reports, beginning with Mariah. Thank you, Mr.
Mayor. Just a short announcement. The Eastside Human Services Forum will be meeting September
20th, 8.30 a.m. at Bellevue City Hall. And that concludes my report.
No. Thank you. The infrastructure committee met on the 20th of July. And
we had two items on the agenda. The transportation benefit district, which is set on
the consent agenda tonight to refer back to our committee to stay in committee for
another month or so to get a little more work done on that. AB 7440,
the transportation advisory board, it's also on tonight's agenda. And we'll be talking about that
later. The next meeting is set for the 17th of August and the
agenda has not been set. Just other comment is at that time we're also waiting
to hear about the Trader Joe's roundabout bid that had gone out. And welcome
to, very happy to hear that the bid came back in under budget. So that
was also on tonight's consent agenda to move forward with that project. We were worried
about that. It's coming in too high on that. So that's one thing we don't
have to worry about. Regional Transit Committee met on the 19th of July. We had
two reports, basically one on speed and reliability that we worked on how they're trying
to increase those items. And the other one was interesting, Transit in Motion, which is
a program I didn't even know much about. It's basically a small, not so well-known
program of Metro Transit where they work with communities to help them access transit and
better use transit. And they'll actually come into communities and work with them and try
to develop better uses than So it's kind of neat, small, but nice in areas
that works well. The next meeting normally would be August
16th, but that meeting is not going to be formally held, but there will be
a working meeting tour of the Atlantic and Central Bus Base. We were there
doing that because one of the main concerns we have with Metro is there lack
of bus bases for any kind of expansion. They are at full to capacity and
so bus bases become a very big issue because even if they had a lot
more money, we don't have a place to put many of the buses. So that's
one thing we've been working on for a while. And mentioned that I'm sure Mr.
Mayor will mention this also, but the trailhead bus that was running around this weekend
for the first time, I was lucky I hung out to some trailheads and saw
some people using that and getting off and talking to them. One couple I talked
to used it both Saturday and Sunday and came from Bellevue and onto that bus.
So there's, I was very pleased to see some good use and they were very
happy to see the bus. Emergency Management Advisory Committee, there's no meeting in
August. And concludes my report for now. Thank you. Thank you. Paul.
Thank you Puget Sound Regional Council's Growth Management Policy Board did not meet in August
so our next meeting is the first Thursday in September September 7th that's my report.
Thank you. Tola. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Services and Safety Committee meets tomorrow at 630
here in Chambers. We have two agenda items. Agenda Bill 7451, which is a
discussion of a teen cafe letter of intent, and then agenda Bill 7456, which is
a four FTE staffing request from the administration.
The E911 next generation emergency response system
is next meeting. We're going to have a special meeting actually, Monday, September 11th,
location TBD 930 to 1130 AM. This is an info session that
was added to the original schedule. per request from a number of folks, including myself.
And then the next meeting of SCAPIC is not happening in August
per standard policy, or per tradition, I should say. And the next meeting is Wednesday,
September 13th, seven to nine as usual in Renton City Hall. That concludes my report.
Thank you. Eileen? Thank you Fred. I attended the YWR 8
meeting reviewing the draft. That's the water resource inventory area. We reviewed the draft 2017
Chinook Salmon Conservation Plan updates. It's a 10 year plan that revises
the 10 year plan. We will have the final draft for approval and on the
September 21st meeting. This will have development of
habitat goals for Chinook salmon, evaluate the negative impacts that are there, address the highest
priorities that are stress on our salmon and produce monitoring and assessment plans for the
adaptive management. So that's my complete report and we will finish this
WIRA 8 draft on the 21st of September. Thank you, Mary Lou. Thank you,
Mr. Mayor. The Eastside Fire and Rescue Finance and Administration Committee met on July 26th.
They had a couple of items of interest to our city on their agenda. One
was the Capital Facilities Maintenance Fund. This is a draft policy that was presented for
the first time to this committee. And also a summary of the 2018 Revenue and
Expense Budget Draft. I'm gonna actually give a little more information on those two items
plus two that Mr. Mayor you had asked me to provide updates from previous board
meetings as well. I'd sent an email out last Thursday to the council and the
mayor with four items on it, all dealing with Eastside Fire and Rescue. The first
item was a new policy that has been passed by Eastside Fire and Rescue on
adding additional partners to the agency. This was discussed and approved by the EFRA board
in May. And the language had been reviewed by Council Member
Barber, Ramos, Polly, and we also had input from Jen Olson, our finance director.
The simple summary for it is that only a simple majority of the board members
are required to direct the chief to evaluate a proposal to add a new partner.
At that point, the chief will complete a business analysis and it only requires a
simple majority of the board to bring that proposed partner addition to the governing bodies
of all partners. In order for a partner to be added to the agency, all
partners, including the City of Issaquah, must approve the addition in order for new partners
to be added. The second item I wanted to talk about was the new draft
policy on capital facilities maintenance fund, which was before the finance admin committee on
July 26th. There was not sufficient language in the interlocal agreement with Eastside Fire and
Rescue for the fire chief to be able to clearly determine which building maintenance of
fire stations would be completed. by Eastside Fire and Rescue as tenants to the partners.
And so a new policy was drafted. Finance Director Jen Olson has worked with Eastside
Fire and Rescue staff on the draft and it will be voted on at the
September Eastside Fire and Rescue board meeting. I have a question that I would like
to talk with you about it for good of the order that has to do
with that new policy. And also another issue related to a policy request that I
would like to make for Eastside Fire and Rescue on Isco's behalf, but I'll bring
those back up for good of the order. The draft 2018 budget, which was also
presented at Finance and Admin Committee, this was version two. The total partner contribution
increase for all funds for 2018 is proposed at 5.89%. The majority of the
increase, 3.65%, is the full salary and benefit impact of the 2015 collective
bargaining agreement. And there is some additional detail that I included in the email and
if you have questions we can talk about that for good of the order as
well. The last issue is at the prior Eastside Fire and Rescue board meeting. A
presentation on standards of cover was, part one of the presentation of standards of cover
was presented to the board. This is a changing of the approach for Eastside Fire
and Rescue. In order to measure standards of service in the past, the measure of
time to leave each station and compare to national averages was used to determine whether
or not the agency was meeting standards. But we're now moving to a different system
where we will measure success of the agency by the outcomes of those that are
treated or the property damage that is avoided or minimized during fires and natural disasters.
Are we getting expected health outcomes? Where are we falling short? How are we exceeding?
So this is a significant change in how we approach this measurement and the first
part has been presented. The second part of standards of cover will be presented in
the fall and we'll come back with a report on that as well. And I'll
save the rest of the discussion for good of the order. Thank you. Stacey. Thank
you, Mr. Mayor. Council's Land and Shore Committee met on August 3rd. Items of note
on our agenda included the Old Town sub-area plan update, which
is on the consent agenda tonight, so we will be discussed. My understanding is it's
coming off the consent agenda, so there is an opportunity to discuss
that at that time, but the committee reviewed the first couple of chapters of a
revised, significantly revised draft of the updated Old Town sub-area plan.
We also had a very short preview of the urban schools code amendment which is
on the consent agenda tonight to be referred to committee so there's
probably more information in the agenda bill than the committee even had. The other item
of note is we talked about one of the central Issaquah area
dashboard items. There is an annual dashboard that comes out that gives us
of the central area, central Issaquah area, what kind of a development has occurred, all
types of numbers. One of those numbers has to do with impact fees collected. And
we got a spreadsheet that the finance department has been, I think, primarily
putting together over the last couple of months that pulls together some numbers that, you
know, The numbers show
the impact fees that have been collected in Central Issaquah since the plan was adopted.
And what the finance department, or I should say the administration, I think everybody figured
out during the collection of that data is that there is a gap in the
data collection and that we collect We collect information about where the money
comes from, which projects, when the project first comes in the door. And then by
the time the information makes its way to the finance department, we keep track of
when the impact fees were collected because the city has a deadline for spending that
money, which is 10 years. But we haven't been keeping track in the finance department,
because the information doesn't migrate over there, which projects that
money came from. So we are, it's difficult to tell where we're spending the money
that gets collected in the central Issaquah area. The money we've collected to date for
impact fees has spent, been spent on transportation, on the transportation part of the
impact fees spent on the north suite of projects, north of I-90. And,
The other information of note is that I believe the finance department will be
proposing a budget time software that will enable the city to collect the information
and keep it so that we know not only when the money comes in, which
project it comes from, and then where that money was spent. So there is more
of a link. Next meeting of Land and Shore is the first Thursday of
September. I believe that's September 7th. The agenda has not been set yet. That's my
report. Thank you. There will be an executive session held this evening for the purpose
of discussing potential litigation per RCW 42.30.110
per N1 per N I and property acquisition per RCW 42.30.110
per N1 per N B. These items are expected to take approximately 30 minutes.
No action is anticipated to follow in open session. I'd
like to take a moment tonight to remember and recognize Issaquah resident Flash
Parlini, who passed away on July the 12th. Flash, who worked for the Boeing
flight test for 35 years, spent most of his free time involved in local
community service. Flash was a city of Issaquah Emergency
Communications Radio Officer, member and mentor
at the Issaquah Community Response Team, and longtime member of the Issaquah
Amateur Radio Club. He also logged in thousands of volunteer hours as a
Mount Rainier backcountry ranger. We thank Flash for his many
years of serving our community. A bill already mentioned
on our consent calendar this evening, an agenda bill to award
a bid for the Maple Street Mini Roundabout project. I'll provide a few
comments about what that is and what it means. Project will
add a mini roundabout at the Trader Joe's slash target intersection to improve function and
safety Provide a more intuitive intersection for pedestrians
and drivers. And install rectangular rapid flashing beacons for
pedestrian crossings on Maple Street. Construction will require a full
closure of Maple Street from Gilman Boulevard through the Trader Joe's
slash Target intersection. During the closure, which will be announced soon, work will be allowed
12 hours a day. seven days a week, Metro bus routes will be
detoured and no delivery truck access will be permitted through the
intersection for the duration of construction. I'd like to thank the 1200
community members who attended our city's 125th birthday party
on July 27th. We had a wonderful turnout and a great night celebrating
our community. I especially would like to thank our sponsors, Comcast, Lakeside
Industries, Recology, Cleanscapes, and Raleigh Properties for their
support of our birthday celebration. And,
as already mentioned, several times, Trailhead Direct
initiated service. This is a pilot program connecting the Issaquah
Islands and Isquad Transit Center with a number of trail heads primarily because of
a lack of parking at these trail heads. And with that,
that concludes my report. We'll now move
to the consent calendar. And it's my understanding
that agenda bill 7326 Old Town Sub Area Plan
update, which was scheduled to be referred to the Council Land and Shore Committee,
will be removed down to regular business so that we can discuss that and that
will become item 9D. And
with that, I'd ask the clerk to read the consent calendar into the record.
The consent calendar was distributed to Council in advance for study. If authorized, Council action
will occur by single motion regarding the following items. Item A seeks approval of the
accounts payables and payroll of August 7th. Items B and C seeks approval of the
minutes of the Council Committee work session of July 10th and the regular meeting of
July 17th. Item D, AB 7250, Transportation
Benefit District, seeks referral to Council Infrastructure Committee. Item E, has been moved to regular
business. Item F, AB 7420, 2017 Complete Streets Project, Phase II
Maple Street Mini Roundabout, seeks to award bid. Items G and H, AB 7439,
amending IMC 1807-480, Community Facility Standards and Central Issaquad Development
and Design Standards, Chapter 4. districts uses and standards related to urban schools
and AB 7459 termination of Costco easement seeks referral to council land and
shore committee this concludes the reading thank you and we've all
already mentioned that agenda bill 7326 will be discussed under
regular business paragraph 9d and
with that I would ask if The accounts payables and payroll of August the
7th, 2017 have been reviewed. That was provided electronically to all
council members last week. They have. Thank you.
With that then, any other items that council members would like removed from the consent
calendar and considered separately? Stacy? I move to
adopt the consent calendar as presented. moved and seconded all those in favor
signify by saying aye aye aye those opposed that carries unanimously
uh moving now to uh the first of our three public hearings uh
the first uh agenda bill 7345 amending parking requirements in the
central issaquah development and design standards and uh the
comments that I provided previously about audience comments apply here and we
will begin with a brief staff presentation by Lucy Sloman. Thank
you, Mr. Mayor. Lucy Sloman, Land Development Manager with DSD. As
the mayor mentioned, this is AB 7345. We're holding a public hearing, take
testimony on a certain portion of the code proposed code changes
related to changes that happened following subsequent to the
PPC hearing. But I will do a brief recap because there is
a public hearing and we are concluding the first moratorium item potentially.
So, work plan history. The Issaquah evaluation in 2016
identified a gap related to structured parking. The moratorium was put in place
September 6th. In March, we hired Farron Peers as a consultant with a
sub-consultant of Eco Northwest. In June 7th, Land and Shore
made recommendations that then were put into code and taken to PPC in June
and then reviewed again July 7th. Just
to briefly touch on those, Farron Peers did a parking analysis
which had three main conclusions that I would point out. First is that parking
minimums are generally appropriate as set within Central Issaquah.
Developers are generally building more than the minimum parking required and on street parking
utilization is likely to grow. The second consultant
team was Eco Northwest who did an analysis of structured parking. In this part, they
were analyzing different uses and the ability of different construction
types and uses to incorporate structured parking.
Primarily what it showed is that the Construction type
and use type affected the ability of projects to feasibly
incorporate structured parking. A little bit more about that later.
And generally what the model showed is that for most uses at 50%
structured parking became a challenge. This of course is somewhat of a generalization because unique
site characteristics can affect that. They also did some research on other cities and found
that cities are either adopting incentives for structured parking or in the case of
Federal Way it has adopted a 25% structured parking requirement for multifamily.
As a result of the research that the consultants and staff provided, the administration
made a set of recommendations. The recommendations around each use
were related to the amount of structured parking and the minimum building size. So the
administration's recommendation was for 33% structured parking for office and
residential with office buildings over 5,000 square feet, no minimum size for residential.
no requirement for retail and no exemptions or adjustments. PPC
chose to change that to 50% office, 50%
of parking and office structures had to be structured. In residential, it was also 50%
They had wanted to provide a retail requirement but felt there wasn't sufficient information to
be able to do that at this time and asked staff to provide additional analysis
within a year. At Land & Shore, there was a concern that retail was not
included and as a result, Land & Shore recommended a 50%
requirement for structured parking for retail for buildings over 25,000 square feet.
So to take a step back as to the basis for that, Eco Northwest model
in just a summary is up here in the upper left-hand corner. You can see
that between 25 and 50% structured parking is where infeasibility
occurs. And staff did an analysis of various projects. That's
at the lower part of the slide. In looking at that, The administration originally
recommended a conservative approach using the median percentage of structured
parking around a third. PPC was
wanting an aspirational approach. That's why they recommended 50%.
There was additional, at our last meeting, July 17th, Council had some follow-up
questions, and this is a summary of the memo that was added to your packet.
The first question was, how does requiring 50% structured parking impact rents?
Generally, most projects in areas like Issaquah where land values are high,
structured parking is unbundled from the rent, which gives a tenant more
choice as to whether they pay for parking or not. However, the
rent associated with the parking stall does not cover the full cost, so some portion
of it is in structured parking. However, it can be noted that on
average, the six projects that have gone through Central Issaquah to permitting
are voluntarily providing structured parking between 29 and 100 percent
for an average of 52 percent. So there is obviously,
the market is already there to some extent. Second, there was a question about whether
structured parking would achieve the goal of reducing the amount of land dedicated to surface
parking in central Issaquah, which was originally analyzed at 75%. And the six
projects to date show that although these are going to be incremental changes, they could
potentially indicate a substantial reduction in surface parking. They range from
zero to 26% of the site being used for surface parking
with an average of 16%. Thank
you. Questions of Lucy? Seeing none
then, I will open the public hearing at 8-21
and ask if anyone has signed up to speak this evening. No one has signed
up to speak. Is there anyone who has not signed up to speak desiring to
speak this evening? Yes, Justin?
Justin Walsh, 2196 Shiber Way. In looking at this, it is obvious to me
that the 50% number for residential is supported by the market.
We have creeping over 52% at this point on average. It seems new projects could
be pushed. My concern has to do with retail structure parking requirements where we have
no data. And without the data, I have a concern that we might be pricing
out small businesses and new retail establishments. by forcing the retailers to create
more parking. As a small business owner myself, I have huge concerns with rents. If
we price the structures too high, we're going to end up with only chain retailers
that can afford those higher rents rather than small businesses in these new retail establishments.
So without the data, I think the council should take a hard look at whether
they want to move forward on that particular piece. Thank you. Thank you, Justin. Anyone
else desiring to speak? Yes, Steve.
Steve Pereira, 170 Northeast Ogwood Street. So I like the aspirational
statement of, or the perspective of the PPC. I too was kind of perplexed by
not seeing enough feedback on what the impact would be to retail. However,
I would rather wait until we get there if there's a pricing consideration to build
the retail until the pricing gets there. I would also like to see an item
that comes back and says when we look at this again, what drives us to
look at that? Whether or not these percentages are the right amount or not.
And I haven't heard anything that says when we're gonna do that or what makes
us do that or who determines when we're ready to do that. Thanks. Thank you,
Steve. Anyone else desiring to speak? Mary?
My name is Mary Lynch and I recite at 2690 Northwest Ocrest Drive, Essequah, Washington.
One of the things I just wanna talk about is Atlas and looking at the
numbers and saying, are we successful? All you have to do is drive down 7th
Avenue and know that Atlas is not working and they're not fully built out. You
can't park along there almost any time of the day or in the evening due
to the overflow of Atlas onto city streets. So I think going forward we need
to do a better job of parking we need to really set up some policies
around the city for parking. We need to have some hour limits to parking and
also need to make sure that if this does go forward that we closely monitor
and come back and adjust it accordingly. Because I don't think it's working right now
and since Atlas is the only one of the projects that is has been built
to date And it's not working. I still question whether this is a good number
going forward. But we really do need some parking policies in town, all over town,
not just in the central area where we do have limited hours and we do
start enforcing it and ticketing for people who do abuse it.
Thank you, Mary. Kathy.
Good evening, Kathy McCrory, Greater Issaquah Chamber of Commerce. I have a statement I'd like
to read on behalf of our board and our members. As a pro-business advocate for
economic vitality in the region, the Greater Issaquah Chamber of Commerce supports business opportunities that
meet the vision of the Central Issaquah Plan and enhances the economic vitality of our
community. We thank the city's staff and the council for all you do. The
work the City staff, City Council, Land and Shore Committee, and the Planning Policy Commission
has done on the issues surrounding design standards for parking has been thorough and shows
due diligence in addressing the future needs of Issaquah. The Chamber is here this evening
to express our concern that these parking standards may be just a bit too futuristic
for our current needs. Market usually dictates parking, yet we agree that it is best
to have guidelines in place so that By the time the market catches up with
the parking needs of Issaquah, we are better prepared to deal with them. However, the
Chamber would like to respectfully suggest that the recommendations, especially those for retail,
may actually be more than currently needed. We ask that you consider it may better
our interest to support the original recommendations from Land and Shore for now, to support
densification over time, addressing higher density parking for retail as those market
indicators come online. Our business community and local developers have asked us to
also remind the City Council that parking structures on the valley floor can cost up
to seven times more than other areas on the east side. and that no other
municipality in the region requires such a high percentage of covered surface parking
for retail. Again, the greater Issaquah Chamber of Commerce and our business community can support
design standards for parking for housing and office space, although that one does, as we
know, present some challenges. We ask that you consider 50% covered parking for retail
excuse me, we ask that you reconsider 50% covered parking for retail over 25,000
square feet. When it comes to retail, we believe it would be best to follow
other communities in the region and not adapt standards that would detour
our ability to meet the current and short-term needs of the community. Instead, let the
market take the lead and support densification over time. Thank you. Thank you, Kathy.
Anyone else desiring to speak this evening? Anyone else? Third and
final call. Seeing no one else then, public
comment is closed. And this is coming back to
us from Land and Shore.
I'm just here if you need me. I have nothing else I was going to
add. I move to adopt ordinance number. 2799.
Adopting by reference amendments to the central Issaquah development and design standards, including clarifying the
administrative adjustment of standards, the definition of parking structure and carport, and requiring structured parking
for new residential uses, office uses above 5,000 gross square feet, and retail uses above
25,000 gross square feet. Second. moved and seconded discussion.
Seeing none, all those in favor of approving? Mr. Mayor, I'd just like to make
one comment. That's okay. I appreciate that the Chamber came tonight to share their concerns.
I think that's really important. During the moratorium, it's been really tough to decide on
some of these issues and to get all this research done in one year. I'm
more comfortable with the, I think Kathy, you had said what we would go with
what Land and Shore recommended. I think what you meant was what PPC recommended. The
Land and Shore is actually stricter. But I do support the Land and Shore one.
I also would support during this budget's deliberations which are coming up. Proposing additional
funds to further study this and see if what we've done on the retail site
is supported by data and what is going in other communities. But for tonight, I'm
pretty comfortable going with what Landed Shore recommended.
Mariah, were you leaning forward a little bit? Yes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just
wanted to echo what Council Member Pauly talked about.
am in support of this but i would like to see some further studies done
and to be able to follow up to make sure we've got the numbers in
the right place um one
comment uh just to clarify that for me the retail that 50 is for a
building larger than 25 000 square feet and i just want to mention that because
that's not a small office building or some sort that's a very large commercial space
of some sort, it's a big box store. And so that size limit really does
play differently than saying any retail would need something. So I think that's a big
difference and some people may not realize that 25,000 square feet, what that refers to
is a very big, big place. So thank you. Any
other comments, questions, or discussion? Seeing none then, all those in favor of adopting Ordinance
Number 2799 as previously stated, signify by saying aye. Aye. Those
opposed? That carries unanimously. Moving now
to our
second public hearing, agenda bill 7350, consider
additional extension to temporary moratorium related to certain permit
applications. Keith Niven, Director of Development Services Division
and Economic Development for a brief staff presentation. Thank you,
Mr. Mayor. Good evening, City Council. So this evening, so we're coming up upon a
year of temporary development moratorium. It was enacted in September of last year.
And what I provided for you this evening was a memorandum with a summary of
where we are on the six work items. And so I'm just going to kind
of run through it fairly quickly. You've had presentations of almost all of them
in one form or another at either work sessions or committee of the whole and
definitely at Land and Shore. So where we are is, if you remember, we actually
paired architecture and urban design together, which is why those look like they're on the
same track, because they actually are on the same track. Right now we've been working
through the development commission with the draft manual. You folks had a presentation
at the committee of the whole meeting last month. from our consultants, Crandall Rambula,
and we are kind of working on a final draft, which will then go to
Planning Policy Commission and ultimately come back to the full council for
adoption. Right now we're scheduled for the middle of October for that. Parking, which
is the next item below, you heard kind of the final piece of that this
evening. So I'm gonna say it's done. except for any follow up for maybe next
year as Council Member Polly mentioned. Affordable housing, we
presented the draft housing strategy to you at the Committee of the Whole
meeting. There were nine draft strategies. What's coming out of that is we're moving
forward with two of them initially. The inclusionary
zoning revisions for Central Issaquah as well as the multi-family tax exemption. And those code
revisions will come through Planning Policy Commission and back to council by September.
Vertical mixed use, you will get a presentation at the August 14th, so next
Monday, from our consultants, Crandallarambula again, working on
vertical mixed use. We're also targeting that for October, mid-October to be done. And
then the last item, which is re-looking at the district or neighborhood visions, we've done
public outreach on that. We've had conversations with focus groups
and you guys received a presentation on that from the long range planning staff. So
the rest of this memo just gives you some visuals and summarizes whether each of
these items are complete or not complete and what's left to do. And basically
because we expect to be done with all of these by November,
the ask from the administration is to continue the
temporary moratorium until the end of the year. And by the time we hit the
end of the year, our expectation is we will have all six
items done. There'll be follow-up, but at least all six items will be
initially finished as far as what the scope was when we commenced a year ago.
So that's the end of presentation if there's any questions, otherwise I'll move aside.
Seeing no questions, you can move aside.
We'll open the public hearing at 8.35. As I
mentioned before, the same comments that I mentioned at the beginning of our meeting
apply, and I'd ask if anyone has signed up to speak. Yes, Elizabeth
Maupin.
Greetings, Elizabeth Maupin, 100 Big Bear Place, Northwest, Issaquah.
I am here to say that I appreciate the efforts that have been made to
slow down development long enough to carefully consider what we want our community to look
like and to offer in the future. I've watched some of the deliberations on Issaquah
TV and been impressed with the attention paid to details like architectural
styles and orienting the entries in a way that encourages interaction
with our natural open spaces. As far as I can see, you're
making good progress and I would encourage you to take the time that you need
get clear not only on what is appropriate for future development but to be clear
on how to ensure that that is what we get.
It's also important to hold on to the good that already exists.
We're short on housing that is affordable to many people who currently work or live
in Issaquah and the rising real estate values are making the shortage and more
acute. I think we all see this. We need to have some way to
discourage the destruction of currently existing housing.
Granting a permit to demolish Providence Heights campus including 300
units of affordable housing is an example of a mistake that should have been avoided.
We need to think about how to avoid such mistakes. I recognize also
that a rapid turnover of housing has accelerated the rise in land values and
rents. We're not the only community facing these issues, and we could
possibly learn from the struggles of other urban areas. Here, as in
Vancouver, BC, many properties are being snapped up by investors from
outside our area. Investors who have little awareness or
concern about the impact of ever increasing rents and home prices on the local
community. Please look at what Vancouver BC is doing to
discourage non-local investment. I hope you will
also consider doing some things experimentally
with a date for reviewing how measures you've put in place
are working or not working quite as well as you'd hoped so that you can
make further improvements maybe without having to have another moratorium
but think about ways that we can just keep looking at this and
not let it slide into the darkness thank you
Thank You Elizabeth
Thank you. My name is Brian Weinstein. My address is on file. The moratorium is
here to help cure issues in our central Issaquah plan around architectural fit, urban
design, vertical mixed use, affordable housing, parking, visions for the central Issaquah district.
With the exception of parking, we don't know what any of these other cures look
like. I'm concerned about what's on the other side of this moratorium. Not colors and
shapes, but the character of our community. Our comprehensive plan says we're supposed to
grow in a balanced way. Have we? Here are five facts. We've met our 2030
population goal decades ahead of schedule. In terms of population density per square mile, we
need fewer than 500 people and will be equivalent to Bellevue. And I heard that
there are 11,000 housing units waiting to come in. Two, 30,000 regional
cars and trucks through our town on a daily basis. Residents continue to complain about
failing levels of service on our streets from the traffic related to the growth of
our regional partners and here in Issaquah. Three, we don't have enough parks. We
have one pool, one community center. Can we buy enough water? What about our storm
water and sewage systems? Four, jobs creation. I've spoken with the Labor Department.
In the last 10 years, living wage jobs in Issaquah have grown at 1%.
Sad. Five, the schools. We've already heard from the Issaquah School District, they just can't
build them fast enough. Do these data points sound like our city is growing in
a rational, sustainable way or just becoming the east side blob of housing?
Conversations that have started in our community about our journey and this moratorium have focused
on why future growth is supposed to be in our best interest. Not the region,
but us, Issaquah. For many of us, the answer is not transparent and it's hard
to trust that decisions being made are in our best interest rational holistic
strategic or presented to council in an honest and straightforward manner the community has said
no more growth digest what we have and come up with a plan that effectively
manages the growth that we have now continue the pause and make no further concessions
for high density growth anywhere but the valley floor and i think that growth has
to meet some specific criteria one market driven you've seen the studies Vertical
mixed use needs population to support the mixed use. The market isn't there. We shouldn't
give tax exemptions, concessions that become precedents like a drug, excuse me, like a drug
that everybody wants to get what we want. The market has to own their successes
and we should not have to pay for their failures. Development has to pay for
itself. As a city, we set a bad precedent if we ever hand over our
most precious resources, land and money. Developers have big pockets and we don't need to
be supporting them with clever land swap deals where residents get trivial benefits.
Affordable housing. We've clearly articulated our affordable housing goal. Do we have development agreements on
the valley floor that are getting us what we want now? And if not, why
do we still have them? brings a public benefit like infrastructure signals roads parks
jobs jobs jobs and schools schools schools if future development doesn't meet these requirements
can wait until it does. The time for being distracted from our comp plan by
shiny new developments should be over. Let's not continue growth because it's something we can
tolerate. Let's really plan our growth and make it something that we can accept and
embrace and enforce without distraction or excuse. And above all, it's time to get the
full cost of this growth out into the open and daylighted for all to see.
We've been asking for this for the last 15 years. People are tired of processes
that favor the applicant and ignore residents. And those six elements that
are supposed to be an inherent part of the cure for the Issaquah plan, they
all need to be viewed together, not piecemeal, drawn out in some long fire-and-forget process.
The moratorium remains an opportunity to drastically refine our codes and principles, but our vision
for Issaquah now and in the future is something that we really need to be
thinking about. I support the moratorium continuing, and I support your efforts to really get
into the heart of those six elements to make our community better. Thank you.
Thank you, Brian. Steve Pereira.
Hi, so I guess several thoughts as I looked at this. One was I
take the idea of Issaquah's vision out there versus the moratorium and sometimes
they seem to be in conflict. I've heard some of the people sitting on council
talk about wanting to get the moratorium over in a year. It seems a rush
to get there in context to just allow the building to go. We
don't have all the things of the six items that we've talked about. So yes,
we need to look at it more than just piecemeal for these six and just
kind of at the six month to six month moratorium window, we need to look
more holistically. Some things that appeared beyond
the scope of the six moratorium items are the tree canopy
that's quickly disappearing and how we're gonna replenish that and whether we should replenish that
or want that replenished. The other is zoning that talks about the heights of the
buildings. I've seen one template that talks about design
standards for buildings that talks about a kind of a historic Issaquah perspective and one
that talks about not historic perspective for the building characters. It seems like we need
to change or lower the height building for at least those
traditional Issaquah areas to below the current standard and we need to set standards for
where higher density buildings can be because where we've been getting building has not been
in the central Isquad plan. So we need to go back and revisit that. And
as Elizabeth said, we need to go back and set standards for
how we're gonna measure whether or not we're getting more growth and what we want
to happen. So yes, continue the moratorium for more than six months. look at it
holistically and set some standards for how we measure success going forward.
Thanks. Thank you, Steve.
No one further has signed up to speak. Is there anyone who has not signed
up Justin?
Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and thank you, counsel, again, for the record, Justin Walsh, 2196
Scheiber, and candidate for counsel position three. As you're all aware, we can't have an
indefinite moratorium. The law says you can only go on for so long before that
rises to the level of a taking and eminent domain and opens us up to
litigation. I really applaud the counsel's thoroughness on holding the administration
to task on those items that are identified in the moratorium, and I think we're
getting there. As we can see there are some things moving forward. The data is
starting to come out. We're looking at vertical mixed use and what density is
needed to support that and how we get there. We're engaging the experts that need
to be engaged in order to have those things that create a dense and vibrant
community. But regarding water, sewer, you heard some discussion on those type of things.
I would urge everyone in the audience as well as watching online, that data is
available. As far as I'm aware from my time on the Planning Policy Commission, there
were no issues identified with water or sewer capacity in those regards, and those were
on track. Regarding 11,000 units, just to be clear, I believe the 11,000
units that were cited the number of affordable housing units we need to be able
to service our community and reduce the rents in Issaquah. Those are not incoming
units that are eminent, just to be clear. Finally, we just need to be
aware that market-driven development is what has gotten us where we are today.
We need to be very on top of development and make sure that any development
that happens is done in a sustainable way that is paid for
by the developers. I fully agree with that. But we cannot just leave it to
a market-driven approach because that's how we end up with clogged streets and urban sprawl,
which is exactly the opposite of what the Growth Management Act has hoped to do
in order to preserve the woods, not just in Issaquah, but outside of Issaquah, preventing
that urban sprawl. Thank you. Thank you, Justin.
Anyone else? Desiring to speak this evening. Kathy.
the Macquarie Greater Issaquah Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber of Commerce thanks the city and
the council for all you do. The work the city staff has done on the
issues surrounding the moratorium is impressive to say the least. For 125 years,
the leaders of Issaquah have done a great job of maintaining our work and life
balance, preserving our history, culture, and green space while embracing new industries,
technologies, and growth shows in who we are today. We are pleased to know that
you are carrying on the tradition of care. In fact, the Chamber is confident that
Issaquah will continue to grow and thrive while the City continues to protect our valuable
resources and assets. Due to our confidence in you, City staff, and the
great record of our past leaders, the Chamber, business owners, and their employees
urge the City to also trust in yourselves and lift the moratorium
while you finish up the work that is almost complete.
Lifting the moratorium will allow the funnel to reopen an opportunity for new businesses and
growing businesses to begin exploring Issaquah as a warm and welcoming place in which to
live, work, and play. Since it will take time to get the word out that
Issaquah is once again open for business, the crossover should not be impactful, we would
hope. It would just allow us the ability to take advantage
of the current economic climate. Growth is still strong, however, all key indicators are showing
it is slowing. Worst case scenario we hope to avoid is that the moratorium
continues and by the time we are ready, the opportunity to welcome new business to
Issaquah has passed. The Chamber has another concern and reason for asking the Council to
consider lifting the moratorium. Without revenue from permits, the City will face some serious
challenges for the next few years. And the Chamber, local businesses and residents are concerned
where the City will turn to make up for that lost revenue. We are concerned
that the moratorium may have already begun leading to increases in property taxes or B&O
taxes or that in the future services to the community are cut in order to
balance those future budgets. Remember that construction also generates sales.
Workers purchase food, gas, and services. Contractors hire local
subcontractors and they also purchase materials and services from our local businesses.
The business community will be hurt next year by the slowdown of these projects, thus
again impacting our city coffers. Less income equals less B&O tax.
We believe in the wisdom and the skill of our city and our staff and
the council. We believe that with your support you can open the doors to do
business without extending the moratorium, finishing up your good work.
The Chamber Board of Directors would also like the City Council to know that we
are here to help. When you do lift the moratorium, we support your decision.
And we will help educate our membership and the community in any way we can.
We look forward to opportunities that allow us to collaborate and we thank you for
all you do for Issaquah. Thank you, Kathy. Anyone else?
I'm Todd Baxter and I'm representing Dr. David Hildreth who
he operated a veterinary clinic for 30 years right off of Newport Way
and at 2300 Newport Way and he's sandwiched in between the Gateway Apartments and
the senior center they're building there. They're a small pie-shaped piece. And
his daughter, son-in-law, and five kids live there now. And he asked me to read
a letter. Dear Issaquah City Council, as the owner of the property
at 2300 Newport Way Northwest, I would like to remind you of the hardship the
building moratorium has placed on my family. We were unable to leave our driveway easily
due to the construction traffic and flaggers. This summer has been hot and we were
unable to open any windows or doors on the backside of our house due to
the construction noise. My daughter, her husband, and her five children are living in between
two major construction zones. My personal health is precarious but stable now. It remains
my desire to quickly conclude the sale of my property and not leave this for
my family to handle. Once again, I ask for an exemption just for this property
from the moratorium so that I may conclude the sale of the property. So
they are just stuck in there. They have a sale going. Both sides are being
major construction and they want out. But because of the moratorium, they can't, I
mean, they need to sell that property. And the longer it goes on, the longer
they have to wait. So they do, I mean, I grew up in Issaquah. They,
you know, they've been here forever. And we understand, we want a great vision for
it. We want to keep everything green. I mean, we agree with that. Also, we
want some flexibility to allow these people to be able to sell their house, and
I'm sure there's other people out there as well. So, thank you. Thank you, Todd.
Anyone else? Anyone else? Third and final call.
Seeing no one then, audience comments are closed.
This is coming back to us.
From Stacey. From world. From Stacey. World famous land and shore committee. Yeah, world famous.
I'm gonna go ahead and make a motion. I would move to adopt ordinance number.
2800. adopting findings and extending the moratorium established by
Ordinance Number 2778 as amended by Ordinance Number 2784 and as previously
extended by Ordinance Number 2793 for an additional period commencing September 6, 2017
and ending December 31, 2017. Second.
It's moved and seconded. Discussion, questions, or comments? Mary Lou.
A question and a comment, Mr. Mayor. The question is that it is possible to
lift the moratorium earlier if the council deemed that we had made sufficient progress.
Keith is nodding his head, yes, yes. And my comment again is again thanking the
Chamber of Commerce for coming this evening and providing the perspective on the financial
impacts and the impacts of the business community the moratorium can have. All true,
all really well stated. and I appreciate that. However, after
looking at the, I don't want to call an audit, the assessment that staff did
last year of where we were with the progress in central Issaquah towards achieving a
vision, this is a time in town when we're actually sort of recreating ourselves to
some degree and the assessment did not not show that we were actually getting what
we thought we were going to do so this is probably the hardest thing isaquil
will go through to go to an area that's already built and try and create
something very different it's hard and we have to have the right tool kit
and we started out with the wrong tool kit so as much as i agree
with everything kathy says we are going to see a dip and we are going
to have to adjust to that at some point in time the right thing to
do is to keep the moratorium in place I'll be supporting the motion this evening.
Ola. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. First, a couple of things that we've discussed before. We
continue to operate within this hothouse environment of being the fastest
growing northern big city in the US. We have the hottest housing market. I just
heard on the news today that the average house in the Seattle metro area grew
by over $100,000 in the last 12 months. That's the first time that's ever happened.
And we have a growth management act that's constantly under pressure. And so a while
back, we put together the central Issaquah plan. It's a good plan. It has preserved
the hillsides by and large as areas that continued to finish building out the villages
have continued to finish building out with some public comment, but Squawk has been
preserved and various neighborhoods, historic neighborhoods have been preserved,
but we needed to tune up. The administration came before us a year ago and
said there were things that weren't working in the plan the way we wanted them
to and we did a pause. And now we're continuing to thread that needle by
working that tune up. I wanna thank the staff for once again, being honest about
where we're at and not trying to cram everything in just to meet a date.
I've been very impressed with how we have worked these six issues over the last
year. I'm excited about finishing up that work. We need to see it
through and measure twice and cut once. We have been historically very
welcoming of businesses. We have been a town that has responded well to growth.
We haven't tried to close the door behind us. I think the moratorium is not
trying to close the door behind us. I think it is a tune-up. And so
I'm confident that we will again be welcoming to businesses and growth
done smartly after the moratorium has finished its important work. So I will be supporting
the I will be supporting finishing the work that
we've been going through on this moratorium this evening. Thank you.
Paul. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm going to make a comment and then actually I'm
going to start by asking Keith a question. And thank you, Keith, for having this
diagram up in front of us. Could you just, for everybody's benefit, answer the question,
if by your estimate that we will be complete with this work at the end
of November. Why is the administration suggesting not lifting the moratorium until the end of
December? If you could just address that, please. So
for two reasons, I think. One is it gives us a little bit more time.
If the district vision conversation wants to expand a little bit, we have a little
bit of slack room at the end where if that The Orange Bar actually extends
into December. We have two meetings in December where we could potentially lift the moratorium.
The other thing is, is, you know, there's really not a lot of permitting activity
that happens in December. So the value of potentially lifting it, you know, after the
second meeting in November versus after this, you know, at the end of December, there's
really not that much difference to the development community. So it seemed like rather than
trying to cut it tight, we would give ourselves a little bit of extra room
just in case we go long. All right. Thank you. Thank you. The general concept
of the moratorium is one that I support. It's very important that we get a
central Issaquah area that our citizens want, that we envisioned. And a
key part of that as well, as Council Member Martz mentioned, is that it's important
to, we believe it's a plan that'll help protect existing neighborhoods. It'll relieve the pressure
for upzoning and infill in our existing neighborhoods so we can preserve that character. That's
a very important part of the central Issaquah area. this
getting what we want down there is also very important. I have one concern about
the plan as it stands right now as far as wrapping it up. And you
mentioned it earlier, that the housing strategy that was presented had nine strategies for us
to consider. What you're showing here is an aspirational plan that we will actually do
something about two of those nine. Now the affordable housing component of the moratorium was
notably the one element that wasn't focused on the central area. It's actually citywide.
So all I've heard you propose is those two strategies One have to
do really just addressing potential affordable housing strategies for the central area. So
the citywide issues that the other seven strategies address are still
very important. And as we heard comments earlier, I agree with those comments. And I
think it was even not to, to forget them and let them
go into the dark and that that cannot happen we are committed to completing our
housing strategy citywide but but can this council should we really be considering
lifting the moratorium right now when in fact we are not completing the full housing
strategy that we originally envisioned we're only addressing a couple strategies for the central area
when in fact the housing strategy was for the whole city I do appreciate the
comment earlier as well that it can't just go indefinitely, right? We can't, there has
to be very measurable items, at least that's the way we're taking it before we
can, we would choose to lift the moratorium as a council. But I think we
should have a conversation about the rest of the affordable housing and I wish this
chart actually wouldn't, would be more specific. If you're gonna show two of nine,
what is our forecast for completing the rest of the housing strategy and the seven
other strategies for
affordable housing citywide. That
last part was a question for you. It wasn't a rhetoric question. So the other
seven, and I was trying to go through my head as you were talking to
try and recall what those seven were since I wasn't the lead staff on putting
together the housing strategy. So the accessory dwelling units and looking at our codes.
any barriers to condominiums.
So each one of them are going to have their own trajectory in terms of
the action plan for the administration. Things like looking at our own internal
permitting and processes related to accessory dwelling units, that's a very different
of work effort than trying to see how the city could potentially
either enact local legislation or work through our lobbyists in Olympia to see if we
can't break down some of the barriers that's keeping condominium construction from happening in the
city. To looking at different alternative housing codes like cottage
housing and micro housing and communal housing and which one of those
we might want to bring forward for Inclusion into our arsenal of
housing choices might take some additional conversations with the community as we start to talk
about the different impacts that those might have bringing them into existing neighborhoods So each
one of those will have its own kind of work item. I would assume that
all 7 and the housing strategy as a whole will be
kind of completed and put to bed next calendar year. So sometime in 2018. I
don't know if I could be more specific than that tonight. All right. Thank you
for that. I do. My one request is I'm going to support the motion that's
on the table this evening to extend it to the end of December. But before
the end of December before we get before the question is back in front of
us. one way or the other to extend or to lift the moratorium. I would
like to see a more thorough analysis of each of those other
strategies and not resolving them, what potential
impact they would have on lifting the moratorium, not having those
strategies in place, very important goal that we do better at achieving our affordable housing
goals. what would be the, you just mentioned a couple of them that
potentially would allow or maybe
even encourage somehow something like mini housing or other options like that. If someone comes
in and does a development and we don't have that tool in place, we're missing
an opportunity, we're not gonna get that opportunity again. So I'd like to better understand
before we answer the question again or ask the question again, when we think we're
gonna get this done and also what we think the impact of not having it
done and lifting the moratorium. Thank you.
Bill? Yes, I'd like to thank the staff for all the work
they've been doing in this last 11 months, working hard, getting, back to us, council's
now working, are going through them, we can actually see a deadline, a goal line
ahead of us. And so I definitely want to keep working until we get everything
completed we plan. And that's to me the only logical way to complete what you
set out to do. So I will be supporting this motion. The one thing I
comment, and it'll come up later as well, is one of the items I brought
down from consent with the Old Town sub-area plan is my concern is we did
really focus on central Issaquah, but it really applies to all of Issaquah in
many ways. And when that happens, when that moratorium does lift, and
I would expect some of what a floodgate to open, that we are well
prepared to protect all of Issaquah, and not so much just central Issaquah, as Council
Member Winterstein mentioned, that affordable housing, all those things, they do cross, into the
rest of the area, particularly the housing side and architectural design in Old Town and
those kinds of things that are very important. So we'll have more discussion on that
in another item, but I wanna say we'll support this right forward now. Mariah.
We'll also be supporting this motion. I think it's critically important. It's a critical time
in our city and we are, in the middle of working
through this work plan, so very important. We talked during public
comment, there were a couple of comments that focused on let's make sure that we
follow up and how do we measure success and what is that analysis and when
I look back, when the central Issaquah plan was developed and then
coming forward, this really is one of those points in time where a
pause is happening and we are sitting down and taking a look at what has
been successful and what needs to change. So this is, to me, critically important to
go forward with the moratorium.
Any other questions or comments? Seeing none then, all those in favor of
adopting ordinance number 2800 as previously stated signify by
saying aye. Aye. Those opposed? That carries unanimously.
Moving now to our last public hearing, agenda bill 7390,
financial management policy. Jennifer Olson, our Director of Finance, for a
brief staff presentation.
Thank you, Mayor Butler, City Council members. Tonight is time for public testimony on the
proposed financial management policy updates. Since June,
the council's been working in a variety of different sessions to discuss the proposed updates
that the administration has proposed. Tonight is that public hearing. After tonight, there is another
council committee work session that has been scheduled for August 14th, and then there is
the continued public hearing and consideration of adopting the policy updates.
The financial management policy is essentially the fiscal and operational guide for the
administration to carry out the city council's intents with regards to defining courses of
action as well as establishing parameters and targets. The current policy is
certainly adequate, but it is time for some best practices updates of the policy and
in order to establish a comprehensive policy, meaning there are a number of small miscellaneous
fiscal type policies that are looking to be updated and all combined
into a kind of a one-stop shop for understanding our financial management guidelines.
The overall policy goals for the new financial management policy are to set forth
financial principles, addressing risk, maintaining our capacity for
defined levels of service, certainly internal controls, and of course financial transparency to the public.
The proposed policy has been posted online for review. There has
also been a memo that I provided at the last Council work session to guide
the Council with regards to what are the certainly required benchmarks and
targets that the administration wants to be addressed in new policy, as well as
some principles and overall guidelines in specific sections
looking for having the council weigh in on and provide that oversight. So financial policies,
certainly we want to have flexibility in policy, but also controls, and that is,
in other words, internal controls to help guide the administration on how we set budgets
or how we essentially do purchasing, for example. There's certainly an expanded reserve guidelines
section in the new proposed policy, and this will, the council's been working on addressing
what that level of reserves or that target is for reserves in the general fund.
Some refer to that as fund balance. Oftentimes they are two separate essentially items,
but certainly ensuring that we have adequate reserves for unforeseen expenditures. There is
Essentially, like I mentioned, a comprehensive policy versus outdated policies or separate expenditures.
There's a proposed simplified purchasing authority that is for council consideration
in the budget section. One of the major changes is for the operating budget to
transition to a biennial cycle, meaning a two-year budget. The capital budget cycle
has been transitioned to that time frame, and so looking to do that and establishing
some basis for budgetary controls. Cost allocation plan is another new section
in the financial policy, very important. This is a requirement from the state auditor's office,
and so we want to make sure that we have this set in policy, and
then there will be some subsequent planning efforts for cost allocation. The overall policy then
has new sections that basically kind of enhance or update investments,
long-term financial planning, and of course those internal controls. So with that, that's a brief
overview of what the proposed policy is intended to do. That concludes my
presentation. I'll be happy to answer questions after the public testimony. Thank you, Jennifer.
Has anyone, oh. Open, are there any questions
at this time for Jennifer? She kindly offered to answer those after the public
hearing. So, has it, we'll open the public hearing at 9.14
and I'll ask, has anyone signed up to speak? No one has signed up to
speak. Is there anyone who has not signed up to speak, desiring to speak this
evening? Anyone? Third and final call, seeing none
then. Are there questions? Yes, Paul.
Thank you, Jen. A couple questions on the material that if you can't answer them
this evening, that's fine. If we can get the information prior to the next time,
we'll take this up. I know there's no motion yet on the table, but I
know we're gonna take it up in the future. In section 5.3, you just mentioned
also the desire to move to a biennium to do two-year budgeting. And in that
section 5.3, it does say that to encourage synchronization between the budget
document and the financial reporting facility, you will establish the budget based on the accrual
basis of accounting. I think we should get some description of that,
specifically how it compares to the type of the cash-based budgeting that we
have been doing historically. So that's one question for future reference.
Then in the very next paragraph, Section 5.4, it talks about a structural imbalance, but
it doesn't describe what is meant by that structural imbalance. I think we can make
some assumptions, but I think it would be really good to just have a conversation
or at least describe what you're referring to when you say structural imbalance.
And then later on down in section seven under debt management,
you have a number of bullets in there. The last one says utilize interfund loans
from one fund to another as a first source of debt financing. Now that's followed
by a section that talks about debt practices, but I'd like to know a little
bit more what type of limitations there are on
inter-fund loans. I'm pretty sure not any fund can loan to any
fund, but I'd like to understand and I think for completeness, have more information about
that when we consider it again. There is a, in section 9.2,
it talks about the ad hoc long-term finance committee. And in the first
subparagraph under the charter, it specifically says the function of the committee is such that
the requirements of the OPMA do not apply. And I'd like to understand why
that is the case, why we should explain why OPMA doesn't apply
to that committee. And further in that same
section, in this committee, actually one of the things we haven't done is described any
structure. So like there's three council members appointed to it, but there's no chair
and there's really, there's no formal reporting. And I wonder, it does talk
about there in section 924 about it may provide reports and recommendations,
but we haven't really addressed, you know, who owns that. And I historically, the way
we've done a little bit so far, and I think staff has done that reporting,
But having sat through a couple of meetings, I think we should take that up
in terms of the operations of that committee. Those are my questions and
comments. Thank you, Jen. Are there other questions at
this time? Seeing none then. Stacey. I would move
to continue the public hearing to the September 5th, 2017 council meeting. Second. Moved and
seconded. Any additional discussion or comments? Seeing none
then, all those in favor of continuing the public hearing to the September
5th, 2017 Council meeting signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed, that
carries unanimously. We're going to take a 12
minute break. Please be back in your seats at 9.30.
We are back on air. Now moving
to regular business, agenda bill 7440, transportation advisory
board, brief staff presentation from
Deputy City Administrator Emily Moon.
So before you tonight, we have the Transportation Advisory Board agenda bill
and ordinance. I'm just gonna give a quick background, particularly for audience.
Most of you know the history of this. The idea for a Transportation Advisory
Board surfaced most recently during the Traffic Task Force work, which
happened during December 2015 to April 2016. The
council leadership, soon after the traffic task force wrapped up its work,
asked that staff explore the possibility of forming a transportation advisory
board as the task force had recommended a certain scope of an advisory board and
council leadership wanted to contemplate that recommendation but also think about broadening the
scope of the proposed board. So that led to a September 2016
CIC discussion and eventually led to an AB that made it a formal
recommendation to explore possibility of forming the board. The council infrastructure
discussed that through the spring and up until June, July
and then recommended an ordinance that would create the board and that is before
you tonight. So we sought input on the design of that advisory board via a
survey that went to the Public Planning Commission, Development Commission,
Economic Vitality Commission's Transportation Committee and to City Council and then we also got
public input via public comments at a variety of public meetings. And all that input
was provided to council infrastructure and the full council via a CIC meeting in December.
We also reviewed other municipalities' boards, including Bellevue and Kirkland locally.
So tonight I'm gonna just quickly go through some of the major components
of what this board would do and consist of. And then
I'd be happy to answer any questions that you have. As proposed, the board would
be a mixture of residents and
employees of local businesses and also have some
subject area experts with a really varied range of transportation expertise.
There was a little bit of debate about the split numbers. We had lots of
conversations about residency requirements and not. And this is where we landed is sort of
a blend of all those things so that we could benefit from having really local
information, but also because we envision the Transportation Advisory Board working on some very
technical issues, having some in committee or onboard resources to help
facilitate those conversations. The other thing that I would
point out is the purview of the group. I'm gonna scroll down to that.
So in this section here, Transportation Advisory Board shall be concerned with matters of transportation
policy and planning. It's not meant to review actual applications for
land use. And that came from both the input that we received, there was a
strong to make sure that this board helped to provide
some input on policies of the city, but also more long-term planning
efforts or bigger area plans for transportation. So
that would include corridor studies and things of that nature.
We also envision in this ordinance that we would create an annual work plan
for the transportation advisory board initially and then they would
annually craft their own work plan in consultation with council members and
with mayor and with city staff and so you could suggest work items
for them and then that work plan would be reviewed and approved by the city
council or the infrastructure committee annually. Emily? Yes.
We've got a question. Sure. Ask a question. So creating the annual work plan, it
says that the representatives of the TAB, I guess
we're gonna be calling this the TAB if we adopt this, will meet at least
annually with the city council or infrastructure committee to discuss the annual work plan prior
to it being finalized by that board. Mm-hm. Can you tell me why it would
be city council or infrastructure committee? give you the flexibility to decide where you want
to situate that.
Okay. And I think some open questions
remain in terms of the timing of of setting up the board, recruiting for the
board, and then providing the resources to ensure its success. And I
spoke about that a little bit in the agenda bill. City administration has recommended from
the beginning that a staff liaison would be needed for this
group, not only to help support the board and manage the board's activities, but also
to do the work of the board. We would anticipate in the first year, for
example, one of the primary projects that the board would work on is the mobility
master plan. That would require a significant amount of project management. And
A lot of the topics, policy areas, corridor studies that you all have had interest
in, demands, max resources. We have either
provided those resources by coupling together hours from various staff members and
looking to consultants to fill in gaps or wholly giving those projects to consultants. So
this would also allow us to keep some of that work in house. And then
I recommended also an increment of administrative assistant support
to help manage the board as well. Our recommendation was
to have those staff resources approved and in place prior to
recruiting and selecting and seating members of the board so that the structures would be
in place. We also recommended that we establish a work plan for the board before
they begin so that they know what they're charged with and are ready to get
to work right away. So with that, happy to answer any questions that you have
about the ordinance. So this
is coming back from the infrastructure committee, Bill? Yes, so I'll start,
I'll just make a motion then I'll give you some background on that. I think
that would be a great start. So I move to adopt ordinance number. 2801.
Establishing a transportation advisory board by adding chapter 2.92 to the Isquad Municipal Code. Second.
Moved and seconded, Bill? So give a little more of the discussion that happened at
infrastructure. And I would say this was some good work and I thank Emily
for really getting, capturing a lot of our stuff that we were kind of talking
around in circles quite a bit and getting it down into something concrete. And a
lot of the discussion was what did we want them to do and what did
we want them not to do and where that charge would be. I think we
got to a good spot. and it's very clear as I showed that section of
2.92.050 on duties and responsibilities lays out its most critical piece
on what they shall not do and what they should do and annual work plan
and so forth. So looking at that as most critical piece, I would say that
after discussion in this work, the committee was unanimous in going forward with approving the
board, sending it to council for approval. There was some things we weren't quite unanimous
in and I'll just give them to you now so you have them in the
background even though they're not voting for them tonight. Because tonight we're just talking about
setting up the board, but what requires us to set up the board, the city
is saying we need funding and personnel to make this happen. And
that's a total of 1.2 FTE and the timing of that. I think Emily just
mentioned that we want to have those folks, if that's what we need, and there's
more discussion on that, we did not get into the details of that. That was
the numbers just proposed by the administration, but that we didn't get into the debate
of what we needed or didn't need. But we did agree that
whatever we need needs to be in place before the board shows up. But timing,
I think, was the biggest issue, and all that, other committee members can weigh in
as well, but the timing of when we make this happen kind of assumed, I
kind of assumed as chair and I think the administration did too, that January we
start the recruitment process for new boards and so forth and that this would roll
into the budget process and we would look at it as a whole on what
we needed to add in staffing wise through the budget process and then recruit what
would happen in the beginning of next year. That was not the feeling all the
way around. And that was just one. And other people thought we needed to start
sooner and go right away with, we're gonna talk here soon about some
FTE positions coming up that are coming through in 17. And some people thought we
should add them into that group. So that would start this off sooner rather than
later in 2018. So that's something to have in the
back of your head. So I say we're not voting on that tonight, but that
is gonna be the next question of how to fund this and timing of when
we start this with the support that needs to go with it. We have some
more work to do yet. So I think that covers it for me.
Thank you, Bill. Questions or discussion? Stacy?
I have a concern about that language that I referenced
about having the board meet at least annually with the city council or the infrastructure
committee. And I appreciate the note on flexibility. My concern about flexibility
is that this, if transportation issues have been the number one
issue in our community for years I would think that that
annual meeting should be a meeting between the full council all of its members and
not just a three-person committee and so
I would pose an amendment to remove that language
remove or its council infrastructure committee from the
from the code language. Second. Okay. It's moved and seconded and we're talking
specifically about where in the ordinance?
It's section 2.92.050 number one.
moved and seconded and Stacy you've already spoken to that.
Ola? Seems like a reasonable idea. Clearly transportation is one of the most important
issues in front of the city. So while I have great faith in the infrastructure
committee, I think this rises to the level of wanting to see. Otherwise we'll just
hear about it in committee and then we'll hear about it in full council and
they'll just have to give it twice so why not just give it once at
full council. no further question oh
paul i just comment quickly that the way it was written i i did i
didn't agree with the flexibility it says at least once it says the full council
or or the or the committee and it just simply gives flexibility and planning i
think the idea that key issues wouldn't rise up to
the council levels i don't think that would happen i think it would get to
the council level but So I was comfortable with that language, but I'm going to
support the amendment. It's fine. I think we can make it work this way.
Mayor Loeb. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yeah, I also support the revised language that
Council President Goodman proposed. And I also had one question for you, Mr. Mayor, and
that is that I was the person who spoke to when we talked about this
in infrastructure and it's more of a procedural question. I'd like to actually make a
motion at some point tonight to direct the administration to include the 1.2 positions in
the discussion at services and safety. And I'm not sure if that's an amendment to
the motion here or is that something that happens outside of this agenda bill?
That sounds total. I just want to point out services meeting is tomorrow. It is.
So that could be direction to...
Okay, the amendment. All those in favor of the amendment signify by saying aye. Aye.
Those opposed, that carries unanimously. Now back to the
motion as amended, discussion.
Seeing none then, all those in favor of adopting? Oops.
I just wanted to thank, I mean this has been before infrastructure, I
think since December maybe 20, yeah,
a long time, December 2016, since I was on it, or maybe it was the
year before. Anyway, so it's, I'm delighted to see this come forward. Like I said
before, it's been one of the top, if not the top, and talked
about, most talked about issues in our community for 20 or 25 years. And I
think elevating this topic to a board,
I think, shows our community that we think enough of that topic that it's time
that we focus our energies on our where we've been told the issue
is and where we have agreed the issue is, and that's transportation. So I'm really
happy about this and I'm expecting some very fruitful
discussions and some very interesting recommendations. I'm really looking forward to it.
Thank you. Anyone else? Paul? Thank you. I'd like to echo Stacy's
comments and also make my own comments. I can build it as well. Thank you.
we kind of started from a blank page and it was difficult. So thank you
for shepherding the process through. And I do believe that we are, with this step,
really doing the right thing for the citizens of Issaquah. Transportation needs more resources, needs
more attention. And the idea that we can have a focus on
that. And many of those duties have mostly fallen here to the council through our
infrastructure committee. having the expertise, I'm hoping that people will get really to
respond. I'm gonna make a request to anybody who may be interested, especially you if
you have one of those key experiences that can really contribute
to this board. This is an excellent opportunity. It's a volunteer opportunity.
And please stay aware of the invite when it gets out, whatever that timing will
be. And if anybody knows somebody who may be interested or maybe has an expertise
in transportation or transportation related policy and to encourage them to
participate. I think this, I've been part of a board that was forming for the
first time and it's very critical, I think, to have some really good members
there to help us get this going correctly. And I'm confident that we can put
together a good team. Thank you. Mayor Liu.
Thank you. Mayor. Okay. Are you ready to act? All those in
favor of adopting Ordinance Number 2801 as amended, establishing a Transportation
Advisory Board by adding Chapter 2.92 to the Issaquah
Municipal Code signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed? That carries
unanimously. And the staffing will be added to the THE
SERVICES AND SAFETY. I HAVE TO MAKE THAT MOTION. NOBODY'S AGREED TO THAT. OH.
I WAS GOING TO MAKE A MOTION TO PROPOSE THAT, MR. MAYOR. IF THERE'S A
SECOND, WE CAN DISCUSS IT. IF THERE ISN'T, IT WON'T GET ADDED TO THEIR DISCUSSION
TOMORROW. NOT THE WAY IT WOULD WORK? IT'S DONE. IT'S
DONE. IT'S DONE. IT'S DONE. GOING TO SERVICES TOMORROW? NO. I WAS
providing direction to add it to the services agenda tomorrow.
Thank you.
Next, transit-oriented development, memorandum of understanding,
agenda bill 7452. Keith Niven, I believe he
is still the and Economic Development
Director. Keith? Thank you for not demoting me during the intermission.
All right, so. Good evening, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, City Council.
So I'm standing in this evening for Jen Davis-Hayes, who's on vacation in Cooperstown.
And so Hal Ferris from Spectrum Development is here as well, and he may have
to pitch in and help me out if you guys have any technical questions that
I cannot answer. So I want to start this evening by talking about a council
goal that was initiated by Council President Goodman
for a Central Issaquah anchor project. And so that anchor project
was given to the Economic Development Department and we worked on that with Council Members
Ramos and Batiste, who at the time were on the Economic Vitality Commission. And we
talked about all different places in the city where we could have some project that
would be significant enough that it would kind of kickstart central Issaquah and get us
the things that we were looking for. And so we had a lot of great
conversations and one of those kind of went to transit oriented development.
And transit-oriented development, and so I'm giving you this quick snippet here to get us
kind of in the mood. So transit-oriented development, also known as TOD, is the creation
of compact, walkable, pedestrian-oriented, mixed-use communities centered around high-quality
transit infrastructure. All right, so that's what we're looking for. And so as we think
about Issaquah, we have two basic pieces of transit
infrastructure that would be areas where we should look for transit-oriented development. One is the
Issaquah Highlands Park and Ride Garage and the other is the Sound Transit Park and
Ride Garage. Well, Issaquah Highlands, everything around that is covered by development agreements, so we
looked on the valley floor. And what we saw was the on
the bottom which is a maintenance building owned by CenturyLink and
it is immediately set south
east thank you of the existing sound transit garage and so two years ago
we reached out to CenturyLink and we said hey this is a really great spot
and we'd like to promote a transit oriented development would you like would you like
to move outside of the city. And they said, no thank you, we like being
in Issaquah. And as part of our economic development business retention program, we thought that
was probably a good answer. So time passed and we bought a
piece of property owned by King County and they had their
roads maintenance area down at the bottom. And so what we then started to talk
about is could we move CenturyLink, which is right here, over to this new piece
of property which would then free up a piece of property right next to the
transit center for a transit oriented development. Okay? Sounds super
easy, right? So we have a number of people. So this, to get this to
happen, a lot of things need to fall kind of in line. So the city,
we own a piece of property. We also are facilitating kind of this
partnership. CenturyLink owns a piece of property that we want, so we need to
move them over so they have to be willing to move, and part of that
is, you know, conversations about getting a new facility out of it and still being
in Issaquah, and there's a few other things that's part of what they're asking for.
Spectrum Development, they responded with King County, partnering with King County Housing Authority,
to develop a project on the site which met kind of the menu that the
city had spelled out for what our hopes were for the property. King County has
transit oriented development funds available specifically for
our geography which I'll talk about in a little bit. And then Arch,
our regional coalition for housing, part of this program is to get affordable housing.
So what's before you this evening is we're asking for the council to authorize us
to enter into two memorandums of understanding. The first one is between the city
and Spectrum and CenturyLink, and it's really focusing on the relocation site,
which is right now city-owned property. And CenturyLink is really
wanting this document executed so that they know this is real. They wanna know that
all the parties are committed to this before they really get out and get involved
in this conversation. Part of what is also necessary for that first memorandum
is for the partnership of King County Housing Authority and Spectrum to apply for
those King County Transit Oriented Development funds. They need to show
that there's a real project happening and show control, site control of
the relocation parcel. So the second memorandum is between the city and spectrum
King County Housing Authority and it's really focusing on the details of building the transit
oriented development project on the vacated CenturyLink site.
So MOU number one, as I mentioned, is between the city and Spectrum and CenturyLink.
It goes through a number of things, including objectives, city acquisition of
the county property, which we've done, Spectrum's acquisition of the replacement site, which will be
part of what happens in the next steps, and so on and so forth. Part
of You know, what I want to make sure that y'all understand is that
this is a non-binding agreement between a number of parties that are trying to achieve
something that we think is really good for the city. And part of what I
also want to identify this evening is, especially with this first memorandum, CenturyLink has been,
although they've been willing, we've been working on that relationship
for more than two years now, willing to have productive conversations with us and move
this along, we still might get some additional edits in this
first memorandum from them. And so part of, as we kind of
move towards hopefully a motion this evening the administration would like
to ask the council to give the administration the authority to include
non-substantive edits to this first memorandum, just because we might get some additional stuff from
CenturyLink. Memorandum number two is really about building
the transit oriented development parcel. Again, it's a non-binding agreement.
It talks about impact fees and the program for the
site as well as whether or not the city's willing to utilize multifamily tax
exemption to help increase the number of affordable housing units on the property.
And this is the timeline. So you can see where we are tonight. So tonight,
August 7th, we're looking for approval of the MOUs. There's still a lot of things
that need to happen, and I want to kind of point to a couple things
that are super important. One is, as I mentioned earlier, The application
for the King County TOD money is due in September. And so
getting this approved this evening is one step towards allowing that application to hopefully
be successful. And we're asking for all $10 million that are available to
our geography and we're hopefully gonna be successful with that. The next piece
is, there's been some conversations about having some
conversations about this project and that's really right now planned for quarter one and quarter
two of next year. And that's well in advance of any permitting or any finalizing
of what this project will look like as you can see from the timeline. But
ultimately, you know, if we're, we're successful, and there's a ton of ways that this
may not actually happen, and I want to be clear with you all that there's
just a lot of bouncing balls still in play. But at the end of the
day, you know, our hope is that we have a transit-oriented development
project by 2021 next to the existing Park and Rye garage on the valley floor,
and I think it would be a great addition to central Issaquah.
Stacey? I would move to authorize the mayor to enter into and execute two
memorandums of understanding for the transit-oriented development project, one between the city spectrum
development solutions and CenturyLink, and one between the city spectrum development solutions and the
King County Housing Authority in substantially similar form. Second. Moved and
seconded discussion or questions. Stacey?
So I just think this is a very exciting prospect. From what we've heard so
far, it just sounds innovative
in so many different ways. A great addition to the central
area. And I realize there are, like you said, a lot of balls still in
the air. But I think it's still great just prospect of as exciting.
So separately, I'm not sure where the anchor project
came up. So not to take anything away from this because this,
from what I've heard so far, it sounds like a fantastic project. I personally didn't
envision an anchor project being No, this is not. This, my
intent for bringing that up was more that it led us to this conversation. The
anchor project is different and we're still working on that. I don't think I misheard
what you said. But anyway, so, but I just, thank you for clarifying. I'm going
to support this because I'm really excited about it. Other questions or discussion? Paul?
language of a couple of these MOUs, there's some common language in there. There's just
a couple of things for us tonight I would want to just get out and
make sure people understood. And a couple of them actually I brought up when I
was in committee too. So I noticed there was no changes in there. But again,
it's kind of wordsmithing and it is in the, this is the one between, I'm
looking at between the City and Kachaw, King County Housing Authority.
And in paragraph C, it does mention including destination businesses. So that's a business where
people travel from afar. They want to come here for whatever service is related. I
thought that was important to understand. In paragraph E, it
says the project sponsored by Spectrum and King County Housing Authority will be comprised of
a mix of affordable and workforce market rate housing. And
you're smiling because you might remember me asking about this. What is workforce market rate
housing? We tend to, and I think the intent is there will be a mix
of below market rate and market rate housing. And I don't think we're trying to
invent some new phrase in there, but that is the intent of both market rate
and below market rate housing. And Keith's nodding his head at me. It also then
in paragraph H, it does mention multifamily tax exemption. And I
believe our city's intent at this point is to, if we're gonna have a conversation
at the council level about this, this is not establishing that at all. It's saying
it's our intent. Again, Keith is shaking his head. Is that coming forward is actually
just this parcel being very limited to where we consider an MFT application. That's my
understanding, right? That's a different track than here, but it's mentioned in here,
but I think this is where the direction the administration is going with us at
this time is to propose an MFTE program just for this area. Am I getting
this correct? Okay. And then there's mention of certain waiving of certain
impact fees, and those are related only to the below market rate component of this
development. So it's not for the entire development, just the below market rate.
And
actually that, and so that is actually mentioned. The MFT one is mentioned there, impact
fees are mentioned. And
I'm looking at my notes on this. I think those are my comments, thank you.
Mary Lou. We don't have any
questions or comments on the language of the MOUs, but just looking up at your
process timeline, Keith, I think the information you presented at committee and here tonight
was great. It was pretty clear about what we were doing and where we were
in the process. We did talk in committee also though that to really, project goes
forward and the grants are awarded and all the rest of it, but to really
understand the impact of this project compared to other ones in town, we had talked
in committee about a table that would come forward at some point that would allow
the citizens and any interested party to look at this project by the numbers and
see what Issaquah is contributing with tax exemptions and fee waivers per unit of
affordable housing, also at what levels they would be and how that compares to
projects that we've done in the past and projects we've received through development agreements. Because
I think at some point in time, we're going to have to understand how to
evaluate this project. Yeah, and we can definitely do that. Yeah, so not now, but
obviously later on when you get down further into your timeline. Okay. Thank you. Good
job. Bill? Yeah,
I would echo that. This is the start of the MOU, but there's a lot
of details to work out and understand. But it's a great thing to be looking
at a fair amount of affordable housing, which we definitely need of here. So I
will support this, but I do wanna definitely look at, as we get more into
the details of how that all works out. And when you start waiving impact fees,
and then you have to support them other ways, and as always, we support housing
as a city, to understand those true costs is important
for later on. Thank you. Paula? I'm sorry, did I catch, did you explain
how with these TOD funds, where this is the program where
these monies are available right now? Did you explain that yet? So they're available from
King County? Right, but this isn't this the, this is the monies from the
stadium taxes that they're allowing municipalities or transit-oriented development to occur earlier,
right? Yes, and there was a specific allotment of $10 million to the Issaquah, North
Bend, Snoqualmie area. Yeah, so I wanna mention that part of why I'm excited about
this is, you know, I was on SCA when this was first going through,
And it's just very exciting because if we can do this, as you say, there
are lots of balls in the air. several times. This is exactly what they were
trying to do, right? This is this is future revenue from the stadium tax that
the county understood that by the time that those revenues, I mean, those revenues are
known, right? They know it's going to be in, but they knew that by the
time that they could access those revenues, that a lot of this great real estate
around the King County was going to be gone. And so they said, OK, well,
you can start. You can access. I think it's half of it right now. And
so this is this This is exactly what they were trying to do with it.
So I'm really hoping we can make this happen. There were a lot of pieces
that have already gone into potentially making something like this happen before you even do
all the work that you're gonna have to do. I'd like to add something to
that. Thank you for that reminder, Toll. It actually took action in Olympia to make
that possible, to allow the county to borrow against these future earnings specifically for this.
So it even goes beyond just King County. It definitely was the legislature and the
governor in Olympia who made that program possible. But there were many people locally that
were working behind it, making the ask. It's a good reminder. Thank you. Mariah.
The prospect of the transit-oriented development is very exciting.
And as Keith mentioned, it's something that the Economic Vitality Group worked on for
years. And there's been so much talk about this. And I know that there's a
lot of work to do in regard to the partnerships and the timeline. But this
is something that I will be supporting. Hello?
I wanna make sure everybody had a chance to comment. Just one last comment. So
the vision for this being, again, a mix of market and below market rate housing,
we all know that the school district is looking to build up to four new
schools in the area, and it's exactly the provisioning of some of this type housing
that's gonna make it possible for future employees, people maybe starting a
career or already in a career of education. in our own school district, well, this
will provide housing that will be accessible to many of those future teachers of our
children. So I think this, I'm glad to see that we're investing in this way,
not just for a vision around Central Issaquah, but it's also, it's gonna contribute also
to just, you know, into our community and for the education, for careers and for
our children. Thank you.
It looks like you're, to act all this in favor of authorizing the mayor to
enter into and execute two memorandum of understanding for the transit-oriented
development project, one between City Spectrum Development Solutions and
CenturyLink and one between the City Spectrum Development Solutions and the King County
Housing Authority. Signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed, that carries unanimously.
Moving now to agenda bill 7460,
interlocal agreement with the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services
for respite care reimbursement. Jeff Watley, our director
of parks and recreation for the staff report. Thank you. Good evening,
Councilor. Thanks for hanging in there. You bet you. For what I hope to be
a relatively small item, but certainly a very important one. This item
before you relates to a longstanding agreement we have with Washington State Department of Social
and Health Services relating to a respite care reimbursement program.
This is for and supports clients within our specialized recreation
program that we offer here with the city. How it supports that
program is it allows qualified clients to be eligible to
get reimbursement for program fees in our programs. Again, this is
not a large program, but I would say it's extremely significant. We currently have 21
participants of our programs that are eligible for this, and that is about the average
every year, roughly anywhere from 20 to 24 program participants. For years, this is
a program that was administered through a contract for services. These three-year agreements would come
up and they were administrative, so they were worked through without
council authorization. Our recreation staff that has worked with DSHS on this agreement
found out last month that this is now, they desire this format to be an
interlocal agreement, thus the need for council authorization tonight.
Given the reincurring nature of this program and also understanding that our fall
recreation programs are right around the corner and begin in September, I ask that you
consider taking action tonight. But I know that is not what is typical, but certainly
appreciate your consideration on that. So thank you.
Mr. Mayor, I'd like to move to authorize the mayor to enter into and execute
the interlocal agreement for community settings respite care with the Washington State Department of Social
and Health Services. Second. Moved and seconded. Discussion or questions?
Eileen? I'm going to be strongly supporting this this evening. If you've ever been in
a situation in which you are the person that is
IT'S WONDERFUL TO BE ABLE TO HAVE A RESPITE
JUST AN AFTERNOON OFF BEFORE YOU COME BACK AND FULFILL THOSE LIFE PROBLEMS AND
ISSUES. SO I'LL BE STRONGLY SUPPORTING THIS. OTHER QUESTIONS OR DISCUSSION?
SEEING NONE THEN, ALL THOSE IN FAVOR OF AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO ENTER INTO AND
EXECUTE THE INTERLOCAL AGREEMENT FOR COMMITTEE OF THEIR with the Washington State
Department of Social and Health Services. Signify by saying aye. Aye. Those
opposed? Carries unanimously. Moving now to
agenda bill 7326, Old Town Sub Area
Plan update. This was moved down at
the request of Bill Ramos, and you're still here. I'm
still here. Yes, and I have
no presentation for this evening on this particular agenda bill. So I don't know
if Councilmember Ramos wants to kind of introduce his concerns or comments or thoughts. I'll
be happy to do that. Awesome. So I asked this to come down for a
couple reasons and it stems from some of our earlier conversation. When I was reading
through this, I may have no problem with the concept of working on this. What
caught my eye at the end was, in the actual motion was, it would be
returning to full council on number four March 19th, 2018. And I went,
whoa, that's a long time away. My reaction first, and I said, wait a minute,
we're working on this, we have the moratorium in place right now, and the moratorium,
as we just passed today, should come off by the end of the year, and
at which point we'll have nothing in place to protect Old Town from what's
been happening. And I guess, I'll admit, everybody knows I live in Old Town. But
I've not been happy with what I've been seeing of the new development in Old
Town of buildings with modern architecture, three-story buildings,
five unit condos and things that to my mind don't fit in the nature or
the character of Old Town. And if we lift the moratorium and we
don't pass this until March and then we have to get code in place, which
takes some time after this as well, I'm just afraid of we may lose a
fair amount of ground in Old Town. So, and I don't have a perfect answer,
this is just why I brought it down to talk about it. So we'd like
to see what we could do to get the agreement of this to happen as
soon as possible, which is agreement on the plan, and then also how long it
would take to get code in place after that so that we don't have a
gap that we could have, you know, I mean, Old Town is ripe for
redevelopment of some buildings there. I mean, the place is gonna happen most likely because
it's called Old Town because there's older buildings there, right? So how do we protect
from not having new code in place when we lift the mortar. That's my concern.
So I like to see what we can do, talking with you and the mayor
and so forth, to move this up and then how quickly we can put it
in place to get the code in place that needs to follow this, to have
that protection so we don't have a gap in what we want to have happen
in Old Town. All of a sudden, development services will be kind of feeling in
the corner of approving things that they know the council wouldn't probably want, they'd have
no code to back them up to be able to work with that. I don't
want that situation to occur. So that's my concern. So see what others go.
Thank you. This is coming back from land and shore.
And I think you may have
some amendments or an amendment to the motion.
So before I make a motion, could you, we didn't get a presentation, but I
think originally the schedule for Old Town sub area plan, so there's two pieces to
it. One that Bill mentioned, one is the Old Town sub area plan,
which is a sub plan of the comp plan. So there's an update to that
plan and the original schedule said, I think council adoption targeted at the
end of the year. and now coming back
to council with potentially not coming back until March 2018,
that's separate from the code. It's my understanding that if the plan
is not adopted until March, the code implementation,
that's not the schedule for that, the plan for code adoption, is still
year 2018, that hasn't changed. Right, so
right now, even though the plan is taking longer to kind of get over the
goal line, the idea initially was that we wouldn't start
amendments to the code until 2018 just because of the existing kind of work plan
that's in development services right now. So the,
The potential code that would come out of the update of the plan hasn't necessarily
slipped, but I see the concern of Council Member Ramos.
What we don't know now is what's gonna be in the plan yet. I think
we've had some conversations and based on a lot of the community input, concerns
over the plan reservation of existing housing stock
or keeping the number of residential units within the Old Town
neighborhoods somewhat static is definitely some of the things that we're starting to
zero in on. But I think that's the work that still needs to happen at
committee for us to get kind of that understanding of those policy directions which then
can get translated into code. We have talked about reducing building heights for
not only the neighborhoods, but also on Front Street potentially. And
as Council Member Winterstein said, is if you're gonna down zone everybody's property, you better
let them know. So if ultimately there is that possibility policy direction coming out
of the update of the plan, part of what we're gonna need to do is
do an adequate outreach to the community to let them know that there
might be a reduction in development ability that might be a
code proposal for 2018. So there's just a timing associated with all of that which
for me, it feels like it's a half a year, that we could get those
done, by the end of quarter two of 2018, but probably
not before that. So recognizing that you may have, if the
moratorium's lifted, that you may have that time. Now what I would tell you is
I think most of what you're concerned about is not covered by the moratorium right
now anyway. Just because we're talking fairly small scale stuff and people wanting to take
advantage of what zoning currently allows.
Keith, maybe this is a little off topic, but I do agree with Council Member
Ramos that there is great concern in that neighbourhood about the pace of
change and the type of change. There currently isn't any code for residential though.
There is some guidelines that talk about design for front and sunset. So
you would have to produce that as well as part of your code and codify
it. not just the building height should go from three story to two,
but that you'd have to even write the code for the architectural standards for residential,
because that doesn't even exist right now. It does not exist now. Okay, so does
that also get done by March? Not if staff is doing it. Not if staff
is doing it. Okay, I think that's a key component of the concern is that
if that part of the code doesn't exist, That is something the community was asking
for as well, residential standards. Stacey.
I'm gonna go ahead and make the motion and then I'm gonna make a suggestion.
I'd move to refer agenda bill 7326 back to council land and shore committee for
additional review and recommendation returning to the full council on or before March 19th, 2018.
Second. Moved and seconded discussion. Would you like to speak?
Yeah, I just wanted to, so it's my understanding that the reason March 2018
was, is coming forward as a recommendation is because
in the event that the plan was not, adopted or administration saw that the
plan might not be adopted by the end of the year, then it means coming
back to the council and getting it referred back to land and shore again. It
doesn't mean that anybody wants this to go to March. It just means we don't
have to come back again and ask. It's my understanding that Keith feels as though
this could by the end of the year. I don't know that we're gonna, in
fact, I'm pretty sure we're not gonna solve the problem about the code gaps tonight.
But as the plan progresses and it gets reviewed, I'm sure
that the administration will have a better idea of what those code amendments need to
be. And then we do have a budget that we have
to deliberate over in the fall. And if it is necessary to ask for some
funds for some outside help so that we can get that code done by second
quarter, so we cut that gap down, then that seems to me to
be an opportune time to talk about that.
But I'm gonna support the motion. I don't want
to add one more thing. Even if, sorry, even if we were to say,
let's try to get this done by the end of the year, I mean, the
plan will be reviewed and adopted when it's ready. And any kind of artificial
deadlines, just, I think we kind of learned a lesson with the other plans that
we tried to get done maybe before they were completely baked. And so the plan
is done when the plan is done.
Other questions or discussion? Seeing none then, all those
in. I was just waiting for everybody else to have a chance before I jumped
in again. So the reason I really brought this
up is for this discussion and to note that these are big concerns. And I'm
not gonna, you know, we could change the date. what I want to have is
the administration understand the critical nature of this and see how fast we can push
to get this done well. I don't want to have a, you know, not a
good job. I want it done right. But, you know, to move that along as
fast as we can and particularly the codes that are going to follow, changes are
going to follow that. Because right now there's nothing in there that just says, well
2018, which could be the end of 18, which to me is a long time
coming. So as long as I've gotten that point across, Okay with this.
Paul? Yeah, plus one to Bill's comment. Okay. Any other comments or
discussion? Seeing none, then all those in favor of referring Agenda Bill
AB 7326 back to the Council Land and Short Committee for
additional review and recommendation returning to the full council on or about March 19th.
signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed, that carries unanimously.
And that concludes our regular business items. And we'll
now move to go to the order. Mary Lou?
Sadly, I have one thing. So I did send out an email last week talking
about the Eastside Fire and Rescue New draft
policy on capital facilities maintenance fund and this is a shift that the agency is
looking at. It's in draft form now, it's coming to the board next month but
it does have cost implications for Issaquah. So I asked if you could read it
and if you have any comments on that since we'll be voting on that in
September. And the second piece to that is that I I want to know if
our council wants me to advocate for a new policy that does not exist right
now. Currently under this draft facilities plan that they
have, if you provide EFR's fire station with facilities that go above and
beyond what they normally take care of, they become one-off items that the owner of
the property maintains. My personal opinion is I think that's fair.
Because they are not experts in on building technology, so I think that's fair. However,
because this was chosen to build LEED-certified buildings, there are definitely energy savings
associated with those buildings that are not small. They are significant. And they currently reduce
EFR's operating costs. And so I did mention at the FAC, at the Finance Administration
Committee last time that I would come back to my city and ask if you
would want me to propose that they prepare a draft policy that says those facilities,
the partners get the credit back for those savings that occur. One of the
deputy chiefs provided an example in an email that looking at the totals
for career stations, they cost between $18,000 and $25,000 a year for utilities. However,
station 71 averages around six to 7,000 per year, roughly a 66% reduction in
cost to the tune of about 15,000 per year, round number. And that is one
of the reasons why we want to build LEED certified buildings. And because this policy
does not exist at all, I'd be asking them to create a new policy and
basically the City of Isocua would be the only one that would be covered by
that currently. So I'm looking for some direction on that.
I think that is the obvious way to go. And I was thinking that too,
and so I wanted to let you know, I'll be behind you on that. There's
an alternate there in that if we're paying for the additional cost of
green energy, that we should benefit from that and not have someone else benefit from
that because we put that capital money out front for that reason as well as
for all the good environmental reasons as well. So I would support working with
EFER to develop a proposal of that. And I imagine if we build something in
the future, we're gonna be pushing to do that as well so that that should
help to defray those costs over the long haul. Right. Stacey?
So I was reviewing the draft policy and I did have some
questions. So 5.2.1, it
says mechanical systems considered above industry norm. And then it just gave some examples.
So I see that as a potential point of dispute later
about what industry norm is and so I think it needs to be either defined
it, defined or it needs to have not just examples but a specific, maybe a
specific list. Can I do them one at a time? Questions? Because actually
there's some information that's not in there right now that would help. Okay, sure. So
our finance director, Jen Olson, has also been reviewing the information and has been working
with Eastside Fire and Rescue's administration on some tables that will also go with this
that define things like industry norms in terms of what the pieces of equipment would
be and also replacement cycles. The formatting wasn't quite right. She had asked for a
few extra columns. And so they will be done with the policy and it does
add a lot of clarity to that section. And then 5.2.3,
gym exercise areas of the building shall not be located in areas where personnel can
be exposed to vehicle exhaust. I think that stations now have exercise areas
inside the garages, which is a little strange. So my question
is, modifications or construction of the facility to accommodate this shall be the responsibility of
the partner. So does that mean that the stations, so my question would be whether
the stations that is currently the configuration are those is that are they
grandfathered in does this only apply to new stations so that came the that's specifically
in there my recollection is for the city of sammamish has identified with the site
fire and rescue that a couple of their facilities do not necessarily meet what he
would call today current standards and that they are going to work out a solution
a resolution to that it wasn't in reference to other facilities it was to but
I can get you more information on that if you want. Okay, so I think
the concern would be that policy is adopted and all of a sudden we have
out of compliance stations and then we have partners with some big bills. Yeah, some
big bills to change that or to fix it. And then 5.2.6
says each year during the budget process the administration will recommend projects to be funded
in the succeeding year's budget. After the budget is approved, the administration will notify the
owner of the real property of the projects funded over $50,000 and will give
the partner 30 days to identify those projects that the owner would like to manage
and an estimated date that the work will be performed. Unless EFER is notified otherwise,
if the project is not started by the owner by the projected date, EFER will
begin work on the project within 30 days. So, the reason I read that is
because it says we'll recommend projects. It sounds like EFR
dictates which projects are done and then the partners get to decide whether they're gonna
manage it or whether EFR manages it. And so that one makes me
a little uncomfortable. And so I don't know anymore. I'm not sitting in other discussions.
I guess I would have faith in my EFR reps. I just wanted to provide
feedback of me at this point being a little bit uncomfortable with that. And then
comment on your second question. Really support that.
You can have it. Thanks. I know it's Paul and then Tola.
Thank you. Stacey, good comments. You picked out the first two paragraphs that you
mentioned. I was gonna, when I read them, I overall thought when I read
this document, I didn't see like an accounting
of what we really think the current status is. I mean, how severe is this
problem? I don't know. And I began to wonder too, at some point, and
Stacey just said it as well, or made a reference to it, should there be
some grandfathering that is done? I don't know, that would be,
I'd like to have that conversation. I'd like to know that that conversation, because I
don't know the magnitude of the issue. I do believe you can look through the
doors over here in this station and see a stair machine in the garage. So
we could be impacted by that other one as well. But those are my first,
those are my reactions, Mary Lou, was, you know, what is the magnitude of these
issues and therefore for us, if there's some estimate of that, and is
there, and it seems reasonable, They've been around for a while, and
should there be some grandfathering? I don't know if you had that conversation or not.
I like recouping the benefits from LEED, not necessarily because
I think that, not for the dollar values themselves, but for the fact that it
would encourage other members of EFR to potentially build LEED-certified buildings in the future, and
that's the part that would be most exciting for me. I just wanted to say
I think overall that this looks like a really great policy to go forward with
and I would just echo what some of my fellow council members have talked about
in terms of encouraging lead construction and also the grandfathering or just any
kind of impact that may happen as a result of when the policy is implemented
to really just think that through. I just
wanted to check one more thing, and that is that this policy exists, but the
one energy savings one does not. And to me, they sort of need to come
into effect at the same time. Does that make sense? Because
otherwise we could have bills and no recoup, not recoup.
Is that what you're referring to, recoup? Would that be problematic? What is it?
how do we calculate what should be recouped? I mean, what is their savings because
of our building? They've calculated that. They do have that, and so...
About 15,000 a year. It's more the mechanism for them of how they would
rebate. We have no rebates in the interlocal agreement right now. We do have an
annual estimation of our partner contribution. it may be that the
policy can be written such that the rebate comes at the end of the year
and reduces the partner contribution. That was the mechanism they hadn't figured out yet.
It strikes me as just a little bit odd. So they,
they probably have estimates of the cost to operate a building, have a budget for
that. Now we're saying, you know, you need to increase that budget some of it
back to us or rebate us. Am I understanding that correctly? At the
same time, I think that the cost, the partners of maintaining their property is
increasing. So the link is the
outside the industry norm buildings, partner maintains. So for example,
we had a solar panel. solar panel break and EFRA paid for it,
that won't be happening again. That was the cost that EFRA shared amongst five partners
and the only facility with solar panels is ours. I
think what's being proposed is an idea that you can't have it both ways.
You can't have us maintain it, but you keep the energy savings. Yeah.
so they may have also budgeted for some type of maintenance. And if they want
to move these out of scope because it's beyond what's needed, okay, that could
be the other side of the ledger, okay? Mary Lou, did you get
what you need? I do, thanks. Great, anything else for good of the order? Bill.
I have one, I just want to report on a committee report that you're not
aware of, I guess. So some of you may know or not, but last year
I started an informal group of, we named ourselves the Multicultural
Elected Local Officials. And it is a group of diverse and minority-based
folks that are elected throughout the SCA area. And we get together quarterly and work
on various issues that relate to our cities and to our various ethnic groups as
well. and just wanna make sure you're aware of that, because we're meeting this Friday,
and so I just came up and then I was thinking of letting you know
that. We work on things that we can share across jurisdictions that are
interesting of that and so forth. So it's just kind of going on and wanna
make sure you're aware that I'm doing that. I'm out. Great, that's, do you
all publish minutes? Yes, but not formally.
Okay. Amongst our selves. But we're happy to give a better update on some of
the things we are working on. One of our members was at the SCA meeting
a couple months back and did a presentation on cops and cards, one of the
projects we're working at. That came from our group. Okay, great. And so we're supporting
some of the folks who have run for higher office and different offices and so
forth, and we're just a supportive group in that way, as well as in our
own communities. Thank you. Thank you. Anything else for good of the order? Seeing nothing
then, we'll move into executive session. for the purpose of
discussing potential litigation per RCW 42.30.110
per N1 per N I and property acquisition per RCW 42.30.110
per N1 per N B. These items are to take approximately 30
minutes. No action is anticipated to follow an open session.
We're back in regular session. The executive session that we were in was
extended 20 extra minutes for a total of 50 minutes. Is there anything else to
come before the council this evening? Seeing none, we are adjourned.