Good evening. I'd like to welcome everyone to the June 4th regular
city council meeting and call it to order. First on our agenda
this evening is the Pledge of Allegiance, and I'd ask 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, by which it stands, one nation, indivisible, and just.
Thank you. We have a very full house this evening. Before we go
to audience comments, I'd like to announce that one of our agenda items,
item D, the motion that was postponed from the May 21st meeting will
be moved as the first item under regular business this evening. So that
is the one agenda change that I have. Second note before we start is
that due to the extremely high interest in tonight's meeting, we have arranged for overflow
seating across the street at the Issaquah Senior Center at 75 Northeast Creek Way. The
live feed of the meeting will be showing there. You can also view the meeting
live on Channel 21 or online at isqwa.gov/ictv. So if there are folks in the
audience tonight who want to observe and listen to the meeting live, you can do
that nearby if you aren't getting a chair in our kind of tiny gallery tonight,
but you're more than welcome to stay here as well.
So for this evening for audience comments. Audience members can address the council during this
time. Guidelines for those comments are included on your meeting agenda. Those who signed up
on the sign up list will be called up first and if you did not
sign up I will ask for others to speak before closing this portion of the
meeting. When you're recognized please use the lectern over here and speak into the microphone.
State your name, address and relationship to the city. Please limit your comments this evening
to three minutes and if you have anything in written form that you'd like to
submit please bring it up to our city clerk. There are multiple regular business items
tonight of interest to the community and if you are wishing to address the council
on any or all of these items please do so in your allotted time.
There's also a public hearing this evening the six-year transportation improvement program and if you'd
like to make comments on that topic and that topic only you will have an
opportunity to do so later in the meeting it will be our first uh first
or second item after uh taking audience comments. I wanted to thank you very much
for taking your time to come and speak with council this evening and just checking
to see who we have signed up.
I'm going to announce the next three people who've signed up and if you can
please queue up behind the lectern there so we can be efficient with our time.
So the first three speakers will be Ken Conigsmark, Mary Hammerly and Jeff Gerard.
So Ken, one more thing if I can add. I just wanted to point out
since this is an extremely unusual week for us that all of those that are
here tonight speaking with regard to AB 7524, the end of the Taos Development Agreement,
I wanted to make sure it's clear to everyone that the Council and I have
received the emails that have come in over the past few weeks regarding the zoning
of Parcel 9. a significant number of emails. And I just wanted to thank you
all for sharing your input with us and joining us here this evening again. Ken,
sorry for that. Thank you. Ken Konigsmark, 5713 285th Avenue SE in Issaquah, talking on
the TALIS Development Agreement. I was there 20 years ago at the beginning of that
development agreement. I know none of the council or elected officials were present at that
time, which is why I have more gray hair than all of you combined, I
think. But I want to remind everybody of what happened 20 years ago, the commitments
that were made, and as this development agreement is expired, as it should be, let's
not give up and give any ground on what those commitments were. The
original proposal, which I should donate to the Issaquah History Museum at this
point, called for development all the way south along SR 900, up on
the flank of Squawk Mountain next to Forest Rim, and that proposal, initial
proposal by Intercorp 20 years ago, over the course of many discussions, transferred
into this development agreement that was made. What was not known at the
time was the informal discussions done by myself on behalf of Visiglalps Trails Club and
Mountains to Sound Greenway and Joanna Buehler of Save Lake Sammamish included several commitments from
Intercorp, most of which made it into the development agreement, but not all. So I
want to remind you what those commitments were. donate 400 plus acres of land to
the city, which is the TALUS open space in exchange for a clustered urban
village of 1,800 homes and 800,000 square feet of office space. It was that
office component that enabled TALUS to donate the land. It made it economically feasible.
That office component later became what is now Timber Ridge with some available office
space still to be built out. The plan was by Intercorp, who
had done Whistler Mountain, develop a self-contained, dense mountain village type of community
that emphasized the outdoors, recreation, trails, access to nature at your doorstep, all
those good things that define the quality of life in Issaquah.
there would be no scab on development allowed from any other side of Talus. In
other words, the Talus Road system infrastructure of sewer and water was not to be
utilized by any other development on adjoining parcels. Thanks to the city, you removed the
potential annexation area further west on Cougar that had intended and wanted to do that.
Thank you for that. It's an example of where we don't want to give up
on the commitments. There were to be no other connecting roads as well down to
Newport way down to S R 900. No other connecting roads except that which was
laid out. There would be no development adjacent to S R 900 in the original
proposal. In fact, there were four parcels. Whoops. right adjacent to SR
900, right here. And we negotiated to be sure that those were removed
and the development set back. I'll hurry up. Can you summarize, Ken? Yes.
Thank you. Flip to the second page. Let's not allow the master plan
to be changed. There may be density remaining that needs to be housed somewhere,
but do not change the plat situation. Do not allow any development adjacent to
SR 900. It's not the city's responsibility to make the developer whole if they
made a bad investment. Thank you, Ken. Just and there are several
hands in support. I didn't mention that this evening but I know many of you
are coming in groups and if you have a speaker here speaking on your behalf
and you're agreeing with their talking points it would be great for you to raise
your hand so the council understands that support and also when you are addressing the
council instead of repeating comments that have already been made and recognized if you could
add new points to the discussion it would be or to the comments it would
be super helpful. Mary. MARY HAMERLY: My name is Mary Hammerly. I live at 1230
Oakwood Place, Northwest Issaquah. I'm one of the lucky people that live in one of
the developments along Newport Way that have been there for a while. So I've been
living with construction. But I'm here tonight to discuss the parcel 789 of TALIS. I,
at this point, believe that the development department seems to be unwilling to acknowledge the
instability of soil anywhere in Cougar Mountain. When Save Cougar Mountain hired an
attorney related to the Bergsma property, the attorney pointed out a huge number
of risks in regard to landslides that the development department had approved for
Bergsma. The cuts, the fills, everything. The attorney said it doesn't work. But
yet, we're sitting here and planning to further extensively develop these parcels 7,
8, and 9. When I was a child, I lived on a lake where it
had been a policy for years to dump raw sewage into the lake. So, 60s,
50s, when I was a child, and I've been around a while, when the wind
blew in our direction, the raw sewage came up onto our beach. It was slimy,
it was green, it was black, and it smelled, and it was part of life
when I was a child. When the land use laws went into place,
the people that were dumping that raw sewage, many of them had such small parcels
that there wasn't enough room for a septic system. And if there was, it might
not be the right land type to perk. Therefore, those parcels were worthless.
And those landowners were furious. But I don't think any of us today would be
sitting here and saying it's okay to put raw sewage in because otherwise those properties
would have no value. We have an area that is known as
a landslide area. There's been two landslides in the 2000 range on that
area. We don't need another OSO. What did we ask when OSO happened?
Why did Snohomish County ever approve that development? I think this council needs
to look at Parcel 7, 8, and 9, and before you even consider
any development, get a decent study of that land, and determine for
sure whether it's stable. And don't put the city in the position of
being liable, as the county was in Oso. CHRISTIE WOOD: Thank you, Mary.
And there is lots of supporting hands in the audience for Mary's comments.
Next, we have Jeff Gerard, followed by Mark Mullet, followed by Rich Hill.
Hi, my name is Jeff Gerard and I'm a resident of TALIS. I live in
the mountain air development and we're just below TALIS parcel 8. The wall is visible
from part of my house through the trees. I work at Microsoft. I'm a data
scientist by trade. I'm not an expert in, I'm not a lawyer, I'm not an
expert in geotechnical analysis, but I can read and I can read complicated stuff.
And one of the things that I read over the weekend was the findings from
the King County Superior Court in the matter of ORA Talus 90 versus City of
Issaquah and Talus 7 and 8 investments. And there is some very interesting stuff in
this report. I was hoping just to, I was just trying to get some information
about parcel 9 so that I could come here tonight and talk about parcel 9.
And I'm not going to talk about parcel 9 because I think we're going to
have a discussion later about parcel 9. So I'll leave that for that. I just
want to start with... I just want to be clear. There won't be public comment.
Oh, there won't be public comment for that? No, this is your time. So this
is the time for TALIS parcel 9? Yes, this is your time. Holy cow. Okay,
now the pressure's on. Pressure's on. Can I have a little bit of time back
for that? Please. So maybe a tiny bit of time. Just want to make sure
you know we have probably 30 or more people that want to speak and do
you have to get the council to get their regular business done too? So how
about a minute or two more since you didn't realize? Sure, okay. Thank you. Thanks
Jeff. It's very disturbing. I'm not going to go through it in detail. Actually, I
am going to go through it in detail, but I'm not going to go through
it in detail tonight because it's 25 pages long. And I have some friends that
are lawyers. I'm going to have them take a look at this thing. This is
very, this is pretty scary actually. And with regard to, I'm going to say just
one thing with regard to TALIS parcel 9, which is a quote from, at that
time, Council Member Pauly in a closed session. The details of which are made available
by this findings of fact and conclusions of law. So this is the actual order.
A lot of the heavy thinking and big lifting is done during the preliminary plat.
And that when you get to the final plat piece, what the hearing examiner is
looking at is checking the boxes to make sure that all the different conditions are
met. And I get that, but I believe one of the conditions that has changed
is that part of the body of the record that goes along with this final
plat approval is a geotechnical report. and a geotechnical peer review that occurred prior to
a landslide. Now you go back and look at the data and in 2014 when
these plots were originally approved, Terra Associates, which to me is kind of the fusion
GPS of Issaquah land planning, they're, because they're all over the place, but they use
some bad data, they use seven-year-old data to analyze in a report that was given
in 2014 and they're paid for by J.R. Hayes. and they're the ones that the
city relied on for all the geotechnical analysis. And I'm a data scientist so I
can, I know a lot about statistics and I can tell you that, you know,
there's sort of a risk and reward, risk and payoff thing that gets pretty complicated.
But if you have a low risk thing with a high possible payoff or a
high possible cost, you actually take your analysis out to the edges a little further.
And that was not done with 7, 8 and 9 and that's pretty clear. And
the court has ordered you guys to do a complete new replatting of 7 and
8 already. And they've ordered you to do a complete reassessment. So I would ask
you as you do that, A, to not hire terror associates or anybody associated with
terror associates. B, bring somebody from outside the current city planning office that's been responsible
for all the work that's been done to supervise that. and C, when
you're looking at what to do tonight with Talas parcel 9, I think every decision
you make about this going forward should be let's do the most conservative thing we
can do that's not going to get us sued again. Because if there's a, if
there's a landslide there, especially this report actually scared me because I live right below
that wall and that this this thing says that wall might not be stable and
I live right underneath that wall. We have another rain and they poo pooed heavy
rain in the past. You know they had a landslide on they had a slide
on on parcel 7 in 2010 and when the city. I'm going to get you
to address to the council. Okay sorry I'm trying to get them riled up not
you. I want them riled up and I want you to take a look at
this in depth. I want I think we should have a complete investigation of this.
And I'm going to get you to wrap up because now you have extra time.
Those are my points. I sent you guys an email. I sent you a copy
of this thing if you haven't seen it. You should read it. Thank you. Thank
you, Jeff. And lots of support for Jeff's comments. I just want to make sure
I'm clear again because maybe I wasn't as clear as I had hoped to be.
We do have one more opportunity for comment, but it's just on our transportation improvement
plan. Any other comments not related to that should be bundled up in your three
minutes. So if you're here for Opportunity Center, Transit Area Development or the TALIS Development
Agreement, all of those are, this is your time to talk. There won't be an
opportunity later in the meeting. So next we have Senator Mark Mullet followed by Rich
Hill and Peter Eglick. Again, please queue up at the lectern.
Hi there. For the record, I am Mark Mullet at 3129 Northeast Harrison Street. I'm
here tonight on behalf of the Opportunity Center. And I think when Councilmember Martz and
myself were on this council together many moons ago, you know, that was when I
was first introduced to this organization, HealthPoint and DentalPoint, by going up to Redmond to
see their operations up there. I will say during my six years in Olympia, I've
Gain tremendous respect for both of those organizations in terms of how they provide services
for low income people throughout the state of Washington. And and I feel that having
those sort of services in the city of Issaquah has a much bigger benefit than
just the residents of the city of Issaquah, which I view my role in the
capital budget at the state level is we've invested state capital dollars to help bring
those type of services of medical and dental access to communities throughout the state. And
specifically, we've invested capital dollars at the state level to support HealthPoint and DentalPoint going
into communities because they have such a good reputation in the state level of being
able to provide those services. And so I think as you guys debate that tonight,
I just want the Council to know My hope would be that you would have
a partner in the state if you decide to, I would like you to try
to keep your options open, I guess, of whatever you decide to realize that when
we go into session on January 14th, if we want to work together between the
state and the city to try to figure out how to get dollars to bring
those organizations to our city, I will be your advocate in that mission. And I
can't guarantee anything, but I can promise you that I will work my butt off
to try to make that happen because I do believe wholeheartedly in those organizations and
the value they bring. And I think it's a much bigger impact than just the
city, which is why I think state dollars would be appropriate to help make that
happen. And I know I'm kind of glad I just get to walk out
of here and don't have to make hard decisions tonight. It's kind of fun
to watch other elected people have to go through all this stuff. So thank
you very much for your public service and your time. And I wish you
well, it doesn't sound like you're in a short meeting tonight, but I'll be
asleep while you're probably still here. Thank you very much. Bye bye. Thank you,
Senator Mallet. Members of the council, good evening. My name is Rich Hill. I'm
counsel for Resmark, which is the owner of TALIS parcel 9. And I'm here to
discuss tonight the issue of down zoning parcel 9. While Resmark is not demanding equal
time with those who are on the other side of this debate, I have timed
my remarks at 8 minutes and would ask the mayor's leave to be able to
speak for 8 minutes to the issue. Mr. Hill, we have had significant internal
conversation about audience comments versus the different meetings that we've had to talk
about the issue, including Land and Shore and Planning Policy Commission. And so
at this point in time, because we're doing audience comments, three minutes is
your maximum time to talk. I acknowledge your ruling, Mayor. With that,
then, I will do my best to short circuit my comments. I have submitted written
materials. I know the council has looked at them carefully. Resmark urges you tonight to
make the right decision to adopt the unanimous recommendation of your PPC and maintain the
MF designation and 60 foot height limit that has been applied to parcel 9 since
the very inception of the development agreement. Is there a timer so I know Oh,
sorry, yes. So we'll add a little bit of time as I explain it to
you. There's a green light in front of you that is for the full amount
of time and Tisha will reset that. As you get closer, it will start to
blink, then it will go yellow and then red as in a time. Then you
pull the cane. Then I just totally cut your mic off. Fair enough. Just kidding,
we don't. Ms. Geiser has handed, distributed a handout which is two pages from the
staff's zoning history of the property. The first shows that when the development agreement was
adopted, parcel nine was actually planned for high density residential with an 85 foot height
limit up to 300 dwelling units. That zoning remained in effect for 16 years until
the preliminary plat was approved in 2014. At that time, the property was voluntarily reduced
in height to 45 feet, density of 90 dwelling units. This is the basis for
the current vested plat on the property. So as of today, members of the council,
the development agreement allows multifamily use on the property with a 60-foot height limit. Resmark
is not asking for any increased height or any increased density, just to maintain
its current allowed height and density. Throughout the process until the very last moment,
the administration recommendation was to maintain the existing residential heights and densities in the
replacement regulations. It was never proposed once throughout the process to downsize either parcel
9 or any other parcel. Only at the 11th hour did Councilmember Ray suggesting
down zoning this one parcel out of all the others with no sound planning support,
no staff analysis, and only a reference to ex-party comments from community members of support.
At page two of the handout, I show on the right column the effect, which
is contrary to all other parcels in TALIS IX if this parcel is down zoned.
It would down zone a multifamily parcel to single family, reducing height from 60 feet
to 45 feet. In addition to being wholly unfair and unjustified, this would result in
a substantial loss of property value and development flexibility. The council remanded this
issue to its PPC for its recommendation for proper zoning of the
parcel. The PPC had already recommended once a multifamily designation of the
property. After the public hearing, the PPC unanimously recommended again retaining the
existing use of the properties. The Planning Commission recommendation, which
I'm sure you have had an opportunity to review, sets forth in detail
all of the sound planning policy reasons to maintain the existing zoning on
the property. The staff report presented with your proposed ordinance provides no facts
or analysis to rebut any of the PPC's thoughtful and well-reasoned analysis. Certainly
no evidence of changed circumstances to support a down zone, which your
ordinance requires. I see my time is short. I see my time
is short. Res Marks expressly asks the council to maintain the zoning
that's been on the effect on the property for 20 years. Sincerely
hopes it will not come to having to challenge the issue in
court. We hope the council will adopt the sound reasoning and recommendation
of its PPC to maintain the multifamily zoning on the property rather than
challenging the matter before the growth board, superior court and or the federal
court. Thank you. Thank you, Mr Hill. Good evening. Good evening, council members.
I'm Peter Eglick. I'm the attorney representing the Talus Residential Association. Before I
get started, can I just confirm that you all received the letter I
sent in on Friday? and have had a chance to review it. Has anyone
not received it on the council? Okay. Everyone should have received it. Pardon me? Everyone
should have received it. It went all through the same. Okay. What you just heard
from my colleague Rich, who I've known for three decades, is essentially a demand to
reject the preliminary plat for which they have approval based largely on a threat, very
nicely put, of a lawsuit. What I would suggest to you is that's not the
appropriate decision here. The record here is that a single family preliminary plat has been
approved. The applicant, the property owner has plenty of value to be gained from that.
If there's going to be a change, that can be considered in the provisional consideration
process that comes up in a year. But that's the status quo and all the
discussion about what happened 20 years ago and 14 years ago and 10 years ago
is not the status quo. The status quo is that these folks applied for and
obtained a single family preliminary plat approval and now they're telling you no, they want
more leeway. There's no law that requires you to give it. This is not a
rezone. This is a termination of development agreement you write on a clean slate. Even
if you didn't write on a clean slate, if you actually go back and look
at the attachment to the planning commission findings where they go through all the rezone
criteria, Ask yourself for each one of those reason criteria. Why is MF more
appropriate under those criteria than SF? It's not. I mean, they're in the public interest,
this and that, all that. It's all equivalent. What they get out of demanding that
you stampede to an MF now is they get the opportunity to vest a
in some ways more intense project before that provisional review has occurred in 2019.
And that is backwards. What should happen is that you should provide a designation, which
you are entitled to do, that's consistent with the plat that they have obtained approval
of, and then you should say, in 2019, we'll look at whether MF is appropriate,
examining all of the factors, some of which people have mentioned, some of which others
will be mentioned, that apply. There's no need to stampede. There's no need to give
them a vested right now to something that it is not clear is going to
be appropriate. There's no legal requirement that you do so. This is again a fundamental
fallacy. This is not a rezone application. It's not a site-specific rezone. This is part
of a legislative rezone process. One other point I want to make, and this goes
to the GMA, there's been some mention of the Growth Board and we're going to
go appeal to that and all that. I haven't seen any finding that says that
the choice of SF To wrap up your comments? I will. That the choice of
SF would somehow put the city in violation of, for example, your housing targets under
the Growth Management Act. There's nothing in any of the analysis you have that says
that. This is completely consistent with the law. We have to ask you to wind
it up. Thanks. Okay. And so TALIS asks you not to be stampeded. Thank you.
Thank you. Next tweet. Any support in the room?
Next we have John Rittenhouse followed by Bruce Semple and Brookie
Scholl. John Rittenhouse, 260 Mount Olympus Drive NW in Issaquah and
I'm a resident and I'll keep this short and I'm going
to help you with your easy decision tonight. So I'm here
to speak on behalf of Agenda Bill 7534, the Opportunity Center
Resolution for the Transit Oriented Development Project. and I'm supporting
the administration's recommendation of option two to provide integrated health, dental, and
behavioral health services. The community needs assessment that was recently completed actually
mirrors the community needs assessment that the Together Center actually did about
10 years ago when they were attempting to site human services campus
in Issaquah. And it talked about the need for health, medical,
dental services, and those needs are still there 10 years later. Both Valley Cities
and Health Point are well-known and well-respected in the Puget Sound region, each with
multiple locations and an existing co-located space that both organizations currently have in Des
Moines. So speaking about the food banks experience, our case manager Rebecca
Rice says that the most challenging issues she faces with clients are around lack
of dental services and lack of mental health services because there are no local
agencies to refer clients to. And current food bank clients who are not able
to get mental health services are likely to be future food bank clients.
And as we know now, lack of dental care can lead to problems like diabetes,
heart disease, and a greater likelihood of suffering a stroke. With both health and dental
services, HealthPoint is uniquely qualified to serve the entire patient on an ongoing basis, rather
than treating each visit as a one-off, which can happen at hospitals or clinics that
are required to provide uncompensated care. The financial case for this option is even stronger
than it was five minutes ago. Using the almost $1 million that
was set aside during the Together Center Human Services campus effort was not used.
If it were used, along with the projected $250,000 a year in tenant rent,
that should allow the project to break even within 10 years, even if Senator
Mullet can't help you at the state level. So Valley Cities and
Health Point provide comprehensive package and services not currently available in Issaquah. And
therefore it's well suited to the city's effort to bring a range of
service providers consistent with the needs of a more urbanized community. This option
will serve Issaquah well for decades and is well worth investing in now.
Thank you. Thank you, John. Bruce.
Thank you. My name is Bruce Semple and I live at 100 Timber
Ridge Way Northwest and I'm a permanent resident of Iskwa. Parcel 9 is
the subject and it's a very prominent gateway into the Tallis neighbourhood
and is the dominant focal point approaching Shangri-La Way at the top of Tallis
Drive. When parcel 9 was given a preliminary plat approval for 90 single family
townhouses, the resident community was supportive because it was consistent with the mountain village
character that was envisioned in the development agreement for Tallis. This land use plan
would have proceeded to the final plat but for the landslide
which has delayed everything. Worse, Parcel 9 became a longstanding eyesore
and disruptor of the roadways and utilities. Living each day with
this eyesore has reinforced the importance of landscape harmony on a
prominent gateway Understandably, the community is anxious to see an end
to the hillside stabilisation so that the anticipated 90 single family townhouses can
proceed to completion. However, it has been said that nothing is guaranteed in
life except taxes and death, and the multifamily zoning and the proposed replacement
regulations has raised the possibility of a replacement focal point at the top
of Tallis Drive of another eyesore in the form of a 60-foot wall of
an apartment block. And we have a lot of those around in our gateways,
unfortunately. Only single-family zoning in the replacement regulations can assure that this would not
happen to this prominent gateway, regardless of the current developer's stated intentions.
Our resident community is understandably concerned by this possibility and requests that
the City Council vote to adopt replacement regulations that limit zoning on
parcel 9 to UVSF so that the original plan for 90 single
family townhouses is ensured. This will strengthen the linkage between the development
agreements vision and the architectural harmony of the entire Tallis community. Thank
you. Thank you, Bruce. There's a lot of support in the room for Bruce's comments.
I'm just going to take a moment to talk about a technical issue we're having
with ICTV right now. We have been notified by people that are watching it on
computers that they're having an issue. So I have a website that I wanted
to read out since the audio portion isn't working. But if anybody is getting
a text or an email from somebody saying they can't hear, the website www.ustream.tv
slash channel slash 1526. 3545 has actually got the audio and the sound, so you
may be hearing from people who aren't here tonight or are frustrated, but we are
working on the problem. Rookie? Hello, my name is Brookie Scholl and I'm with the
TALIS Residential Association. Thank you for allowing us to speak this evening. So I'd like
to speak obviously about parcel nine. We are aware that you've received at least 100
emails on this subject within the last few weeks on this matter and we hope
that our collective voices are heard. the owner of parcel 9 has a valid preliminary
plat for 90 townhomes and they were in the process of getting the land ready
to build those townhomes back in 2015 when the landslide occurred coincidentally the development agreement
is being terminated so the waters are really feeling like they're being muddied It feels
as though the owner of Parcel 9 is using this as an opportunity to scrap
their original plans. The preliminary plat is still valid. If they build from their original
plans, they would be single-family homes. Changing the zoning to multifamily will give the owner
free rein to build a giant building at the top of the mountain without any
further public discussion, and our mountain village feel would be gone forever. The proposed ordinance
states that the city is committed to reviewing the regulations in 2019. So we ask
that you vote single family today and if the owner has any issues with building
the townhomes then they can come back and they can have a public conversation about
the need for multi-family in 2019. And with that discussion they can bring real plans
to the table that we can all review together. This inverse situation will not work
and it's really not fair. Our voices do matter. Please vote single
family. Thank you. Thank you, Brookie. Lots of support in the room
by raised hands. Next we have Elizabeth Taylor followed by Jason Owens
followed by Jillian Hostenski.
Good evening. My name is Elizabeth. I live at 3425 Northeast Monterey
Lane, Issaquah Highlands. I had some thoughts and what-ifs on the Cougar
Mountain project. What if the building starts and after 22 acres of
trees are cut and hundreds of truckloads of soil are carted away
and something goes wrong? The builder says, "This isn't working
out as I had been told it could, and it becomes
too expensive to try more." What if no one could ever
be found that would consider even trying again? The project is
abandoned. The mountain is scarred forever. How do you replace old
growth forest or rebuild a thick undergrowth? Bring wetlands back
that were demolished. Wildlife and habitat are disrupted and may never
return. You can't regrow something that has taken Mother Nature years
to accomplish. It would be a blight on the mountainside forever.
Thank you. Thank you, Elizabeth. Show of support with hands. Thanks.
Good evening, council members. My name is Jason Owens. I am the chief information officer
for HealthPoint. I'm part of the executive leadership team of a part of HealthPoint. I
wanted to just offer public comments and just say we are here to support and
work collaboratively with the city council and endeavoring for the Opportunity Center. Well, I thank
Senator Malik for his kind words. He has been a great
partner down in Olympia on several projects that we have gotten
funding for and our other partners within the community. We are
committed to services if you allow us to work with you
guys. And if I can be of any assistance, I just
want to be here and offer my support. Thank you. Where
did the handouts go? Hello, Mayor Pali and City Council members.
I'm Jillian Hostenski, 2601 Northwest Alpine Crest Way. And I'm an owner in
the city of Issaquah in the Tallis Bridges development. I've been an Issaquah
resident for many years, since 1987, when Paul and Michelle and I didn't
even, and my family didn't even have children yet. So it's been a
long time seeing this city evolve. so i had sent each of
you emails um suggesting that you stick with the 45 foot limit in the townhome
as opposed to the 60 foot six-story apartments and i've received responses from you and
i'm really grateful from that um it was only today that i learned about the
court decision and so my notes are a little rough and what i want to
say this evening but um I do want to make a couple points.
What I read in the September 18th, 2017 decision was the court basically
said the geotechnical reports should have been updated after this slide. Then the
second thing they said was that although the city did some retro work
to make sure Shangri-La was safe, that they should have taken a bigger
look at our safety and done more than that. So
you might remember me from right after this slide happened. I came to the council
and I had some toothpicks. I'm no toothpicks tonight. But I came home that evening
of the slide to darkness and rain and emergency vehicles and police who couldn't even
tell me where to go to my home. And I was so afraid my house
was going to be in toothpicks. And now again, reading that this development has
occurred without sufficient acknowledgement of that slide, it makes me scared. And it gives me
the courage to come here tonight and speak to you. So I've been part
of the process. I've been emailing you. I've been on the TALIS webpage. I've asked
for messages. I went to the public hearing where we were told that the proposal
was going to be 45 feet. I have the handout that was provided.
And I just really hope that you
keep that trust with your citizens. We
voted for you. We want you to
keep us safe. And thank you for
listening to my comments. Thank you, Jillian.
Lots of hands of support for Jillian's
comments. Next, we have Kristen Kuhman, followed
by Cynthia Lessford and Barb DeMichel. Hi, my
name is Kirsten Kuhman and I live on 3290 Northwest Harmony Way in the bridges
at TALIS. And we've lived in the bridges, my husband and I, for over seven
and a half years. We were one of the first people that were part of
that community. When we moved in, Parcel 9 was actually heaven. It was beautiful trees,
thick, lush. We couldn't even see past our backyard into any roads. We just thought,
"Oh my gosh, we've just discovered the most magical place ever." And trust me, we
looked and looked and looked. Just ask my husband. I was that wife. And we
found the perfect neighborhood, and we found the perfect house, and we found the perfect
setting. Because it was like we were in the mountains. I'm from Utah. In the
mountains, but we were like right there in Issaquah. We had everything. It was perfect.
Oh, I was nervous. I'm like, "That was not two minutes." I'm talking pretty fast.
Anyway, so when we were told what was going to happen to the development, the
builder said, "This is going to be town homes in keeping with the architecture of
everything else that's surrounding it." We thought, "Great. That makes a lot of sense. Great
use for the land." But as time went on, and then all of a sudden
the trees started disappearing, and then the white plastic came up, and then all of
the crazy but necessary work to kind of help stabilize that hill has been going
on forever. So I ask myself, what happens to the people, however, whatever happens, that
buy those houses in the future? Are they going to hear the story of what's
really going on underneath them? That makes me nervous. It makes me nervous for those
of us that are close that could be affected if a slide happens again. So
I look at a few points. Yes, there's the beauty and there's the magic of
that neighborhood and that's why we moved there. And that's why I think we have
so many great neighbors that move there with us. But we've got to consider that.
We've also got to consider the density. You know, we live there because it feels
It feels spacious and open in our trails, but with an apartment as you go
right into the center because that is the focal point that has been mentioned. Every
single one of us, whether we go left to the bridges or right, we all
see that. And we want it to be something that we're proud of, something that
sets the tone for our neighborhood, something that is safe, something that is responsible, something
that is architecturally consistent with what we're proud of and what we stand for. and
we want to continue that mountain retreat feeling. And I think if we're allowed to
build 60 foot apartments where we tore down 60 foot trees, to me somehow, that
just doesn't seem like the right thing to do. So please let Parcel 9 Mountain
be the integrity of architecture that we have grown to love and the destiny that
brought so many of us together as neighbors. So thank you very much for listening.
- Thank you, Kristen. Lots of support in the room.
Hi, my name is Cynthia Lessford, 630 Timber Creek Drive, Northwest in Issaquah.
I'm a TALIS resident and I'm one of those people who drive up
past Parcel 9 two to four times a day. And as everybody has
said, it has gone through the slide, the plastic, all the construction, the
big crane, and... I know what ugly is because we've been looking at it for
two and a half years. So I would like to see the Talos Agreement end
with the following conditions: The present and future development should be compatible with the expectations
of the residents and not the developer. I understand the developer wants to make money
but we have to live there forever and we have to look at this and
we have to drive up there and it's going to be part of our life.
They're going to leave. and we aren't. Want to keep the current parcel nine
zoning to 90 single family attached and an attached town homes with a maximum
of 45 feet. Don't allow the city to change the regulations to multifamily. Five-story
apartment building on this narrow and steep parcel would look out of character with
the mountain terrain as specified in the development agreement. If you read most of
the development agreement, Mountain environment is in there millions of times. Well,
maybe 10,000. Parcel 9 is the end of our only entrance and we
do not want an Atlas style building looming over every car that enters
or leaves our beautiful, our tree-filled community. So I love living in Talus.
I love living in Issaquah. Please ensure the development agreement placement regulations meet
parcel nine expectations of the Talus residents. Please vote for a height of
45 feet and 90 units. Thank you. Thank you, Cynthia. A lot of
support for Cynthia's comments.
Good evening, Council. My name is Barbara DeMichel and I live at 580 Front
Street South. I'm here tonight to support the selection of HealthPoints and Valley Cities
for their proposal for the Opportunity Center. For the past decade, I've been on
the board of the Together Center, which is located in Redmond. And if you're
not familiar with the Together Center, it's a social services campus currently with 21
different social service agencies on campus. We're really proud of them. Health Point has
been the anchor tenant at that facility for many, many years. And over
the last decade or so, I've had many opportunities to visit the Health
Point facility and observe what's going on there. It is an outstanding operation,
beautiful facility. They offer services for people who are covered by Medicaid.
They offer a sliding scale for low-income people who don't qualify for
Medicaid. They offer dental services and combined with the proposal to include
Valley Cities, they'll be able to offer mental health services here.
I was able to email the director of the Redmond facility and she said
that they estimate that over time they've served about 20% of Issaquah's population. So
you may be thinking it's a small number, it's not a small number. And
I want you to think about the challenge of taking transportation if you
don't have a car from Issaquah to Redmond and from Redmond back to Issaquah,
especially if you have little children in tow. So to place a facility here
in Issaquah would be a tremendous boon for the low-income citizens of this community
or anyone who is looking for health care services. HealthPoint's motto is
"Everyone deserves great care." We know that there is a great need for additional
medical, dental, and mental health services in this area. And so I urge you
to accept the proposal from HealthPoint and Valley Cities, and I think that it
would be a wonderful asset for this community. Thank you so much. Thank you,
Barb. And there are some hands of
support in the audience for Barb's comments. Thank you, Barb. Next, Tisha. No one further
has signed up to speak. Is there anyone else who would like to address council
this evening? No way. Okay. I got a couple of hands. I was going to
say, wow, you flared me. Okay. Steve and then Skip.
Good evening. So several comments. I'll keep them brief. The first on the six-year transportation
improvement project, a couple projects caught my attention. If you will have time to comment.
I'm not going to be able to come back so I'm just trying to get
them done. Thank you though. So the first was I heard a proposed roundabout at
the front intersection of Front Street and Sunset as proposed. I have some concern with
it just in general what it does to the character of the Old Town neighborhood
so I'd like to see that discussed a lot more before that kind of gets
forward. I think we need to look at getting the traffic off of the area
rather than having a roundabout. I'm not sure how it would be convenient to keep
that character of Old Town. The next, the whole transportation oriented development project, I support
the idea, but there still seems to be a lot of questions in community as
far as what the total cost and the affordable housing. I think all those things
need to be talked about and looked at community wide before we talk about specific
projects about this particular project for The last was I guess the tell us
development in the context of a lot of times I hear that we talk about
should we approve this apartment complex or that apartment complex. I think we all should
have some stake in the game and again we're talking to the sense of deja
vu we're talking about this particular apartment complex. On tell us whether should be allowed
in high density. I think we may have that larger context of where we tried
again with with let's say in this would or the Alice building and now this
building where we talk about one project at a time, we're not being cohesive and
having that conversation. I need your help too when we look at who are becoming
time and time again, I've heard people say we don't want this particular apartment complex,
we need to look at how we're treating apartment complexes and we're building density in
when we don't have the infrastructure to handle it and it's you folks that are
allowing and approving zoning because we keep going back and saying zoning allows this to
happen so we have to allow it to happen. we need to have that conversation
citywide. So while I definitely feel for the Tallis residents and understand the complex or
that idea of keeping their own particular neighborhood whole and not having it, we need
to have that conversation citywide as a community. I think some communities are better organized
or some neighborhoods are better organized than others. So I ask your help
to not just look at this apartment complex by apartment complex as we
keep doing, but to have that wider conversation. Thank you. Thank you, Steve.
Skip? And being at least a week. I'm Skip Rowley, 1595 Northwest Gilman
Boulevard. And I'm here to speak very quickly on the transit-oriented development. We
really support the project. We think it's a great project, but we've got
some real concerns about parking. The old ordinance for medical dental
that we used to have to live by required five parking stalls
per thousand square feet. A year down to two, I believe. When
we were building apartments, our apartment requirement was two parking stalls per
unit, and this building has got .95 parking stalls per unit.
We want you to support the project, but we want you to figure out how
to park the cars first. And there are ways for you to do it, and
I hope that you can. I really do want to see the project done. It's
something that we need, but I don't want some poor guy getting his teeth drilled
at the dentist while I'm out there towing his car. So anyway, do your best,
one and all. Thank you very much. Bye. - Thank you, Skip. The smattering
of hands in support. And Dave Wagner, I saw
you with your hand up. Hi, Council. David Wagner,
360 Northwest Dogwood Street, resident of Issaquah since 1945,
except for 26 years serving in the United States
military. I'm not here to speak about TALIS tonight, but I totally agree we
got to make it better. We got to make it better. The thing I am
here to thank the Council members who came to Memorial Day. I want you to
know that we marked the graves of 549 veterans that are buried in Upper and
Lower Hillside Cemetery. And we also had a flyover. For those of
you who may have missed it, it was a B-25 built in
1943 from historic, yeah, Mitchell B-25 built in 1943. And it was
an honor and pleasure to have Historic Flight Foundation fly that B-25
over our event. Something else you may have noticed in the news,
and I will be back to talk about it, Yesterday morning at
3:00, we had a B-52 come down 405. Now, I don't know if
you know what a B-52 is, but it's a big bomber, and it
came down 405. I wish that that could happen during rush hour, but
probably would freak a lot of people out. And it was wonderful
to have that happen. And I want to come back at the next meeting
and brief you on a project for a Vietnam Veterans Memorial Park that is
being built at Museum of Flight. And it's quite an honor to be a
part of that committee. And the last thing I want to tell you is
that on Saturday, with our mayor present, we disposed of-- 470
United States flags and a Boy Scout Eagle candidate
completed his work, so he will be an Eagle
Scout. Those flags are gathered from around the community,
and they were disposed of properly by burning them.
It was an honor to be there. It was an
honor to have 70 people from our city there. So
thank you for your time. And especially for your council
members that were at the Memorial Day service. Thank you
for being there. CHRISTIE WOOD: Thank you, Dave. Hands in
support. Ken, I'm assuming you're going to take the microphone.
KEN EASMAN: My name is Ken Eastman. I reside at
2473 Northwest Stony Creek Drive. I'm representing my own views
tonight. and not the views of any community organization. And I want to
tell you I'm proud to be a resident of the beautiful community that I
live in, Tallis. I'm proud of our mountainside village with its beautiful landscaping and
parks, playgrounds, trails, and the architecture of our buildings. I'm proud of my neighbors
who care enough to keep it beautiful. Parcel 9 resides at the center of
our community. I want the parcel 9 to become an integral part of our
community and not the eyesore that it's been for the last three years. I'm impatient.
The clearing and grading started in 2015 with the hillside a few months later. It's
been three long years and no doubt it'll be a few more years before this
is remedied. But I believe there can be a satisfactory end to this misery. I
commend the city for fixing the utilities, restoring the sidewalk, and the landscaping. I commend
the parcel owner for spending the millions of dollars to permanently stabilize the slope and
make it safe. I want a path forward that turns parcel 9 into a part
of TALIS that we can all be proud of. A community just like Timber Ridge
or Spring Peak or the Bridges neighborhood that I live in. I don't want to
live in a community where this parcel hangs in limbo for eternity while we squabble
about what to do with it. So I support the zoning of single family because
it gives us the best chance for a form factor that will fit the look
and feel of the community. If in the future the parcel owner cannot make single
family work, there's a process for the parcel owner to make a case to City
Council for multifamily. I've got every confidence that if the parcel owner works with the
TALIS Architectural Review Committee on the building design that both parcel owner and the community
can win. I'm impatient. i've looked at the flapping plastic eco blocks mud construction
equipment orange fencing drainage pipe for way too long and i want my community back
i want a clear path forward so end the da zone parcel 9 single family
and please save cougar mountain thank you thank you ken lots of hands in the
air for ken's comments mary's making her way up If
there's anyone else, can you
please sort of give me
a show of hands or
move towards the microphone so
I can get an idea
of how many more. It's
like a couple more. My
name is Mary Lynch and
I reside at 2690 Northwest
Oak Crest Drive. I'm here for two reasons
tonight for public comment. First is I hope that going forward with your
comp planning that you put priority on creating a tree canopy and setting
goals for what we want, that we actually fund to figure out what
we have. and actually located, updated the location. We document both private project and
document both public and private canopies and we plan for ongoing funding and forest stewardship.
That has not been done yet we are proud to say we're 25 years tree
city but we have not protected our tree canopy. That can be seen last week
with the cuttings of two different locations of old growth trees. Next I want to
talk about, we know along Newport Way that there's going to be development for the
next years to come. But we would expect that our pathways into the city are
protected and safe. As of this afternoon, we still don't have any action from the
city or from the developer to remove the vehicle or at least protect the vehicle
that is blocking the pathway at the bottom of Oak Crest Drive. If you'll note,
the tree there is partially destroyed. They've gone in and destroyed the roots. They've taken
down the major part, but they've left a major piece hanging over the roadway.
right next to the sign, right next to where we've had two dogs and a
little boy killed in our crosswalk. Yet this is what the reaction we get from
the city and the developer. I personally got an email back from the developer saying,
we're sorry, but there's nothing we can do until we can get it moved. There
is no advance signs that says that there's anything there. They actually took the 25
mile an hour speed limit signs that they put while they're there down. They also
closed the work site down early because of it. People coming home this
afternoon had to walk out into the lanes of traffic. The bicyclers had to go
in the lanes of traffic. Here's another view here to see how it's leading. We're
supposed to have rain and wind tonight. What's going to happen if that falls over
and hit somebody? We routinely have people that live out in our neighborhood that work
nights and have to walk that pathway home or to the bus. What are they
going to do to get home? No lights, no advance warnings. And you
received one, or the mayor did earlier this week, a 50 miles an hour that
we recorded. I routinely see 50 and 45 mile an hour vehicles. Can you imagine
if someone's trying to walk out around that and cars are coming at them, not
only westbound, but we've got a curve there that we've talked much about. And nothing's
been done. We've heard nothing from the city. I drove by there. There's been
no advance warning. Nothing's been done. And this is allowed to sit. This is
unacceptable. Thank you. Thank you, Mary. Hands of support in the audience. Connie. Hi,
I'm Connie Martin. You know, I have had a meeting like that. That's kidding.
I don't even control the light button. Tisha does. Okay, now I get to go,
right? Okay, my name is Connie Marsh and I live up on Squawk Mountain. And
I went to the transit-oriented development meeting the other night and a couple of things
happened that were sort of shocking and hilarious at the same time. I was having
a conversation with one person and they said you're against the transit-oriented development
because you don't want the low-impact people, low-income people in town. And I'm
going, me? I want to keep out the riffraff. I am the riffraff.
I couldn't believe it. It's like I make less than just about anybody. I am
far below your poverty level, yet I'm one of the people who's supposed to be
supporting in my tax dollars the people who would be moving in. And so I
went to the effort today to look up to see what that amount was before
somebody got a break on their property taxes, and I sent you all that email.
Had the same conversation as I was garage sailing in my riffraff way with a
lot of people on fixed income this last weekend. And there are many people, it's
a hot topic of conversation, saying they can no longer afford to stay in their
homes because of the things that they have to pay for taxes. The increase in
water rates is sort of startling. Utilities, all the basic things in life that
you have to pay for. So we are supposed to be creating spaces for
those people who actually are going to be making more money on us. And
I'm against that. Now, things I am for. I do like HealthPoint. I think
we do need a health facility and a dental place for those who are
low income. in our town and I think people have to travel way too far
to get it. I just don't think that we need to build a big building
to put it in. We have extra capacity in our health areas. If you want
it adjacent to the park and ride, put it in the health facility just across
SR 900 and you can walk to it. So, No on the TOD, yes on
health, and I am proud to be your riffraff. Thank you very much. Thank you,
Connie. Hands of support there. Is there anyone else who would like to address the
council this evening? I'm going to check two more times. So second call, would anyone
else like to address your council this evening? Come on up.
My name is Kathleen Mazur and I'm totally unprepared for tonight, but I do want
to support HealthPoint. I've been a HealthPoint employee for 18 years now. I was only
going to stay four. I'm a dentist. I happen to be at the Redmond Clinic.
And I just want to say that we see patients from all walks of life,
all religions, all races, all ages, from six months old up to 90 plus. Whoever
can make it in, we see them. Our particular clinic has eight operatories, and we
see 800 to 1,000 appointments per month. And we provide not just the low-income patients.
We provide... Microsoft patients, we take any type of insurance, anyone who needs our services,
we're willing to and able to see them. So I know that there is a
need for healthcare on the east side, I mean, well, low-income healthcare, but healthcare in
general that's combined to treat the whole patient, not just the teeth for a nice
smile or not just the medical, but very much intertwined with all the different disciplines
that we can offer. So thank you so much for listening. Kathleen, thank you for
speaking. You must have felt very passionate about it if you weren't prepared. I wasn't
prepared at all. Thank you. Thank you very much. You did a great job. So
I will check one more time. Is there anyone else who would like to speak
this evening? Second last call. Anyone liking to address council this evening? And a last
call for public comment before I close. I did want to thank you all for
coming tonight. This is a huge group that we have. We heard a lot about
one of our conversations we're going to have later on which is about Opportunity Center
in a proposed transit-oriented development project and the need for dental medical and mental services
in Issaquah as well as a lot of supporters of Health Point. Did have some
comments on the Berksma Hillside property. Also on construction issues on Newport Way. Had comments
on the TIP program and if you wish to make more we'll have our public
hearing later. this evening. The biggest amount of test comments we received this
evening had to do with the ending of the TALIS-DA. Support for the preliminary
plat that was originally approved, a density of 90 units, single-family zoning was brought
up several times. Concerns related to how developments would fit the mountain character, if they
are appropriate density, and obviously concerns of years of looking at the plastic mountain. Also
heard about the original commitments in the TALS-DA and how important it is for the
city to use appropriate geotechnical review for Parcel 7, 8, and 9. Also had a
half a dozen comments or so on various community issues. So thank you all so
much for coming this evening and sharing your thoughts. We're moving out of audience comments
and into committee and regional reports and we'll start with Council Member Hunt. Thank you
Madam Mayor. On May 23rd I attended the Cascade Water Alliance board meeting with Mayor
Pauly and I attended by phone. We took a couple actions. We authorized assessment of
the regional capital facilities charge process and workflows of cascade members. This is a charge
that's assessed to members for connections to the water system. And we also authorized herbicide
treatment for control of aquatic vegetation in the Lake Taps Reservoir, which is a part
of their regular reservoir maintenance. um specific to Issaquah we heard about how cascade
is working with the Montreux and South Cove Community and Esquire to help them reduce
irrigation water use in conjunction with the city and in upcoming months we will be
working on the budget and rate development for the next two year two years The
next regular meeting of Cascade Water Alliance will be June 27th and there will also
be a Cascade Water Alliance Resource Management Committee which will meet June 14th which I
will also attend and this concludes my report. Thank you. Council Member Wray. Thank you
Mayor Pauley. The Services and Safety Committee will meet on June 12th at 6:30 here
in Council Chambers. The agenda will likely include agenda bill 7394, the park strategic
plan, agenda bill 7600, an interlocal agreement with the Department of Natural Resources
related to the maintenance and use of the High Point Trailhead, and agenda
bill 7617, an interagency agreement with the Department of Natural Resources for incident
management team participation. Eastside Fire and Rescue Board will meet on June 14th
at 4 o'clock. The agenda for that meeting has not been set and that concludes
my report this evening. Thank you councilmember Ramos. Thank you mayor Just two meetings coming
up this Friday the 8th. I'll be the Eastside Transportation Partnership meeting and Next week
Wednesday the 13th at the King County Emergency Management Advisory County. Thank you Thank you.
That's it. That concludes my report. Thank you very much. Council Member Winterstein. Thank you,
Mayor Pauly. No report on the Lodging Tax Advisory Committee because we haven't met. And
the Growth Management Policy Board will be meeting next this Thursday, June 7th. And the
principal action scheduled is to finalize the Vision 2040 scoping effort. That concludes my report.
Thank you. Council Member Goodman. Thank you, Madam Mayor. On this Thursday, June 7th, The
council Land and Shore Committee will meet. The agenda includes the
following items. Agenda Bill 7614, the proposed high street conversion in
Issaquah Highlands. Agenda Bill 7480, preliminary plat regarding West Ridge North,
also in the Highlands. We have an informational item on
the agenda, Issaquah School District/City Land Evaluation that involves the land
up by Swedish Hospital that the school district is interested in
purchasing for a school. Agenda Bill 7612, amendments to, and my
computer's restarting. I think there was an agenda bill about a
Timber Ridge easement. And then I think there were some code amendments regarding something. Thank
you. Amendments to the Issaquah Municipal Code regarding transfer of development rights resulting from Issaquah
Highlands Development Agreement. That's it. nicely done that's teamwork deputy council president patis thank you
madam mayor no report this evening thank you council president martz thank you madam mayor
uh the king county growth management policy council met wednesday may 30th they were going
to talk about school citing motion i was at ubc learning all about micro needles
which are going to take away if you don't like having to be jabbed with
big needles for uh uh vaccines and whatnot. You're gonna like the technology that's coming,
has nothing to do with the city, but it's fascinating nonetheless. But I will give
a report as soon as I get the minutes from that meeting. Upcoming Sound Cities
Association Public Issues Committee is gonna meet Wednesday, June 13th. A couple of important topics.
We're gonna have a discussion on the King County Land Conservation Initiative, and we're gonna
get an update on the Regional Affordable Housing Task Force. And then the pre-pic meeting,
not really a problem for our council, but if anybody wants to attend the Always
Fun Jurassic Parliament, the topic is going to be leading by example in a toxic
climate. So, you know, if you want to hear about other cities' troubles, that will
be fun. That concludes my report. Thank you. That completes Committee and Regional Reports. Moving
on to the Mayor's Report. There will not be an Executive Session held this evening.
I attended several meetings in the previous weeks, the Cascade Water Alliance board meeting
with Council Member Hunt on May 23rd and Sound Transit's board meeting on May
24th where we received updates on three of the ongoing Sound Transit projects. On
May 31st I attended Puget Sound Regional Council's Annual General Assembly. This is the
meeting where officers are selected annually and the budget is approved. During the last
two weeks there were several opportunities for community outreach. I got to attend the ribbon
cutting for Kumon of Issaquah on Gilman Boulevard, an after-school academic enrichment program. On May
25th I attended the Visitors Information Center's familiarization tour of trailheads in Issaquah. On May
30 I attended the Solarize workshop and gave some opening remarks. June 1st I attended
an open house and community event at Gibson Eck High School and on June 2nd
I attended the VFW Boy Scouts of America annual flag retirement ceremonies. Thought I'd provide
a couple of updates on a few issues. I do not have new information
on the Cougar Mountain-Bergsma project. For our Southeast 62nd Street and Bridge project, which
is the connecting piece between East Lakes-Mamish Parkway and Costco's campus, the delivery of
the precast concrete trail undercrossing for the East Lakes-Mamish Trail went very well with
no issues. Contractor is now working to install retaining walls on either end and install
electrical and lights inside the crossing. Contractor continues to pour concrete on the bridge for
railings, the bridges over Issaquah Creek, sidewalk and decking. In addition, they're working on some
utility trenches in the area. There is a fantastic video that the city put out
on YouTube that shows the progress of the trail crossing and I would encourage you
to look that up. It's quite an inspiring project. We are also completing the Northwest
Gilman Boulevard corridor concept project. We are continuing to gather input through our online survey
and residents should visit the project's page at issaquahwa.gov/gilman. You can take the online survey,
sign up to receive updates or just learn more about the project itself. And the
City's strategic planning process, which we started in January of this year, I'd like to
invite you to come and join your City Council, senior staff, Mayor and community representatives
tomorrow night at the Senior Center as we review and discuss the information provided by
over a thousand community members in the engagement kickoff for our strategic planning process. So
we will be located at the Issaquah Senior Center over on Creek Way from 5:30
to 8:30 p.m. tomorrow night and it is a meeting that's open to the public
and we would love to have you there. Proceeding to the consent calendar. The
consent calendar was distributed to Council in advance. If authorized, the items on the consent
calendar will be considered together and approved in one motion. Have the payables and payroll
for June 4th been reviewed? They have. Thank you. Does any Councilmember desire to remove
any item from the consent calendar and consider it under regular business this evening? Seeing
none, could we have a motion? Council President Martz. Madam Mayor, I move
the consent agenda as listed in tonight's, sorry, the consent calendar as listed in
tonight's agenda. Second. It's been moved and seconded. All those in favor signify by
saying aye. Aye. Those opposed? Thank you. That passes unanimously. The
next item on the agenda
is our public hearing for
this evening. AB 7599 is
our 2019 through 2014 six-year
transportation improvement program. This item
was heard at the can
was heard before the council
infrastructure committee. Before I open
the public hearing I'd like
to invite Kurt Seaman, transportation
manager, to make a presentation.
Thank you, Mayor Pauley and Issaquah Council.
I'm happy to be here tonight to
give you a brief presentation and update
on our Transportation Improvement Plan. This is
a six-year plan. I can do this
here. And let me, I've got about a five minute presentation here. I've
got more slides than that that I would be happy to share, but in respect
to everything else you have on your agenda here, I'm gonna keep it brief and
be happy to answer any questions you have. So what is the six year transportation
improvement plan and why do we do it and what is the process that's involved?
So the six year plan, we do it because it's in the process It's our
assurance that each city has a perpetually is perpetually preparing advance
plans for not less than 6 years that carry out a
coordinated transportation program. So It gives us all some certainty of
what the future has to hold relative to transportation projects. It's also
required by state law. That's the RCW 357710. And importantly for the
city, by having projects in an approved plan, that will be asking you
to approve here at the next council meeting. It gives us opportunity for more funding
and more funding eligibility, which is an important way to fund many of the projects
on the plan. The process that we have followed, and so just the the process
going forward here once this is adopted, it will go to regional
planning organizations such as PSRC, also the state within 30 days of
adoption and be our officially adopted plan. We also share with all
our regional partners, TIB, PSRC, Metro Sound Transit, others, so that every,
the idea is that everyone understands what each city has planned for
their transportation improvements. The process that we have followed so far as
this plan has been has gone to the planning policy planning policy
Commission on May 10th. to the Council Infrastructure Committee for discussion on May
17th, to the Chamber Government Affairs Committee on May 18th, and now it's coming
to Council to start the public hearing, to open the public hearing tonight. And
I think this is up to Council obviously, but maybe continue to the June
18th meeting. And so don't expect anyone
to see all this. And I just want you to show you what this looks
like. It's a busy, complicated list. I think what you can see, most of you
hopefully can see, is there's a double line here. So the projects above this line
are projects that we have planned for the next six years. So those are projects
starting in 2018 and going on through So this is the six year
plan and what I was mentioning earlier is the essence of what
we're we're talking about here and there's a number of projects which I'm happy to
talk about any one of them in more detail if you'd like, if that's useful.
And then in addition to those six-year projects, there are all the other projects which
we envision accomplishing in years beyond the first six years. So those are the projects
below the double line. So it's all these projects here as well as the projects
that fall onto the next page. So again, not to rush you through this, but
just to give you an idea of the overall size and scope of our transportation
plan. And here are the projects in light green.
So I have a slide that shows all the projects on the list for
the entire project list. These are the projects, what we call the above the
line projects. So these are the projects, just to go back here, these are
the projects in this area here. So the projects, the projects above this
double line are these projects here in green. So there's a wide range of projects
from fairly small to fairly large and complex throughout the city. And so this gives
you an idea of where those projects are. And again, I have can
go into more detail on anything and I'd be happy to answer questions.
But that's the the the five minute overview of what the tip is
and what we're asking for you to adopt through the public hearing process.
Thank you. Before we open the public hearing, does Council have any questions
for Kurt? Member Winchester, followed by Council Member Hunt. Kurt, Project TR zero
I'll tell you what it is. It's the Sammamish Road pinch point.
And this TIP is millions of dollars less than the previous TIP.
uh and i wonder if you could just help me under is that is that
because of some uh the work that's being done in coordination with uh the state
because we have a better sense of what that is so i can sure i
can uh i can answer that question and the scope may be a little bit
different either it could be a scope question because we're reusing a number i think
the old project was the entire road and now it's just the pinch point right
so that what we're what you're asking about, what we're talking about here is this
project here, which is a very large project and many millions of dollars. I think
it may be, I wanna say 80 million, you have it in front of you
there. So that is not, to be clear, that is not the Pinch Point project.
The Pinch Point project is a $1 million project and it's focused right in the
vicinity, basically where I have my arrow, And that project is meant to piggyback on
the state is the state's effort to widen the shoulders to you to make an
auxiliary lane on I 90 which they'll be starting on fairly soon and as they
do that they'll be constructing a wall along this portion of. The freeway well
a longer along a lot along a long portion of the freeway but specifically in
this area which will enable us to have a little more room to build sidewalks
and bike lanes in that area where there are previous where there are currently no
good non motorized connection. So when we talk about the pinch point should probably have
two graphics here. So there is an overall idea in future years beyond the six
years to make improvements to this entire corridor. That's a large expensive project. The pinch
point improvements which I just mentioned are just right here and we believe that for,
I think that's a million dollars for the pinch point improvement and we believe that
that's an adequate amount of money to build those non-motorized improvements that I mentioned. we're
getting a a good bargain we feel from the state because they're doing a lot
of the work they're building the wall they're actually giving us enough room there to
make those improvements so the state's doing the bulk of the heavy lifting on that
project and we're coming back with non motorized improvements that. Does that help? Yeah, it
does. Just for clarification, in the old TIP, you just reused the number and now
the 28 is just the pinch point and the larger Sammamish Road project has been
redid. I think that could be the confusion. That's what caused my confusion. Thank you.
Same project, maybe just a confusion on the numbering. councilmember hunt thank you um there
as you were explaining how to read above and below the line i have a
question about the one item that is below the line but has funding as i
read it allocated for 2018 which is the tr o41 front street streetscape and so
i just um so my question is how to read that one number that is
below the line but allocated sure so i can i can help explain
that so that's a project to it's the front street we call it
here the front street streetscape so that's a project to continue finishing front
street with beautification mostly landscaping those kinds of things in the downtown we
did the the first order first first part of those improvements a few
years ago, a couple years ago, and now we're coming back with Front Street beautification
streetscape improvements. And our plan is to complete those this year. So that's why that's
shown in 2018. We show funding for a lot of these projects above the line
in 2018. So the plan here is to not, currently we don't have funding proposed
or future improvements on Front Street other than the ones we're showing here in 2018.
So 2018 I would tell you as a reference point so that you
can see where we're at this year and how we're spending planning spend
money this year. To be clear that the six-year TIP that we're asking
for you to adopt is the 2019-2024 project list there. So we're not
currently planning to do any additional work on those front street streetscape improvements
beyond this year. Any other questions? Council President Martz. Yeah,
I'll ask what somebody in the audience, if they hadn't seen this before, might
wonder about. When you look at the totals for the annuals, can you talk
a little bit about load balancing? Because you've got 20 million, 13 million, 24
million, 49 million, 17 million, 11 million, 65 million. Can you talk about how
it actually works in practice? That's an excellent question.
So this is our TIP plan. These are the
projects that we are, many of them are currently
under design and one of them, 62nd Street, is under construction. This
is, there are more complicated budget questions related to this list than are evident
here. So we don't, many of these projects, or perhaps most of these projects,
currently are not fully funded. Again, what I mentioned earlier, there's some
value to this. It tells everyone, the community and other agencies what our
plans are. It helps us acquire funding, but to be perfectly honest, you're
right, there's some big dollar amounts here. There's maybe one of the largest
here. Well, there's the two Newport projects and then the crossing of I-90,
which is, which is a concept, a plan to cross I-90
somewhere in the vicinity, sort of midway on Gilman. We don't have even
a conceptual design for that now, but this is our plan. our plan going
forward and you raise a good point. I think as we move forward and talking
about a transportation mobility plan and as we develop that, that will help clarify how
this, how these all these projects work together and that mobility plan would likely have
a funding piece to it that would help, I think, answer your questions. But you're
right, there's many more needs here and many more dollars here than we currently have
set aside. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions? I just want to make sure
it's clear for the public this evening that we this is a public hearing and
before I open it I want to make sure that people are aware that the
council will not necessarily be voting on the motion this evening. We are just doing
the public hearing this evening and that any guidance for addressing council is same as
it was during audience comments and it's included on the agenda. and so i now
open the public hearing at 8 43 33 and tisha has anybody signed up
this evening no would anyone like to address the council on the tip connie's
got a foot forward and mary's behind her come on up connie so i'm
connie marsh i live up on squawk and this feels like my ten thousandth
tip and every time i see one i get a little bit more jaded
because um Well, the top projects tend to get done when we have
funding for them. The rest sort of wheelie-wag around and other things happen. But
in all the reiterations of the TIP, I think what I miss the most
is when we used to get the spreadsheets saying how much money was being
spent on things other than cars. because when you measure cars and you total up
funding for cars and single occupancy vehicles, that's what you get. And I don't think
we can afford to look at our town that way anymore. We can't build our
way out of it. So we need to start figuring out how we are going
to measure mobility. And everybody says, "Oh, the mobility master plan." Well, I think that
needs to start now. I think there is not a general recognition amongst the community
that you can't build your way out. And so when you put up a TIP,
a Transportation Improvement Plan, and it is filled with auto-oriented projects and you don't pull
out anything other than that and say, "Oh, and this is what we're doing to
help pedestrians, and this is what we're doing to help you ride the bus, and
this is keeping you out of the rain when you wait for the bus," then
you are not showing a balance in your transportation system that I think is
the future. And I think that future should start now. We've done it again.
And I would ask for those spreadsheets to be reinitiated. At one point in
time, we actually had the sidewalk portion sort of pulled out a
little bit, and now it's all glammed into road projects. And so
we can't tell the difference between a sidewalk where people walk and
bike lanes. And so it's hard to understand from the community what
our system is. So I don't think it's as easy as I'm
making it sound, but I think we need to try. Thank you.
- Thank you. Mary? - My name is Mary Lynch, and I
reside at 2690 Northwest. Oak Crest Drive. I thought I did.
There we go. Okay. And I want to just say I thank
Kurt for all the work that he put into this and that
it is out in a timely fashion so we maybe have more
than one public hearing. First I want to say is I'm really glad to see
that we have moved the Providence Point intersection up to the top of the list
because it's much overdue and needed and we need it now with all the development
that's going on not only in that end of town but also on out Lake
Sammamish. The other question I have I would say is why are we pushing
the Tibbetts frontage out past year six because with the other thing on your Dr.
Knight which is the transit oriented development they're not charged to really redo anything on
Newport Way but yet they're going to have much impact on that section of Newport
Way and I think the frontage project is just the park I don't think it
addresses the other side nor does it really address the intersection at S 900 and
so I think we need to have something in there as a placeholder that needs
to happen and if the transit oriented development is going forward quickly that needs to
be moved up to the priority and not below the line. The other thing I
have some concern with is on the funding for the 21st Street is that's part
of the vision but we really don't even know what's happening out there and to
have funding for it unless it's identified by the developer I don't feel we should
be spending any more tax dollars on projects like that. We've got too many that
have gone unfunded. So that being said, what's missing then? What dropped way down low
was the rest of Newport Way from South 54th to Lakemont. And may I remind
you that is needed for concurrency as part of the central area plan concurrency study.
Also that would help get you the Mountains of Sound Greenway or that portion. What's
also missing and part of the vision from the The plan that you did the
last meeting as far as for the central area plan is Mount to Sound Greenway.
Where is that in this funding? I don't see it any place. The other thing
that was identified as a need and vision and success is the Gateway I-90 multimodal
bridge over I-90. That's not in there. Neither is the missing links of the Lake
Sam Trail that have been identified and were being needed because of some of the
rework that's done on 62nd and then what else is missing. So these are missing
projects that I really think need to be addressed before the TIP is approved and
those projects moved in the next six years. All of these things are happening in
the next six years. Thank you. Thank you, Mary. Is there anyone else that would
like to speak during the public hearing? Second call. Anyone wishing to
speak? Final call for speakers on the 2019 to 2024 Six-Year
Transportation Improvement Program. Okay, we will close the public hearing at
8:38 and there is no council action requested on this item
at tonight's meeting. This item will return for a decision at
the June 18th 2018 council meeting. So now we are moving
to regular business. I have to double check with the clerk here. Did
I actually announce that we were doing an agenda revision? Okay, it's been a long
meeting. So item A this evening will be the motion that was postponed from the
May 21st, 2018 meeting And the motion was to direct the administration to reevaluate the
permitted land uses in the Central Issaquah development and design standards and make recommendations to
the City Council as to whether or not changes are needed after the moratorium is
lifted. And I'm going to check in with Councilmember Goodman and ask if you want
to introduce this item. I do, thank you. I talked to the Mayor and also
Council leadership. a fairly beefy agenda tonight. And so this will probably come
very late into the evening. And so for that reason, I'm going to
be making a motion to postpone the motion to the June 18, 2018
council meeting. Second. So it's been moved and seconded to postpone the motion
to June 18, 2018. Is there any council discussion? Okay,
no discussion. All those in favor of postponing to June 18th say aye. Aye. Those
opposed? Motion carries unanimously. We're now moving to AB 7524, end of Taos Development Agreement.
This item was before the Council at the March 19th Council meeting and it was
remanded to the Planning Policy Commission with direction to consider redesignating the zoning of Parcel
9. Planning Policy Commission's recommendation came out on May 10th and
now tonight is returning to Council for a decision. I'd like to
invite Lucy Sloman, Land Development Manager, to make a presentation. Good evening.
Good evening. So as a brief recap of how we got here
in the recent past, on December 4th the Council directed the Administration
to separate the Taos and Iskua Highlands Development Agreements and go back
to the community. which we did for TALIS on January
23rd. On March 19th, when we returned to the full council, the development agreement
termination and replacement regulations were remanded to the Planning Policy Commission. A hearing was
held on May 10th, And at that hearing it was recommended that that
UVMF zoning be applied to parcel 9. So tonight we are returning to
the council potentially for a decision and I just remind the council that
we did not go to Land and Shore at your direction. So there
were some different process that was used to the planning policy commission. So
I just wanted to touch on that and explain what happened. Um, there was a
public hearing. That's not unusual, but typically planning policy commission hearings are legislative. Um, but
in this case it was quasi judicial with the planning policy commissioners declaring any conflicts
which they had. Why did that happen? Uh, that morning, uh, the, the the decision,
a legal decision called Schnitzer was issued first thing and we
consulted with the city attorney about what approach to take and
using an abundance of caution, we proceeded with a quasi-judicial approach
following the hearing which necessitated the declaration of any conflicts.
Following that, the city attorney had an opportunity to review in more depth the Schnitzer
decision, determined that the situation was not comparable, and we were able to proceed with
the legislative process for the rest of the development agreement.
And as you know, there was quite a few comments that resulted from that. So
what I want to do is touch on some of those comments this evening. First
of all, there was some comments about terminating the development agreement, which I believe is
why we're here. There were also some comments about parcel 17B, which is the undeveloped
property below Timber Ridge. and asking for it to remain commercial only. It is
still shown as commercial only in the replacement regulations. There's a separate process underway
right now, an appeal about what uses can and the process for determining what
uses could be on that property. There were quite a few
comments about not changing the density or the number of units. And we
just wanted to be clear that whether the property is zoned single-family or
multi-family, it would have 90 units on it. So the zoning does not
affect that entitlement. There was also many comments related to changes from the original
proposal or changes to the original zoning. So over the life of the development agreement
as has been mentioned this evening, there has been a reduction in density. The zoning
has always remained the same as UV or urban village. But now, because we are
terminating the development agreement, we have to determine what the replacement regulations would be. In
other words, what would the zoning on any particular parcel be? And that's what we're
discussing this evening. So there are a couple of policy questions that are
not particularly clear, which is why you get paid the big bucks. So one is
site stability. There were a lot of public comments both this evening and in the
emails concerning which building types would create the most stability. There was obviously a lot
of concern about consistency with the rest of TALIS and its character and about increasing
the height from 45 feet to 60 feet. So for your consideration, I just
want to put a few things out there for you to use this evening. In
terms of stabilization, there is quite a bit of work that's been underway. Last year,
the city in the fall did a stabilization and repair project on roads and underground
infrastructure. That project is now complete. The owner of the property is constructing a series
of buried walls to stabilize the site. Those are underway. I believe two walls have
been permitted and one wall is in review and the fourth wall will be, as
they see how the progress goes, determine whether that fourth wall is required. When all
of that work is done, there will need to be additional
geotechnical assessment to determine what kind of development the site can
support. That's a big question and we won't know until all
that repair work and stabilization work is complete. Now to building
type and height. Under the development agreement right now, single-family
homes, townhouses, and apartments up to 60 feet are allowed.
When the property was subdivided, the preliminary plat, the sort
of first step in the subdivision process, identified townhomes up
to 60 feet in height. The next step in the
subdivision process would be a final plat. That has been
stalled and the property is kind of caught between preliminary and final plat. If
the property had been final platted, consistent with the preliminary plat, and we were
placing zoning on it, we would have zoned it for townhouses up to 45
feet. The challenge is that we're caught in that sort of purgatory in between
the preliminary and final plat. The choices that have been
established in the replacement regulations are either UVSF for single family, which
would allow single family homes or townhouses up to 45 feet, or
UVMF for multifamily, single family homes, townhouses, or apartments up to 60
feet. question question i want to start um one second council member so
lucy how far i have one more slide paul would it be okay if we
get through one slide and come back as long as you know how to go
back one slide i do that is contrary to what lucy said you guys don't
get the big bucks we run on volunteer power up here but lucy's get the
big bucks she can figure out how to make that slide go back impossible So,
I just, the last slide is just to assist the council in sort of making
a bridge between where we were on March 19th and the actions that you're being
asked to take tonight. Because this is really a continuation from that decision-making process. So
I'm just providing this summary to help you know where we were. So on
March 1st, the Land and Shore Committee, Council Committee made a recommendation. There
were seven topics of that in that recommendation. Five of them
were the Land and Shore Committee recommended in the affirmative.
Those five items, one, two, three, four, and six on
the slide are shown in the replacement regulations following the
Land and Shore recommendation. Item number seven on vesting,
Land and Shore did not make a recommendation. We stuck with the administration
recommendation. I would just add that, As both the administration and council have,
I believe, discussed, there was a desire that both TALIS and Issaquah Highlands have the
same vesting regulations. And so to do that, you would select option number one, which
is the one that is shown in the replacement regulations at this time. Lucy, you
want to back up one slide? And we'll go start with Councilmember Winchester. Thank you.
Thank you. Regarding building type and height, so I have a couple
questions are going to form as we're we're going along here in your you say
the preliminary plat says townhouses up to 60 feet. So I had in my mind
that was townhouse the preliminary plat had townhouses up to 45. So this is where
being kind of caught in the middle is a challenge. The townhouses The code
allowed them to go up to 60 feet. The townhouses, as much as we've
seen anything, they were 45 feet. If the final plat had gone through and
we were applying zoning like we would for any other parcelized one unit per
one lot, it would have been 45 feet. Okay, okay
fine. So the preliminary plat was complete and that had townhouses up to 60. I
just wanted to be clear. I always thought that that had been 45. Tonight the
word, and actually on your next slide, you don't have to go there, the word
vesting was thrown out. And I'd like you to just say a little bit about
that. Is vesting, if you have a preliminary plat, and it's
been that's been finalized or whatever you call that how does that relate to
vesting so I'm gonna start and I'm sure the city attorney will love to
see him so yeah he's reaching for the microphone so when a preliminary plat
is submitted to the city if the application is determined to be complete
then it is considered vested. Okay, well what does that
mean? It means that the things that are shown in
the preliminary plat or the things that are required to
review the preliminary plat are vested. How am I doing,
Jim? So in this case, Buildings were shown, some were
attached, some were single family, the general location of those
were shown, some landscape was shown, the roads were shown,
the critical area setbacks were shown. So those kinds of
things are vested by the preliminary plot. Okay, and, okay,
and... I think the language as that's
in the replacement regulations, the option that you talked about earlier, would
then hold those as vested going forward even with the replacement regulations.
Yes, because-- If adopted as proposed. Sorry, excuse me for interrupting you.
What the option number one is doing is identifying the three
things that state law vests and preliminary plats are one of
those. So we are not establishing something different than the state
or more expansive than the state in option number one. We're
matching the state. Okay. Okay. And can you go, that's all I was
gonna ask about vesting. I have two other questions. Sure. You look like you're ready
to say something. Well, I was just gonna add two things. First is that Lucy's
correct that PLATS vest, PLAT applications vest when a complete application is filed. And that
means that a PLAT is considered under the regulations that are in effect at the
time the application is filed. Once the preliminary plat is approved, which is what we
have here, the developer has a right to construct, assuming they get final plat approval,
they will have the right to construct what is shown on the preliminary plat.
So right now they had a right under the platting regulations to have their
plat application considered under the regulations in effect when they filed their application. Now
they have a preliminary plat. That means they have the right to go ultimately
to final plat if they meet all the conditions of preliminary plat approval and
to build what is shown on the preliminary plat. All right, thank you. Thank
you. I'm going to be working up quickly. Sure. So stability, the- I wanted to
go back and talk about vesting for just a second, if we can. I'd just
like to check with Council for a second. In some of our commissions, what we
do is we keep on a topic and have all the Council members review it
instead of doing it round robin style. So what is your preference this evening? Would
you all like to ask questions on vesting, move on to the next topic, or-
Go ahead, Council. I would suggest that each council member ask their questions first because
my questions may build off each other to a point, hopefully. Okay, thanks. So
I'll get to second then. Go ahead, Council Member Winchester. Okay, thank you. And,
you know, I might, yeah, I'm going to cede the floor to my Council
Member Ray and I'll come back later. Councilmember Wray. Thank you. So what's
what you because you said something pretty interesting which is what is that the
vesting of a preliminary plat vests those things that are in a preliminary plat.
What's in a preliminary plat? Well sometimes they're just lot lines and streets. I
did go back and look at it today and building footprints were shown. So
that does give them more than the just the property lines. Thank you.
You're welcome. Questions? Council President Martz. So I was the council member who wasn't here
the last time council heard this. So I'm going to beg your forgiveness for asking
some perhaps dumb questions. So I have four that should be easy and the fifth
might be a doozy. So the first is you said Plenary Plat, some were attached,
some were single family. They're all single family, right? It's just some are attached single
family and some are detached single family, right? But the preliminary plat is for 30
is to subdivide the parcel into 30 pieces of land for 30 different owners. that
some of whom would have attached houses to their neighbors, right? So, I'm going to
restate that a little bit. I agree with most of what you said. It's not,
I don't know where 30 came from. So, 90, Sorry, 90. 30 was my misspeaking.
Okay. Okay. And I was kind of referring, because the plat covered Parcels 7, 8,
and 9, I was referring to all three of them. So that was part of
where the confusion, and that's why I wasn't sure when you said 30 what that
might have referenced. So Parcels 7 and 8 showed single-family detached, sort of a traditional
house. Parcel 9 showed single-family attached, which is more commonly called townhouses. Got it.
Why close the TALIS DA now? Why are we doing this now? We've had the
development agreement. It's been an excellent tool, but it is 15 years old and the
regulations are out of date. I mean, there are critical area regulations, stormwater regulations that
we feel we really need to be using more up-to-date tools than the development agreement
offers us. Okay. What were the development rights on this parcel of land before the
development agreement came along? You know, I saw that question and I poked around and
I could not find what it was. I assume it was probably five-acre zoning for
single family based on the kinds of houses that were there when the TALIS project
started, but I don't actually know what it was zoned. So very, very steep horse
farms, basically. Horse farms or goat farms, if you will. Okay. Okay. We'll go with
goat farms. What was the multifamily housing in Talus? Has it been
built recently? What's in the last few years? Has there been any
multifamily built? Yes, and I appreciated the opportunity to sort of
build a little slide. So anything that, I don't know how well
these colors read, anything that's so, that's colored purple, which is kind
of subtle here, which are the ones that are listed across the
bottom. So these six parcels have been developed as multifamily over the
course from 2003 through 2017. So there's been And I
would be glad to show where these are. So
this is Calabria and it's mostly right here that's
the multifamily. Rosecrest, the Estates, Spring Peak, which is
probably the newest from scratch, Copper Ridge and Timber
Ridge. Okay. And then, so here's the one that's
maybe harder. So the DA's provided sort of special rights for a period
of time, right? It's an environment that's got very specific sort of fixed development environment
to encourage certain kinds of development. Do we have the ability in closing the DA
to evaluate those rights with respect to changes that have occurred in the last 20
years? So my understanding is yes, that it is a contract. with a date
under which is called the build-out period and during that build-out period
there are very limited ways in which you can change the rules
and entitlements and rights under the development agreement. And then when that
contract period ends, if you choose to terminate it, either party, either
the master developer or the city chooses to terminate it, then you
can make whatever choices you want. I'm phoning a friend. Well, the
only thing I would add to that is that during the term
of the build-out, You can only make changes in the terms of the
agreement if they are necessitated by a serious threat to public health and safety. So
the council needs to make that kind of or by agreement. My question was at
the closing of the DA. Yes. And so during the agreement, you're limited to that.
At the closing of the agreement, you have the ability to establish any zoning regulations
that you deem appropriate. thank you very much i appreciate it that's that's all the
questions i had uh deputy council president batiste Thank you. Lucy, this was sent
back to PPC a second time, and could you speak to
their recommendation coming back, sort of nutshell that? Why they made
the recommendation on the remand? The question that they primarily asked
was what is the new information? I think that our
understanding was that it was not that the choice, that the
way in which parcel 9 was trapped between preliminary and final
plat had not been as overt as the council and the
administration wanted it to be, and that we wanted to go
back and have that public conversation to ensure that it was
very clear what the choices were for that property
and the Commission kept asking what was new and
we did not have new information and they carried
forward their recommendation from the September 28th hearing thank
you welcome more questions Working down a couple council members who haven't had
a chance to ask yet. Council Member Goodman? If there aren't, I'm for a motion
if there are no more questions or what's the next? I'm sure to sell, no
rustling. Okay, it's time for motion. Sorry, no, Council Member Winterstein? Yeah, if you've got
questions. Go back. Thank you for this additional information, by the way. Is
it a different slide deck where you had up earlier? No, it's all one big
gigantic one. So I just need to know where you want me to go. Hit
8 and enter. I'm not sure what number it is. Was it like that one?
That's 5. Okay. We were close. Is that the one you want? Yeah. Yes.
You didn't say this, but what I was listening for, I was just kind
of -- you do say under stabilization or stability. Additional geotech assessment will be
required to determine what development the site might be able to support. So that
doesn't presuppose anything. There's a possible outcome that nothing could be built there. Is
that -- is that possible with the --
that a potential geotech assessment we don't know right right we
don't know we don't know okay um all right got it
thanks for your answer uh go back to uh then and
back one more slide to slide four you had some on
your fourth bullet during your presentation you said um 90 unit
i think you used the phrase something like 90 units will
be built there it says maximum will be 90 units And
so kind of just, I'm splitting hairs a little bit. I just want to
be absolutely clear. First of all, and you also use the word entitlement, which
I think is commonly used within the framework of the development agreement. So the
parcel nine has 90 dwelling unit entitlements. So I really appreciate you listening
so closely to my words. So let me make a couple of adjustments. So
we, for 20 years I've used the word entitlement because that's the development agreement
word. But as we move into the replacement regulations, it's what we call a
zoning cap. So I mean, it's measured the same way, - Dwelling units. - It's
dwelling units, right. So, and the other point that you're making, which is very
important, is it's the maximum under single family or multi-family is 90 units. That
does not mean that 90 units would be built, but that the maximum number
would not change whichever zoning was put in place, at least as it's proposed
right now. - Okay, thank you for that clarification. preliminary plat have 90
units yes and so that was 90 townhomes yes
okay and and if and one of the questions
we're going to be addressing shortly is is the
multifamily zoning versus single-family zoning and it's going to
be 90 dwelling units the cap regardless of the
zoning That's what's proposed in either scenario. So if this
council goes with single family, it would be up to 90
dwelling units. If this council goes with multifamily, it would be
up to 90 dwelling units. Absolutely. Okay. All right. Thank you
for that clarity. That's all my questions at this time. Any
more questions? I have a question from our lawyer. Not
a question, but I did want to point out one thing that is
about the packet and the material you have in the packet. The ordinance
that you have in the packet adopts the PPC's findings from September 28th
and May 10th. So and those findings are related to having the talus parcel
9 the UV multifamily. So if you decide to do something different and I have
no idea what the council is going to do, but if you decide to do
something different, you will need to make a change in the ordinance and in the
findings. if you decide to do something different. I don't know whether you're planning
on doing that or not, but I just wanted to make sure before you
started into your deliberations that you recognize that that's the way the ordinance is
currently drafted. Thank you. That's a great clarification. Any other questions? We'd entertain a
motion. Thank you. Council Member Goodman. Thank you. So, I'm going to make a
motion that is called the alternative motion in the packet. And...
My understanding and intent is that it would be to propose the UV
single family instead of the UV multifamily, but for everything else that was
on your list, it would be proposed as in the-- Everything else would
be unchanged except for the couple of things that are noted in the
motion to implement the single family. And the-- I guess we'd
have to deal with the ordinance. I'll just make the motion and then if we
have to change the ordinance. I would move to adopt ordinance number 2840. Adopting by
reference a new chapter 18.19C of the Issaquah Municipal Code providing urban village replacement regulations
for the area formerly governed by the TALUS Development Agreement, providing for severability and savings
except modifying the figures 2A and 2B
Second.
It's been moved and seconded and I'm not going to read it again. Before we
go to council deliberations, I realize and so does the council how emotionally invested many
people are here tonight, both property owners and develops and residents that are here. I
think the council was very respectful in listening to the public comment earlier.
I'd like to make sure as they go through their deliberations that we
offer that same level of respect so that they can finish their deliberations
uninterrupted and we can get to a vote this evening. That's my hope.
Discussions? I can make comments. My comments are primarily about parcel 9 because
I support the other proposals. A list that you have. Can you put that list
back up so we know sort of the outstanding issues? And these are the same,
I think primarily except the buffer, the same list that we had outstanding that we
were talking about when we had the Issaquah Highlands Development Agreement termination. Two, three, and
four are unique to TALIS. Okay. So, I'm supporting these, but I'm
speaking to, my comments are related to parcel nine because that's, as
of late, really what we've been hearing a lot about. But first
I want to thank everybody who has taken the time to email and call the
Council with your comments. I appreciate it very, very much. I realize that it takes
time and passion to do that. And I say this every time we have a
lot of public comment. I think the public probably believes that we get a ton
of email traffic and telephone traffic, and the fact is we don't. So it's very,
very helpful, at least to me, when I hear from the community about how you
feel about the issues that we deliberate about many times every month. It's really helpful
to me. I want to thank you. I have not gotten back to all of
you in your emails, but I will, and I have listened to all of my
voicemails. The next thing I want to say to
all of you who oppose the multifamily zoning on parcel 9, I'm totally with you
because I don't support multifamily zoning on that parcel as well. To me, the issues
are about the character of TALIS and community expectations. Regarding the character of TALIS, I
want to make it clear that this issue has nothing to do with rental versus
ownership. TALIS is a mix of multifamily, or sorry, rental and ownership already. A mix
was envisioned and so a mix is perfectly appropriate. However, in my opinion, multifamily on
that parcel is not consistent with the character of Tallis, at least not today. I
agree with the comments I've heard that driving up Tallis Drive with a 60-foot tall,
potentially stacked flat apartments so prominent at the top of the main ingress is too
imposing. When I enter these days on Issaquah on I-90 and my first glimpse of
Issaquah is the sea of apartment buildings, I'm disappointed and I'm sad. The form of
those buildings was not what we envisioned in the Central Issaquah plan and it's one
of the main reasons we had a moratorium to fix the errors in that plan
that allowed that type of form. Residents in Tallis have spoken loudly in past few
weeks. They too do not want to look at 60 foot high apartment buildings at
the top of their main drive. That's not consistent with the mountain village character of
Tallis. Secondly, the TALIS community expects us to use the information
we have today to make good decisions for the future of TALIS, just as we
did when upholding the expectations on certain vacant parcels in the Highlands in order to
preserve the vision there, unless that community tells us otherwise, we also need to listen
to TALIS residents. And the vision for that parcel undoubtedly has evolved. The fact that
the parcel, and particularly over the past two years with the slide, actually it's been
almost three, The fact that the parcel had a significant slide can't be ignored when
considering zoning now. Because of that slide, the TALIS community clearly is much more aware
of that parcel, as we heard tonight, than they were nearly three years ago. And
the community clearly has spoken. They want single-family on that parcel. I respect that view
and I agree with it. Thank you. Ms. Member Winterstein, do I see your hand?
I did and I'm gonna ask a question because we had
some new information tonight. Given the proposal, the motion that's on
the floor and been seconded, I'm gonna go back to vesting.
Is, so because there's an approved preliminary plat of up to
60 feet, is that vested? And is this motion consistent with
that vesting? The regulations that are associated with the plat
I'm gonna let you answer that. The answer is that the
plat was vested under the regulations in effect at the time
the application was filed, but once the preliminary plat is approved,
the developer obtains the right to build whatever is shown in
the plat. And I'm gonna ask Lucy if the 60-foot
buildings were shown in the preliminary plat or if 45 foot buildings were shown
if there was anything in the plat that indicated one or the other. So
it's a great question. My thought is height was not indicated, but I would
have to go back and look more closely at the drawings to determine that.
Well, the developer has the right to build what is shown in the plat. If
they didn't show the height in the plat and the height regulations change, I think
that they're subject to the new height regulations. Okay, thank you. And I didn't anticipate
this question. It was Lucy's slide earlier that showed preliminary plat 60 feet. I had
thought it had been at 45. And the proposal for single family does have a
limit of 45 feet, hence my question. - I wasn't, so it seems to
me that it might not, they may be in conflict. - So I understand your
point. I think that the numbers I was showing were what was allowed while it
was being reviewed under the development agreement. So I would have to do the subsequent
research to answer that question of what was, whether, I'm sorry, I don't know whether
height was shown. It's not typically shown. So I would have to look at both
the staff report and the drawings to confirm that. Okay, and I'm not presupposing anything.
It was just on your slide earlier. That's why I'm asking. Right, and I was
talking about in a different point in time and that was not clear. Do you
have comments as well, Paul? Well, that was, I just think this is germane. I
mean, and if you could, maybe I'm interpreting, you said a different point in time.
Do you have that? Can you put that back up? Yeah. So when the-- It
says preliminary townhouses up to 60 feet. That's the first I had seen that. Right,
because at the time the preliminary plat was shown under the development agreement, 60 feet
would have been allowed. And so I apologize that was misleading in terms of what
would happen going forward. I had not done that level of research. Now I understand
why you're asking the question. Okay, you're not saying there that the preliminary plat included
60 feet. I am not. I'm simply saying under the regulations at that time, it
was 60 feet, not... that the preliminary plat vested 60 feet and like you said
earlier a preliminary plat may just show lot lines and roads and that's what vests
if they have something more on there that would vest so if it's if it's
silent about a certain option or element then that doesn't vest right And
if they had shown 60, it would make it legally non-conforming. Okay. All
right. Just to be clear, when a plat application is filed, what vesting
means is that the applicant has a right to have its plat considered
under the regulations in effect at that time. And there's a lot of cases out
there where people have talked about, well, what does that mean? Does it mean I
have the right to do certain types of buildings? Does it mean I have a
right to certain uses? What does it mean? Does it mean I have the right
to setbacks? And the answer is that you have a right to have your plat
considered under those regulations. And that includes anything that you have shown on your plat
And so if you showed setbacks on your plat, you'd be vested as to the
setbacks. If you showed certain road standards on your plat, you'd be vested to those
road standards. If you don't show them, then once your plat is approved and the
regulations change, those new regulations will apply to anything that is not shown on your
plat. okay good yeah that's consistent with my understanding and and again my question was
that information would be in conflict with the proposal for single family which has a
limit of 45 and i understand your answer right now um i'll see the floor
Council President Marks. So I'm going to support this alternate amendment or alternate motion that
was made for tonight. Needs change in a community. We saw that a couple of
years ago when we considered and chose to lower speeds on Newport. Your argument was
roads change, right? What had been a regional thoroughfare became, you know, the street
out in front of people's homes. And so we acted accordingly. Highlands needs have changed
over time. You know, Talus has certainly changed. We hear a little bit tonight about
the office campus and the village center, and I take a little sigh as
to uh what has and hasn't gotten built and and i think what we've seen
over the last 20 years is a consensus to put housing density on the valley
on the valley floor and to a lesser extent in the highlands i noticed from
the conversation on condominiums that recent condos in talus have been low profile except for
the obvious exception of timber ridge right but the the appetite when uh uh condos
have gone in have been for lower profile they have not been for for these
larger units you know i think the fundamental task in front of any elected official
and i've said this before is is to look at at the rights of the
individual while identifying acting and acting on the community will and finding where that finding
where that common ground is the community will has certainly been amply expressed on this
issue. And I really believe the individual rights have been secured through the vesting
that we talked about this evening. I think that's super important. I think the
city takes vesting when a DA closes very importantly and parses that closely when
a DA ends to make sure we understand what's vested and what's not. And
I think... I think also intent in reviewing the materials, I think the fact that
this was voluntarily down selected from high to medium density to allow to get to
single family further shows that there was at the time of the vesting a very
strong intent on the part of the developer to go to the single family units.
And so that influences my decision as well. And that's why I'll be supporting it
tonight. Thank you. Council Member Ramos. Yes, first of all, I'd like to thank everybody
who participated in the public comment section in any way, shape or form tonight
and comments or through emails or telephone, it's the most public comment I've seen on
anything in Issaquah since I've been here. So I commend you to showing up and
doing your public duty when you care about something. That's what life is about here
and taking care of your community because community matters, obviously. So thank you for that.
And I know that single family is right for maintaining character of this area. And
that's what I'll be supporting. Thank you. Thank you. Deputy Council President Patis. So
I wanted to just echo some of what you've already heard. I very much appreciate
you coming out to the council meeting and giving all your feedback. We received so
many emails. I tried to respond to some of them. I know I didn't respond
to all of them, but I wanted you to know that I did have an
opportunity to read them and I really appreciate you both being here and all the
emails and phone calls that we did receive. And when we get that amount of
public outreach, it is just so critically important because on a lot of topics, we
don't get all of that public outreach. So I very much appreciate that. One thing
that's critical that we're talking about is ending the development agreement for TALIS,
and I feel like it's time and that's critically important to move forward.
I do support all of the March 19th topics that we had listed
that had gone through land and shore. and all of those are, we're not talking
about a lot of them tonight other than parcel nine, but all very important and
I do support those. All of the information, this is a complicated issue, and all
of the information, I think we've all done, you know, really taken the time to
take in all the information, but in regard to the character of TALIS, the
height selection that we're talking about. That has led me to
be supportive of the alternate motion that we have tonight. And
so I'll be supporting that for a single family. Thank you.
Council Member Ray. So a lot of people have worked very
diligently for the last 18 months to bring the TALIS development
agreement to an end with replacement regulations that address the future of the community. And
I believe that the ending of the DA is a forward-looking process, not necessarily a
backwards-looking process. And when I look at the goal that was set, the number one
goal that was set, for ending the DA, it was to retain the character of
the urban villages. And I think that we've got some great guidance from the community
over the last couple weeks on what maintain the character of the urban village of
Tallis looks like. So I think we know, I know how I'm going to vote
on this issue. - Thank you, and I saw Council Member Hunt's hand go up.
Thank you, Madam Mayor. I am also in support of the single-family
zoning for this parcel, which is the topic that I think we're
all focusing in on this evening. There are a number of other
regulations that also going to go into effect with the ending of the
TALIS DA, and I support those as well. I really appreciated in public comment
seeing some of the changes by the maps actually that Mr. Ken Conning-Smarck showed.
I think that over time, the vision and the plan does update and Council
President Martz also spoke about that. I wanted to also echo
one thing that Council Member Goodman spoke about, which is that it isn't in
our purview as Council to decide the ownership versus rental. This is something that
isn't in the zoning that the city in this case is not deciding. And
actually, as a person that recently rented a townhome and a bunch of townhomes
that were all rental, I think that that either can be ownership
or rental and the decision before us is about the single
family building structure type versus the multi-family building structure type and
i support single family motion as made by council member goodman
Thank you, Councilmember Hunt. Councilmember Winterstein, I'm going to come back to you because I'm
not sure that you've completed your comments. Oh yeah, I didn't. I hadn't yet. So
thank you very much. I too appreciate it. It was i haven't responded to all
the emails but i've gone kind of from most current to most recent and i'm
over a hundred responses in and i'm only to last friday afternoon which means there's
a probably a couple hundred more that predated that uh forgive me for not getting
back to you if you send an email uh prior to that i appreciate that
very much and it was very um came through loud and clear with the community's
preference was in terms of single family. And I want to take this opportunity
as well to point out some of the other things that would come with
these replacement regulations. And just so you're there, because I think in a number,
quite a few of the emails, I picked up the perception that maybe multifamily
meant more dwelling units than single family. And as you heard tonight, it doesn't.
So it's unfortunate if people had that misinterpretation. I also picked up in
a lot of the emails that there was the perception that that
there may be a style and a form that is inconsistent
with whatever was built, as inconsistent with what's in TALIS today.
And the good news is that with these replacement regulations, the
architectural standards, and the design guidelines from the DA are with some
modifications are retained. The Talus Covenants conditions and restrictions also remain in
place and the Architectural Review Committee, I assume will still stand and
have a say. So all of those definitions, those regulations and constraints
that helped shape the form and the factor that you so love
today mostly remain in place. So whatever building or whatever type, whether it be single
or multifamily, that will be built. that you can be assured that it's going
to be consistent in the kind of the look and form and the feel that
you've grown accustomed to and like so much about TALIS today. And there's another change
in there too, which I think is very significant, and it has to do with
a section, it's called Hillside Sites. And this would be a change
that would, if in place previously, would actually have caused
a different build out than you see today. Under the
development agreement, if a parcel is sloped to a certain
pitch, And under the development agreement, each parcel did have a maximum height
of whatever their buildings could be. But if it was pitched, or not, I guess,
but you could average the heights. So if there was an 80-foot maximum, you could
have a 100-foot building and a 60-foot building and therefore have an average of 80
feet and meet it. And that's what's, one of the things I really struggled with
is when I drive up to Tallis today or ride my bike or walk
up that street, of course what dominates your entrance is the over 100 foot
tall front building of Timber Ridge. That's the entrance to Tallis. And under these
regulations, it couldn't be 100 feet. It could be 80 feet. because and
and that's a significant difference now I won't go into all the details but on
what would govern that but there is a relatively new portion of the central and
is a quad a development of design standards that's being adopted here that has these
hillside sites regulations in there and that will affect whatever happens that will be in
effect on any development going forward including on parcel 9 Last thing I wanted to
say is yesterday evening, it was, oh, about dinner time, because I know Lucy had
her dinner in the oven when I called her, and I was standing at the
top of Parcel 9, and I had walked from the bottom along the street to
the top to get a sense of try to get a sense myself of what
the height different what how high is the beginning in the front or the I
should say the east and the west sides of that it's kind of from downhill
to uphill I don't have exact numbers and I probably could have got them but
it looks like it's roughly 70 feet plus or minus 10 feet. I was trying
to measure it with a GPS. And when you stand at the top there
and you realize that height is okay, that is the potential if under the
multifamily option, that is the potential maximum height. then I could envision
what the impact might look like. It's possible that there
would be a building down by Shangri-La Way, 60 feet
tall, which would basically be as high as the backside
or the west boundary of that parcel. And That's
very distinctive and quite different than what's surrounding there today. Absolutely
agree with many of the comments that were made about being
consistent with the character building of that size. Certainly would stand
out from the buildings around that are there today. I do really
appreciate what was said by some of my colleagues on the council, Council
Member Goodman, echoed by Council Member Hunt about the question about ownership versus
rental. It was stated many times about just I don't want apartments and
that's a critical strategy. I mean there is a place in our community
for apartments. My daughter lives in an apartment. My son used to live in an
apartment. They've got a place for people in different places on their journey to home
ownership, either growing a family or shrinking a family. So there is a place there,
and we don't want to be judgmental on the people who live in apartments versus
who own their homes. So a lot of input, a lot of them address those
issues. I very do, like I said, I'm going to echo, I appreciate what I've
heard earlier. This has been difficult because really what happens on council when you sit
up here, many times as you're learning about a topic, your first impressions are formed
by the original proposal that comes from the staff, from the administration. And back in
March, when we had this topic up before we actually settled the Highlands Development
Agreement, when it was put up here, people saw in this chamber the same
thing that we had seen for a couple months, the proposal for multifamily because
it precisely matched what's allowed on parcel nine under the development agreements. And to
me that makes a lot of sense, because that's one of the things that was
stated, is that we try to match what was there if it's not developed, or
do an overlay to match what was actually already built. And when people really
spoke loudly about and consistently in many voices spoke about wanting
single family instead of that multifamily, which was a match, that's
where the struggle was for me. because I knew there was taller buildings already. I
knew you were gonna get a design and a development that looked like the buildings
you had already. I knew in your hearts most people accept people whether they live
in apartments or not. It really had to do with the size and the character,
and I've come down on side to agree with the voices from the community and
my colleagues up here, and I'm gonna support the motion. Thank you. I
am just doing a little bit of housekeeping here for the
motion maker. I know we did hear, I believe from Jim
Haney, that if the alternative motion was selected, it wasn't correct.
So if you would consider some additional information and see if
your second agrees, then we'll go to the vote. Okay. So
I would like to propose an amendment to the motion
to add the following language and updating/editing the ordinance language in accordance with
this motion. Does the second agree? Second. Who wants to weigh in? Well,
I was just working on some draft findings as I'm sitting here at
the table to help you out, but I realized that the clerk probably couldn't
read my handwriting if we were doing that. So I was trying to type
them out here, but I'm happy to read them if that helps. Sure. Those
were my words. I think he has better words. So do I need to
withdraw this then, the amendment? - It wasn't seconded. - Un-seconded. - He did
second it. - Un-seconded. - Un-seconded. - Mr. Haney? - So in section three,
Let me make sure I have the microphone close enough. In section
three of the ordinance, it adopts the findings adopted by the PPC
on September 28th and May 10th. And I would just add at
the end of that section, except to those findings supporting the zoning
of TALIS parcel nine as UV-MF, peren, multifamily, end peren, period. as
a substitute for such findings, comma, the council finds
that the Talus IX parcel should be designated UV-SF,
excuse me, SF, peren, single family, end peren, for
the following reasons, colon. One, the UV-SF
zoning is consistent with the approved preliminary
plat for Talus 9, which envisions up
to 90 single family attached dwelling units,
townhomes, period. Two, the UV-SF zoning is
consistent designation is consistent with the character of
development in TALIS in terms of building size
and whatever else you want to add to
that. Three, the UV-SF zoning is consistent with
the community's vision for TALIS 9, which is,
excuse me, as provided in the approved preliminary
plat of single family development. And
four, the UV-MF zoning is inconsistent with the character,
community vision, and approved preliminary plat, period. And that's
what I heard the council say, but if you
have additional additional reasons why the community character is, it isn't consistent with
community character or is consistent, you could fill those in as well. Can I
ask a clerical question first? Tisha, does all of that belong in the motion
or can a reference be made in the motion? Those changes? A
council member could move to amend the ordinance per
the findings that were just read by the city
attorney. That's how the motion would read, per the
findings. Okay. So moved. Second. Can I get those
last few words again? And? To amend the ordinance
to adopt the findings as read by the city
attorney. Okay. So the motion is to
adopt ordinance number 2840, adopting by reference a new chapter 18.19C of the
Issaquah Municipal Code, providing urban village replacement regulations for the area formally governed
by the TALIS Development Agreement, providing for severability and savings except modifying figures
2A and 2B, bracket TALIS zoning and zoning cap map and charts, end
bracket, specifically changing parcel 3 on the map and charts bracket, Talus parcel
9 bracket from UVMF to UVSF and adding to the additional parcel property information
a requirement that the land be subdivided such that there is one unit per
resulting lot and to amend the ordinance to adopt the findings of fact as
read by the City Attorney signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes
unanimously. Councilmember, or Mayor Pauly, can I clarify? So we do need to vote
on the amendment before the motion. So I would suggest retaking the vote to
and specify that it's on the amendment. First vote will be on the amendment
to the motion which is and to amend the ordinance to adopt the findings
as read by the City Attorney. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? the amendment
carries unanimously you're going to make me read that whole thing again i can i
can okay all those in favor of adopting ordinance number 2840 adopting by reference a
new chapter 18.19c of the isco municipal code providing urban village replacement regulations for the
area formerly governed by the talus development agreement providing for severability and savings except modifying
figures 2a and 2b talus zoning and zoning cap maps and charts specifically changing parcel
3 on the map and charts, tells parcel 9, from UVMF to UVSV and
adding to the additional parcel property information a requirement that the land be subdivided
such that there is one unit per resulting lot. Signify by saying aye. Opposed?
Main motion passes unanimously. Thank you.
I'm
going
to
call
for
a
five-minute
recess
now
before
we
move
to
our
next
items.
Thank
you
all
for
attending.
If
you
don't
stay
past
our
recess.
Okay.
So
we
are
back
from
our
recess
and
we
are
moving
on
to
our
next
item
on
regular
business
which
is
AB
7616.
MEND exclusivity section for transit oriented development memorandum of understanding. This is the first
time for this item before Council and we have Jen Davis Hayes, Economic Development
Manager to make a presentation. Hi, good evening. I'm hoping this will be an
easy one. So as you may recall in August of 2017 the Council
voted to allow the mayor to sign the MOU between Spectrum
Development Solutions, CenturyLink, and the city of Issaquah. One of those sections
was the exclusivity period, which specifically calls out, so the language here on the slide,
and this is also in your packet, the language in the slide that's crossed out
was what was in the original, and it had for 180 days after the signing
of that document. We have, as you know, been working on some things that's taking
a little longer than 180 days, and so we have spoken with Spectrum Development Solutions
and CenturyLink and all agree that we want to extend this section of the MOU
until December 31st, 2018. And so this section merely means that CenturyLink can't
go out and work on another project during this period. The MOU itself
does not have a timeframe or an expiration date. Again, the MOU is
the intentions that we that set our intentions to move forward and we'll
be back in late summer and fall talking about the development agreement
which will be the details and the final details for the entire
project. So this again is this extension is just to merely ensure
that the exclusivity between CenturyLink and our partners remains. Thank you. Are
there any questions? Seeing none, are we, I guess this is,
So President Martz, are we ready for a motion? Yes Madam Mayor, I move to
authorize the Mayor to enter into and execute the proposed amendment to the Memorandum of
Understanding with the City Spectrum Development Solutions and CenturyLink for the Transit Oriented Development TOD
project extending the exclusivity section to December 31st, 2018. Second. It's been moved and seconded.
Is there any further discussion? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed?
It passes unanimously. Thank you. Great. And this next one will be just as quick,
right? Yes. The next item on our agenda this evening, AB 7534, Opportunity Center Resolution
for Transit-Oriented Development. This item was heard at the May 14th Council Work Session. And
Jen will stay up at the microphone and make the next presentation. Thanks, Jen. Okay,
so thanks again for hearing about this project. Many of the same slides will be
here from the May 14th work session, but we'll spend time on the ones that
were not. So we're going to move quickly through that so we can get to
discussions, but please stop me if you have any questions, and I may call upon
my friends. I think pretty much everybody in this audience here may be able to
be called up from the development team, HealthPoint, or David Fujimoto, or Keith Niven. First,
I want to mention that I did hand out, and if anybody does not have
it here in audience, an extra spreadsheet that we will be including on the attachment
of the packet, and I think all the council members should have that. So
we're going to talk quickly about the council questions and responses that were in the
memo. We're also going to look at the review of the funding gap and the
options and then the goal for tonight is to select the opportunity center use and
investment choice that we've been discussing the several months. It's kind of interesting that in
tonight's agenda you've been talking about the six-year TIP, the 20-year TALIS agreement, and what
we're creating here is really a 50-plus year building that will be in our community.
We really appreciate everybody's time you've taken over the last few months. This has been
a really complex process and project. And I realize we started exploring this idea in
2014. But we weren't able to really move forward into the King County surplus land
was made available. So at the end of 2016, we published the RFP for the
TOD project and then selected Spectrum and King County Housing Authority in the beginning of
2017. So we've been working hard on this since then and for a project that
takes us almost a decade from the seed of the idea to opening the doors,
we know that the decisions we make today are not only for today but for
many decades to come. We can't entirely predict what the future is, but we're hoping
that we're creating the project here that's next to the transit center that will provide
people with alternatives to owning a car in Issaquah in the future. And so we
do believe that the building reform is going to be able to adapt to future
conditions and the Opportunity Center, which is we'll be talking about tonight, will provide a
sustainable model to provide human services to Issaquah residents. and we're here today to decide
the future of how that will be shaped. After tonight's decision, we will be holding
the community meeting in July and then potentially September, and then we'll be back to
council to talk about a development agreement negotiations as they proceed. So the first slide
I'd like to talk about is the open house. We held that open house last
Thursday evening. We had 15 public attendees. It was a well-attended meeting. and what
some of the concerns that we heard. So at first there
was about 11 stations we had general information about the TOD project. We
had a board from the King County Housing Authority that explored and looked at what
the different income levels and rents would be and for different income that different employees
in the city make and so to kind of understand better who's going to be
living there. And then we had the specific three options out for people to explore.
In general, there wasn't an overwhelming, I like one versus two versus three for the
three options, but people were in general really supportive of the TOD. They had obviously
some concerns about different pieces of it. The transportation impacts or traffic impacts was one
of the largest ones we've heard. So that's about the what's gonna happen to Newport
and SR 900 intersection. What are the improvements planned for Newport? What are the improvements
planned for Maple? Even had a thought about thinking about how the school bus,
which will be not only servicing the residents in the project, but also
the daycare, where that's going to be parked in order to pick up
kids and drop off kids. And the importance of intercity transportation to link
this TOD project to other parts of the city. One of the questions
we had that evening was about the timing of those impacts. So we currently do
not have a transportation impact analysis done for this project. Typically, that happens when projects
come to permit phase. We have talked with the developer and he has agreed that
during the development agreement phase, so in the next steps, he'll be conducting that because
he wants to understand better what those impacts may be. They may not be fully
engineered out to say this is exactly what's going to happen, but we'll be looking
at those options and be able to have that discussion with council and the community
in future. The other piece, and I think you heard a comment tonight, was about
the parking. So one of the users, or at least one of the users, would
require additional parking that we know about. So that's option two, looking at the healthcare
user. We, again, don't know all the users in option one, so we can't make
any assumptions about that yet. But we are committed to finding a solution with HealthPoint
and Valley Cities to either find, we own city properties in the area. We're also
exploring on-street parking and we'll work with them on our commute trip reductions through our
salmon friendly trips. So while we don't have a solution identified at this time, that
is our next step as well as staff to figure that out and come back
to you about how we'll address that. Any questions so far?
yes i have a question about what you just said about parking um there
was a draft memo that talked about information that we had gotten um in
regards to meridian center did that make it to the final oh i hope
so Okay, sorry. I hope so. So in the draft, so one of the challenges
of, and we were asked, you know, what is the parking needs going to be
for the health center? And they are estimating based on their current sites, which are
not next to a transit center, which don't have as good transit service. So they
estimate between 20 and 40 extra spaces they need than what's already provided in the
building. We're lucky enough that Hal Farris, who's with Spectrum Development Solutions, developed a similar
project up in the Northgate area. It is not by the Northgate Transit Center, but
it's across the highway from that, across the street from that. Again, not right next
to a really robust transit system. And he went and did some research and found
they had just over two spaces per thousand square feet. That is what our code,
two spaces per thousand square feet is what our code provides and what will be
provided within the parking structure for this use. So it's pretty aligned with what they
are seeing up there in Northgate. Again, he mentions with less robust transit service. So...
That was enlightening and HealthPoint, you know, again, has committed to working with us
to reduce trips as much as possible. Thank you. One of the
things that I wanted to talk about is people also mentioned about and we've had
conversations with some council members about the uses that are on the site and how
transit oriented they are. And one of the things that we really struggle with is
that the TOD project is a little bit before its time as far as the
type. We haven't seen this type or the building type which means It's gonna be
have mixed use, it's gonna be mixed income happen in our community, but we know
that we wanna see this form of development that meets the Central Issaquah plan vision.
So we have, again, talked to the developer about in the future, so we will
commit and working with our partners and they have partners for their commercial uses. But
as things change, so if in 20 years the release runs out and there's an
opportunity to make something more vibrant, maybe there's some space within some of the apartment
amenities that could be better utilized for retail in the future or a little coffee
shop. That is something that this building is going to be built to allow those
changes. And we as the property owners for the Opportunity Center can make those decisions
in the future as well about if there's a need for changing something. So while
people may be concerned about the current uses not being that restaurant retail, really vibrant,
engaging street frontage, we do believe that there will be a lot of people coming
in. We heard about how many people they serve in the Redmond facility. It is
not going to be a sleepy street corner. There are a lot of people who
will be accessing these services. And so we believe it's a wise choice. And in
general, again, we heard support for affordable housing and the need for affordable housing and
the design and density and again, seeing this type of development happen in the central
Issaquah area was pretty strong as well. Any questions? - Good. - Okay, oh, yes.
And thank you for attending Council Member Hunt. She was at the open house and
so. thank you the parking needs you mentioned it's um approximately two parking stalls
per a thousand square feet so for so that's 20 but then i've heard a
bunch of other numbers at various points so is it is it going to be
20 parking stalls within the building that are specific in the in the um opportunity
center option two with the 10,000 square feet of medical
dental, it would be 20 parking stalls dedicated to this
use inside the building. So there will be 20, so per code developer needs to
provide certain number of parking stalls. We have had not gotten to the detailed discussions
but I know that there has been some hesitation about saying this is exactly for
the daycare, this is exactly for HealthPoint, this is exactly for the kidney center because
the idea is that there'll be some sharing. So we haven't negotiated with our user
to say maybe they want three dedicated spaces or five dedicated spaces up front. that
could be possible. But in general, the developers like to tend to want to stay
away from, you know, this space is for this user. Okay. I think it might
be a different question. It's about whether or not parking for the Opportunity Center will
be all on-site or a combination. Oh. Yeah, that's part of it. Okay. So it
is all on-site. So all the parking is in structured parking for the TOD. So
it will all be within that parking structure. Yes. On that level. Okay. And
it will be, so looking at the different options, is it then that
option three, which is the smaller use, that would have 20 less parking
spaces in the structure than option two? 12, because it's, so it's still
have four, so for 4,000 square feet, it would have eight spaces that
are. And that 20 covers the needs for patients as well as for
staff. No. So that's where we have the parking shortage as far as the user
is concerned. So the 20 is required by our code and HealthPoint has said they
may need another 20 to 40. And we know that we're not going to find
20 or 40 in one place, but again that's where we're looking at the different
options from on-street parking to the other properties that we own in the area. And
so the additional 20 to 40, that's under challenges on this spreadsheet. Any other questions
on that or Maven? Okay. And so then in the memo, as Council Member Marks
mentioned, there was about 12 questions that council members had asked us directly in briefings
over emails. And so I don't know if you had a chance to look at
that. I have the questions I can pull up. But in general, we
categorize them in general background, financial, project sources and uses, and project
program operation questions. Are there any questions? We really tried to make
sure we got the intent of the question, because again, one question
may mean something different on paper. So would you like me to
pull them up, or is there any, yes? Okay. So, and I
mentioned in the memo that the information in the memo was a
little repetitive sometimes because we had we were telling a story and then we're answering
the questions but we felt it was important everybody kind of has a different perspective
and a different look at this and so we want to make sure that that
we presented the information in various ways so Do you want me to just go
through the questions real quick? Or is there something, a specific question you may have
a question about? Do you want to go through each question or just pause and
see if there is a question on the answer? There's number one and two. I
would, I guess my preference would be to ask council members what questions they have
on the phone. So council members. Council Member Hunt.
I know that there is somewhat limited data and that the data may not
directly apply to our specific case, but to the extent possible, could you speak
to the transit-oriented nature of the different options for the different Opportunity Centers? Meaning,
what data, if any, is available as far as how many people would be
likely to utilize the service using transit or pedestrian, if it was a pedestrian-oriented
use? Any data on that? Sure. And I pulled out question 11. I think it's
the closest one to that. And thank you for acknowledging we don't have the full
data yet. But one of the things that anecdotally that Hope Link has told us
is that they have noticed that their locations with the poorest access to transit has
a declining participation for the past two years. So they have now decided when they
locate a new facility that that transit access to transit will be one of those
criteria. We we have no reason to believe that's not true of other nonprofits as
it's more challenging to get to. People today and earlier in the public comment period
mentioned about how challenging it is to get to some of these centers. I don't
know if there's any other data that you have heard about. Okay. The other thing
is, as mentioned here, is that the 2007, I'm sorry, 2010 Human Services Campus Facility
Human Services Campus Feasibility Assessment identified proximity transit as a criterion for
all service providers. So again, we don't have any data right now
besides that research we've done in the Meridian Health Center and what
we've already mentioned. Jen, just to clarify, you mentioned Hope Link. So one of the
confusing parts of this is that there are multiple options and multiple kinds of partners.
Hope Link would be a potential partner in a one or an option one or
an option three? Sure. Yes. And I think their information, I think, tends to probably
be appropriate for all the nonprofit users as far as the ability for people to
access services is important to have transit. I have a related
question about Hope Link. So I have been asking this and sort of
related questions and the other information that was provided was about the shuttle
service or trans... service that is provided by Hope Link. I believe that is one
of the core services that they provide us. And so I wondered if you could
speak to that at all and how that might fit into this bigger picture about
transit use. I'm going to phone a friend. Sorry, Dave, David, because I know that's
one of their services. They're not planning on providing that service here, I don't believe,
but I'll let David. Sure. So Hope Link is a contracted service provider with King
County Metro. And so they provide a lot of the shuttle services that you see
out and around in the community. So for example, I believe they actually operate some
of the trailhead direct services. There's also an alternative service that connects North Bend, Snoqualmie
and the Squaw Highlands. That's under the brand of King County Metro, but it's actually
a Hope Link provided service. So they're a service provider for King County. So they
do provide a lot of those services. So they have a lot of experience in
those kinds of transportation services. And you said that they do not, they have not
proposed to... provide that service at this location though it wasn't that wasn't clear to
me from their application oh i see um they were not proposing to add transportation
services as part of their proposal uh that would have to be something else the
city could pursue similar to how we're pursuing um alternative services for squawk and talus
that would be a good example of another kind of candidate for that kind of
model of investigation additional questions that's president martz jen
um can you can you expand on or or talk about on
page four of your memo you have a sentence the anticipated annual
lease payments would cover all bond payments required can you explain that
yes So, one of the things that, as we're looking at the
investment choices, we understand that investment choices for option one and two are much larger
than number three. But we also wanted to make sure that everyone is aware that
all three all three options provide a revenue stream the revenue stream for option one
and two um the one and two would require could require a bonding to be
bond to be issued and the lease revenue from the the tenants would cover those
costs for our that's information we received from our finance director jen olson um this
is the one thing that i was speaking to council member ramos today about um
If you notice, it says investing up to $2.3 million and up to $1.5 million.
So these are the kind of the cap of what we're asking, we need commitment
for tonight. But we know that you heard Senator Mark Mallett here tonight saying he
wants to support this. There's no guarantee of that funding. We do know that HealthPoint,
if that's the chosen option, is interested in working with us on being a partner
in this project. and looking at tenant improvement contribution. They have not figured out
that number and got it approved by their board, so we can't bring
that information forward yet. We wanted to make that aware. And we also
have a $965,000 mitigation fund that was mentioned tonight as well that would
reduce the need to bond. So all of these numbers here are showing
what is needed at the most. So when we do the bond in
2019 or 20, we will know by that time that, okay, we need so much
less for that. But right now we're assuming that the full bond is at this
amount, at the sources and uses that are in the table. Is that clear? -
Yes. - Okay. - Thank you. - Council Member Goodman. - Thanks. Jen, the $950,000
or $65,000 that you're talking about, so it's my understanding that that was money
that came from TALIS and it was dedicated for or was because there
wasn't enough, maybe enough affordable housing built as was anticipated or something to
do with that. So maybe somebody else knows the answer to that, but
I thought that was tied to affordable housing. It's actually the first
major amendment to the TALIS Development Agreement and it was a donation that was made
as part of this to the city. I don't know if there's other actions that
have happened since then that has linked it. I'm seeing some shaking heads to the
affordable housing. And I know that, again, that was at one time, I
believe, thought that they might be used for the human services campus. And then, you
know, part of that money. Yeah, I want to go back to the reason that
we have the money. So Council made a policy decision several years ago to potentially
use that money for human services campus. Yes. I'm not aware that that was
a permanent decision. That was for a human service campus that didn't end up getting
funded. But back to the purpose of the money originally. Does somebody know? Yeah. Paul's
phrasing it. I'd like to have the administration answer the question, actually. So it was
a payment in lieu, or we might need to call a friend? So we're calling
a friend. Thanks. Thanks. the wording is pretty general but general but
specific um so um when we were negotiating oh sorry stranger
i i could keith niven director of economic development and development
services for the city um So when we process the first major
amendment to the talus agreement, it was right when the master developer changed hands
and J. R. Hayes became the master developer of talus and approach the city,
wanting to negotiate an amendment, and that amendment included a lot of different things
that included The improvements to Newport, which included the low-level LED lighting, it included
a number of different things, but one of the things that he told the city
he could not achieve was the second phase of the affordable housing in Tallis. And
so the way we crafted the amendment was that there would be a $1.5 million
donation that could be used at the city's discretion. That's what got approved now
subsequent to that as councilmember Goodman mentioned there was some commitments by the
council at the time that a portion of that money could be used
to explore a Human Services campus And that kind of ran its course
And now I think the City Council could purpose that remaining money as it sees
fit. There is a thread connection to affordable housing. There is also a thread
connection to human services. There was a, for lack of a better term, payment
in lieu of meeting the affordable housing requirement. It was, but we were clear
in the amendment that the council, the city could use that money at its
discretion. Thank you. More questions? Ms. Member Ray. Just a couple
quick ones. So recognizing the need for or the opportunity to
put some community service, some human service in the Opportunity Center.
So would we be providing that rental of that space at
something less than market rate? Yes, and so we have not negotiated
any lease terms yet, but the idea has always been to be above our costs
and below market rate. So at $25, that's about in that range, but again, we
would not commit to anything tonight because we have not committed to anything to our
tenants. Okay, perfect. And then this is kind of on the other side of the
equation. Recognizing the limited parking at a TOD by design, and recognizing that it's
next to a park and ride by design, how do we ensure that we don't
have overflow parking going to the park and ride, which is already strapped for spots?
Yes. And so one of the things that will be happening later this year is
that we will be doing a parking study focused on the two transit centers and
the transit stop right here and looking at that and exploring potentially a parking enforcement
model. So that would maybe if that actually does get implemented by the time this
project is developed, we'll have it all worked out. The other thing is, again, working
with our tenants to make sure that they are vigilant about probably the early arrivals
could be the only ones that get the space in the parking, the parking right,
because if you've ever been there, it's pretty full by eight o'clock. So any of
the patients who may come throughout the day, it's unlikely they would find a spot
in the transit center. So we'll work with the tenants to make sure that their
employees have a place to park that will not interfere with the transit users. Thank
you. Let's go Council Member Hunt, Martz, and Goodman. So related to
that last point, there are the 20 to 40 additional parking for
the medical dental use. And so if they are definitely not going
to be in the overflow parking, because that is often fairly full
and in the future I imagine will become more full, what is...
and it is not going to be in the building itself under the current plan.
So where are those 40 parking stalls? And I think 40 parking stalls, that's also
a fairly large amount at the upper limit. So we've explored different things initially. So
again, we haven't gone all the way to figuring out this 13 spaces here and
10 spaces there. But we are looking at options to put on street parking. on
either side, so the 13th Avenue, which is the new street, and so is there
a way to build out that full street and actually get on-street parking immediately as
opposed to waiting for the redevelopment of the property next door? We're looking at is
there opportunity for even on-street parking on the other side where the Sound Transit driveway
is? We also own a property at Newport in SR 900 that potentially we could
use for overflow parking and I'm not committing to that as well, but there are
some other options. We actually have a parking lot that's overflow for Metro as well,
but it's up in the above the playground yes area so there's again we have
some parcels in some other areas where if again working with to have the employees
park there would reduce it would then allow the spaces in the center for um
the um patients to be able to utilize and cycle through okay and the the
property you mentioned that's the other property on sr 900 is that by the ski
park that's the it's kitty corner so it's yes so it's across sr 900 no
west side of sr The west side, yeah, northwest side. What is it currently? Vegan.
Utility, looks like a utility. Yeah. Some field. Yes. It was, when we purchased the
King County Roads property, that was part of the package. that was a
bell on top thank you council president goodman and then council president mark ah council
president well you guys look so much alike if you stay tonight i look at
you i'm looking at me council i know right twins separated council member my question
was really just do we know how many patients uh per day or per year
or per per sub number we expect to uh be uh seen uh at a
ten thousand square foot facility like this david's gonna look up that in the proposal
they sent can we go to the next question unless you know jason yeah okay
he has the proposal so we'll look that one up okay i believe we have
a purple tonight 800 to a thousand in a month somebody said that was the
redmond site yeah right right Actually, you can let Jen know and get
the next question on the table. Yeah, just repeat it and I'll say it then
in the mic. Council Member Goodman? So the dental clinic itself, 800 to 1,000 per
month. She's not sure the square footage compared to this site. So we'll look up
that and get that back. Yeah. So it sounds to me like the parking issues
that we're talking about with the need for the extra parking spots, that's being, that's
a function of the... the medical dental that's being proposed, right? Right.
And the size, yes. So we have a transit-oriented development
which I will just say that I call the TOD project the opportunity that we
have. I don't know why we're narrowing it to 10,000 square feet, calling it an
opportunity center, because I think the opportunity is the TOD proposal. But it seems a
little strange to me. This is a, correct me if I'm wrong, because it's kind
of a question, kind of not, I just want to confirm what I'm hearing, that
we've got a TOD project that we're considering right now where we've got parking issues
that are caused by the focus on the health, the medical, dental use
that we're focused on, but yet we don't have any, really any idea
how we're going to handle that extra parking. Well, we do have some
ideas. But we can't commit to a certain city space. We don't know where we're
going to need overflow parking for employees. So and we're going to a parking and
pilot parking enforcement plan that later on. And I'm just confirming that what I heard
was that we could do some enforcement, but we can't do any enforcement in a
transit center. So, am I, so those are questions, those are kind of,
I'm confirming that I, am I misunderstanding anything there? Well, again, we think we
have some solutions that we're not going to find 20 to 41 location, but that
we could find some other locations that would work for the tenant and that the
parking enforcement would potentially be available for if there's people parking in places that they
shouldn't be. Transit center aside, because again, I think that's going to be a little
less of a challenge because of just how it fills up so quickly in the
morning. But that's, again, my perception when I use a transit center. And I think
the intention of this building is that over time we're gonna have less use of
cars and more use of transit. So we cannot say that today or in 2022
when this is opened up, I'm not gonna claim that everyone's gonna take the bus
there. But this building and this use will transition to more towards that. So that's
something that we believe and we wanna work hard with the tenants to get there.
And do we have any-- - Questions, Council Member Ray. So Jen you just actually
made me think of something really interesting. Have we had any discussions as we start
to approach TOD with our transit partners in terms of if we do this what
happens to transit service at that at that location? Meaning if it increases the need?
Well we're bringing people to them through the TOD, would we expect an increase in
service? Has there been any discussion about... Oh, meaning that we could actually get more
service hours as a community? Exactly, yeah. Sure. So, of course, that's the goal, I
guess, is that the more we're able to get more residents anywhere in our city
that would access transit. We actually have talked to Sound Transit and the TOD staff
in King County Metro. So they both are aware of this project and know that
it's coming and are very excited that this would be part of this. And so
I think in the bigger picture when Metro and Sound Transit looks at their hours,
That is a possibility for sure. Yeah, because now you're creating, you know, at least
385 units of people who may take the bus and a whole bunch of customers
that are as well. So thank you. That's one of our goals. And we do
have an answer. Ding, ding, ding. So an estimate of 900 to 1100 per month.
Patients. And just to add into that, so the proposal estimated 5,400 individuals, and
so that, based on some assistance from our esteemed colleagues, is estimated around 900
to 1,100 visits per month. Is that dental health both? Combined, yes. Our space,
I was going to say, is smaller than some of the other locations, so...
That's member almost your hand up. Yeah, just just a thought because as we think
about transit or in development meant just because transit at the spot you're going to
trying to get to doesn't mean everybody can get there on the bus because there's
still a lot of places that people in this county that they may not have
a bus at the other end. So that parking is always still going to be
needed because that's our county is not that well served and I don't see it
being that well served 20 years from now that. Sure. you can't get a bus
from a lot of places to there. Do you have any questions? Any questions as
well? Okay. We still don't have a motion on the table, so I'm going to
stay in -- so I've got Council Member Winterson, Council President Martz. Questions? Jen, hopefully
these are easy. In your -- question number five in the -- there's a --
it's of the sources of funds identified, are those funds committed and encumbered? Could they
go away? I just want to clarify -- I think I know the answer, but
this table is a little bit confusing. Like the first line there is, okay, that's
funds to build a project. But there's a couple on there, especially the last one
and the third to the last. Those are just cost avoidance. We're not providing funds,
especially that last line. It says MFTE, $1 million, available for the project. That's not
funds to the project. I just want to be clear about that. So this was
from a previous slide that showed the $164 million that it was needed in order
to build the project. And so that's um can be considered considered a city contribution
it's not a cash contribution from us which is that that's what this is these
are funds required it's the value that's the value to the developer is what he's
saying okay yeah okay thank you i i was sure about that but i just
wanted clarification and then on the next uh excuse me question number seven it was
mentioned tonight when uh senator mullet was here as well i'm just curious about i
don't know We don't know if this is just a pipe dream or if anything
could happen, but is there a timing question? Let's say that through their capital budget
next year, the legislature is able. Is there any kind of timing? How would something
like that mesh with what's needed for the project? Okay. So we, so whoever we
is collectively, need to have in the developer's hands by about first quarter 2020
the funds for the shell, for the construction. So not the tenant improvements, which
we've talked about as another expense, but that would be required in 2021-22.
So depending on if they are able to make an allocation in
2019, that would line up with what is necessary for the project.
Okay, thank you. Councilmember Hunt. Thank you. So you said earlier something
that I'm interested in, which is about how the space could adapt
to future conditions, and part of that would be the shared space
for the residential part of the building. And then, so I wondered if you could
elaborate on that and how the options would be different under the different Opportunity Center.
pieces um yeah i don't know that we have done a lot of research or
you know kind of thinking about that so i hesitate to say well this could
become this but so what um council member hunt is looking at is um so
it was mentioned in the in the open house by the developer that you know
looking at this this is the 10 000 square foot opportunity center here and then
What color are they? They're kind of different kind of green. Are the
amenities for the apartment community? And maybe as time moves on, could this
become something that's more community facing as far as a coffee shop or something
like that. We did also talk about having a lease with HealthPoint or whoever,
Hopelink, whoever it may be, that we would make sure that we would put
into the final lease that if conditions change, so somehow healthcare changes so drastically,
they need less space, that we would then look at really trying to
create a space for a vibrant transit-oriented user in the nonprofit world. So
the uses we're looking at today in 20 years are not set for the full
50 years of the building. So I think as our community is transitioning, this building
is set up nicely to transition with it. And I think we've talked before about
that this building is not the end all of transit oriented development for our community.
It's one piece of it. And I'm I'm reminded that this site is so a
great site because it also provides within walking distance a lot of professional offices, amenities,
grocery stores, et cetera, which, you know, hard to find in a walking distance in
many neighborhoods. So... and then also related to that there are some changes to the
um the um residential amenities in the building footprint and there's also some changes to
the public plaza which with different options and there's some changes to where the daycare's
yard is with the different options and so i think that is part of what
we're discussing because we when we if we pick one of these options it affects
the whole footprint of the building it affects the public plaza it affects the street
facing amenities and it affects the whole orientation. So I think it's part of the
discussion. - Okay, so yeah, so we'll just look at between two and three 'cause
option two, one and two are the same footprint. And so it does not change
the size of the daycare center or the public plaza. changes where they were. So
in the 10,000 square foot option, and if Hal wants to jump up and take
over, he can. In the 10,000 square foot Opportunity Center option here, the Kidney Center
is Down here on what will be 13th Avenue Northwest and the daycare becomes
a much longer Building and the public plaza here is becomes longer the daycare needs
a small play area for the youngest of children and then another day play area
will be in the upper level where they'll have elevator access to get up there
on one of the upper tiers of the of the building. So then if
you look here, so the difference again, so the daycare center now moves to the
13th Avenue, Northwest Kidney Center moves where the Opportunity Center was, and then the Opportunity
Center becomes here. So again, looking back here, it's taking the space here and using
it differently. The public plaza looks like it's bigger, but this play area now that
was up above, it will be on here, but it will be fenced off. So
it won't be publicly accessible. But again, the feel is a
different feel. But the space is the same. Is there anything
else, Hal, that you'd like to add? More questions? Go to
a motion. Madam Mayor, I move to approve resolution number 2018-09.
Providing a commitment for the size and financial investment for the nonprofit commercial space
Opportunity Center in the transit oriented development TOD project selecting option two. Is there
a second? Second. It's been moved and seconded. Council President Mertz. So I
have five points. Four should go quickly. The fifth maybe a little longer. I believe
there's a demonstrated need for this in the community. The 2010 Human Services Campus Feasibility
Study, John Rittenhouse referred to this, talked about it. The 2017 Community Needs Assessment reaffirmed
it. Senator Mark Mullet talked about it. He talked about it as a regional need,
which is why he would potentially see getting state involvement in it, talking about a
catchment of larger than 35,000 people because the nearest one to the north is Redmond.
I think the location is appropriate. We've always, and this is me reaching back to
being involved in the Human Services campus conversation, always recognized that transit was critical for
medical and dental. And lack of transit was actually one of the things that derailed
some of the early ideas for Human Services campus because it wasn't close enough to
transit. I believe the infrastructure is appropriate. I understand the questions around parking. I think
that the fact that we have a data point and that that data point is
in the ballpark of what we've got. I understand that's not what HealthPoint is saying
that they're going to need, but I think it's a really good starting point. We're
talking about having pooled parking between several different uses of that of the dedicated parking
on site which could help make things more flexible and absorb peak time use
I think it's financially prudent I point back to this anticipated annual lease payments
would cover all bond payments required. you know five million dollars for ten thousand square
feet is cheap in this town um yes there is other medical uh buildings in
the city but you're gonna pay market rate because your competitors are for-profit uh medical
institutions but this opportunity and i use five because it's you know two and a
half specific and then maybe another two for improvements depending on on how that conversation
goes with health point it's still cheap for ten thousand square feet um The fifth
is the most challenging. It's this question around public engagement. I just want to say,
you know, I think I'm pretty comfortable talking about public engagement. I was the one
who two times pushed for televised budget meetings and goals, had to do it twice
because I couldn't do it the first time. I've always pushed for televising committee meetings,
taking public comment at committee meetings. But this is not sunset, where we just have
an open house and there's five knobs and tell us where you want each of
these five dials to be. There's four partners, the developer, CenturyLink, King County Housing Authority
and ourselves. We don't have some of the latitude to just say, "Public, tell us
how to do it and we'll go do it." We have been talking about this
for over a decade. We have recommendation from those four partners plus Eastside
Human Services Forum and the Human Services Commission. I recognize this is
part of a larger conversation about transit or development. and about where we have growth,
which we heard earlier in the evening is one of the fundamental questions in front
of our city. It's part of our growing pain. It is, I have said before,
a good problem to have in that we are absorbing growth in the valley. And
when I compare it, I always use Shoreline as an example, 'cause I have friends
in Shoreline. It's really hard to see single family homes being torn down to make
room for transit oriented development. And we don't have to do that because we have
the valley. And finally, I just wanna say to the six of you, I think
this is a once in a political lifetime opportunity. I actually really believe that
if I serve on council for another eight and a half years, this may be
the best opportunity to substantively improve the lives of the residents of Issaquah. And so
normally we sit here, the seven of us, and we all just sort of make
our opinion based on, you know, the arguments. And of course, you're all going to
do that. But I'm just going to sort of be a little different this time.
And I'm going to please ask all six of you to vote for this. I
think it's that important. And I hope that we can take that leap of faith
that we're going to address the some of the logistic challenges involved in this and
make this happen for the residents of our city who don't have decent health care
and don't have a way to get it right now thank you thank you deputy
council president batiste Well, I'll start by saying that Council
President Martz stole a whole bunch of my comments. So,
ten years ago, we were talking about the need within
the city for health services, dental services, and mental health.
Going back to my Six years ago to my time on the
Human Services Commission, we've been talking that whole time, it seems like for such
a long time about the $965,000 in mitigation funds that could have gone toward
a Human Services Campus. And the day that we got the, you know, the
final decision that the Human Services Campus just wasn't going to to make it
over the finish line was a really, really sad day for me. We
got a 2017 needs assessment, so when we talk about what the need
is, I don't know I don't really need a lot of data because of
the work that I've done in the past. I know that we have
the need and we often have to rely on regional aspects to have
people be served. We talked to somebody earlier talked about 20% of the
people that were going to the Together Center to HealthPoint were from Issaquah.
I have so many stories about the time that I was on the
Human Services Commission about hearing stories about people not being able to access
medical, dental, or health services, and they didn't have a way to get
there. So now we've got a transit-oriented development. We've got transit there. We
have these amazing partners. that have this amazing reputation, both
HealthPoint and Valley Cities. We've got Senator Mark Mullet
coming forward and talking about the fact that he
would try to help. We've got the $965,000 and
I think that again, the $5 million for 10,000
square feet if we tried to do this in a different way. I remember all
the discussions that we had around the Human Services Campus. I'm going to echo what
Council President Martz said. I feel like this is a once in a lifetime opportunity.
I feel like it's really incredibly important to come into the city, and I will
be supporting this wholeheartedly. Thank you. Okay. Heading right down the road. Council Member Goodman.
Thank you. So I appreciate the comments. Mine are going to be different. I want
to make it really, really clear that I, like I said before, the opportunity here
to me is the transit-oriented development project. I really like the TOD project. I've liked
it from the beginning. I think it's very, very, very exciting. Not quite sure how
we got to the point we are now. Jen, you mentioned a few times tonight
that, you know, we've worked hard on this for the last few months. It really
hasn't been the last few months, it's just been the last few weeks. It was
mid-May when we started talking about these details and the month before that, that we
kind of heard about the RFP process, the full Council heard about that. So I'm
super concerned about a lot of things. First of all, the process, the fact that
there really hasn't been any public engagement, even though it's been promised over and over
again, and I know that Spectrum has wanted to do that public engagement and
that was supposed to start in January. But somehow last fall, I guess there was
a decision to make a request for proposals. And then that kind of started that
train down to where we are now. I don't have any issues with
the need for the services or the how wonderful the agencies are that
we're talking about the medical dental agencies. I know they're wonderful services and
I know that they're needed. But I've got the similar concerns that we
heard tonight. We've got parking concerns that we've talked about a lot.
What does the public think about spending $5 million? I mean, it's $5
million and we haven't had a public process. We had 15 people show
up at a meeting. It's a huge financial commitment. We have several
council members talk consistently about what are we giving up if we spend $5 million?
What else could we spend $5 million on? What else could we spend the $965,000
on? Affordable housing, there's a link to that, and we talk about that just as
important. And does the community believe that the medical dental is what we should commit
$5 million to at this point in time? Is it consistent with the TOD?
Hearing maybe not. So I'm not going to support that option. I am
interested to hear what other council members say. I would support option three,
and I don't think we give up anything because I think we still
have a space there. We haven't talked to the community about whether the
other options could be in a space that's supposed to be a very
exciting building with exciting other, you know, maybe other opportunities in there for our
central Issaquah area. So I don't have any doubt that there's a need. I
don't have any, that's not my issue. I just don't think this is the
right process and I'm not comfortable committing $5 million without the public process that
we should have had. Councilmember Winterstein. Come back to me later, please. Councilmember Ramos.
Um, thank you. Um, there's there's I'm going to start kind of weird here, but
there's two things that concern me is funding and public involvement. Um, it is a
lot of money. Um, and how we're going about the process of deciding how to
spend $5 million is is a concern. Um, and and knowing in comparison to
an item previous today, we had a whole lot of public input on something that
was not actually any dollars involved. So there is that question. At the same time,
as I see that, I see that we have, we are the property owners in
this case. we're making a, to me, a sound investment in our community. It's a
payback option. So it's not like we're spending the money and it's gone, like if
we spend it on a piece and it's gone, the revenues are gonna come back
to us and beyond, because once you pay that off, then you actually can have
a stream of money coming in. So fiscally, I can get past that point on
that when we're making a decision that's sound as well. and and i
like to look at um the other thing that bothers a little bit we talked
about this that there's a cap that right now it looks like the city's committing
to all this funding but in talking to a couple folks such as yourself that
i believe that health point and uh the state will help with some of this
as well i don't want to look like we're going to take it all and
and bear the whole burden because i think we've got partners that are going to
continue to work with us and and hopefully reduce that on on just the city
itself because you know that's not our duty as a city just to you know
provide these services all by ourselves um and and i'm going to look at this
as it all the other little questions that came up i think we can work
at in design parking and all those little things i think that's going to come
as we go and we continue our work partners working through it and i do
think that this is i'm going to go with Council President Martz on this. This
is a unique opportunity that I don't think we'll see again in many ways that
we can do in our community. It is very different. It's visionary and we don't
have all the facts and figures because you're a little bit out there on a
vision. And so you're not sitting there making all this sound with everything lined up
just right. So when you have to do that, you have to have a little
bit of leap of faith. I do have that. I know what's going on having
mentioned chairing this Human Services Commission and being on that side of the equation for
a long time. I know that piece of it too and this is very critical.
So I'm gonna call this a vision and I think it's an important one that
I think people later on 10 or 15, 20 years from now they're gonna go,
"God, who had the guts to do that way back then?" And I'm gonna go
with that. Councilmember Winterstein. Thank you.
you know what i'd really like i'd like a little bit more time and for
the process because i'm aware from the meeting that we had how jen and i
we talked about some of the timing and i know that the um the hud
insured funding there's like you know there's there's some steps that need to happen you've
got one year and you can't even complete the first step until um we make
a decision But it's really tough for me. If I just think in terms of
managing finances and being a smart business person, if I've got a potential partner in
an engagement who's kind of sitting right in front of us and saying, you know,
I may want to put some coin in on this, man, we should already be
negotiating with a potential partner rather than hoping that maybe we'll get something from HealthPointe.
So it feels risky to me to say, well, so from a business
perspective, we're gonna front this, but boy, we're really hoping you're gonna come
in and help some and state, we really hope, we haven't put any
numbers on those, we don't know what those are. That's just not the
way I would prefer that we conduct business. So that's from a business
perspective. uh that so that you know that's a big
concern i am also concerned i share the concern about the the
parking but but maybe with a slightly different twist we with health
services there is higher demand for parking than maybe other options that
we could go with at the opportunity center we Well, I
mentioned we had a data point. Where was that data point? Was that in
Seattle somewhere? That was Northgate. I think Bill made a really good point. I'm
going to assume that potential clients to this location don't have as many pickup
opportunities via transit than clients that go to Northgate. So if they've got two
stalls per 1,000 square feet, uh there you know that data point i i
i it's it's off i think there needs to be an adjustment so we will
have a parking problem is my thinking and i do agree with the contention that
the 0.9 for the residents that are there is awfully aggressive as well if we
had already had numerous other nearby developments in the spirit of the that had
similar parking ratios that we're looking at for this one. Um
there's and when and they had been built at the ratios that we're looking here
then i think parking would probably be a more acute problem because the first ones
that got in if indeed they needed more parking than they had to deliver then
there would be spillover and the next development project that came in and the community
and the older there would start being more and more conflict greater demand and the
need for some greater parking strategy and policy enforcement or what have you here in
the city of Issaquah I mean we're we're inevitably going there uh the first few
projects and this would be a major one in the central area are are going
to ones that are going to benefit from that but and maybe maybe I should
just say you know good on you I mean that good good for you I
think downstream is going to be more and more difficult as more development comes in
so so I so I do struggle with that I don't think we have the
parking correct We just did a capital project. We have a capital improvement plan
and you've heard me say this before, I'm going to keep saying it. We're going
to revise that quite a bit. Now we're talking about a bit of capital. Yes,
there may be a revenue stream. We can model that to offset some of that
initial outlay. But you want to know what the impact is? It's okay. It's what's
currently not funded, some of those projects, and the capital project, that's what the impact
is, and other projects that are going to come along. We're going to want to
be very opportunistic, and we're not going to have maybe the cash on hand that
we have today. So from those perspectives, I have
real, from a business perspective, I have a
challenge with this. On the other hand, the
services that would be available, I agree with
the points earlier made that it's been verified,
multiple ways of the need within the community. I know when we were looking at
a human services campus and maybe an investment of a million dollars and maybe a
little bit more, but that was for an entire human services campus. Now, if you
want to equate this Opportunity Center and these health services to a small human services
campus, now we're talking about 5 million cash i know there'd be some revenue but
5 million cash for less than what we were hoping for with the human services
campus so that's not nearly the return as well so what i'm articulating is this
the struggles because because from a from a um a community need value to the
community. There's many aspects of this entire project that I very much
would like. From a business perspective, I don't like all the terms.
I really wish we had more time to maybe talk further with
a potential partner and get some more of a commitment. I think
that state, it's too far out there. So I'm right now, squarely
right on the fence. I'm gonna make a decision in a moment. - In
a moment. - Thank you. Council Member Ray. - So I'm gonna kind of
echo some of the things I've heard before in comments. I love the idea
of transit-oriented development. I love the idea of taking that parcel of land and
making it available to people of a wide range of incomes so that they
can take advantage of our transit system and that they can help reduce the burden
on our current traffic infrastructure. I hate the idea that we are talking about a
solution that has an impact on parking. When every time that we talk about, well,
we're going to need more parking spots, that says to me that this is not
a heavy transit-oriented use. And that parcel of land there by the
transit center is very unique and given our transportation issues, I would
like us to find the most transit-oriented implementations possible. This 10,000 square
feet is not a human services campus. It's not a solution that
provides integrated human services and referral services. That being said, I do think
it is something that is needed in our community. I think that's very clear. There
are other places that we could build it that would have less impact on parking.
Or there are other places we could site it that would have less impact on
parking and would not use the space that I think is so unique for transit
in this community. I believe that we can do more if we looked at different
alternatives. I'm not really quite honestly excited about the idea of the city of Issaquah
becoming a landlord for a medical dental facility is not what I think is one
of our core competencies. And I think there's better ways for us to provide public
support for this needed community good. I think we can do more good with
fewer dollars than taking that space, which I think has higher value in transit oriented
and quite honestly, I'm thinking of calling it the Opportunity Center is a bit ironic
because I feel like we're being opportunistic here and we're not thinking this thing through
about what is the best use of this property in this land. We're being opportunistic
and saying, hey, let's let's move forward with this idea. So those are my feelings.
Thank you, Council Member Ray. Council Member Hunt. Thank you. I, like Council Member Winterstein,
I really wish I had more time, that we had more time with the
community and that we had more time to really understand the implications. I think
there are a lot of moving pieces to this. And I think also really
even this evening, we really focused on one use and didn't think about the other
options that are before us, let alone other options that aren't before us, but that
one could imagine. So I am, I currently feel like I don't have
the information as far as how this aligns, how the medical dental use
aligns with the best practices for transit-oriented development. I think that transit-oriented development
is a wonderful thing for our community and I think that having
affordable housing next to transit makes the affordable housing that much more affordable for
people if they don't have to use their car and they can get to
their work or other places without a car. And so it does, the transit-oriented
development in itself will be addressing very serious needs in our community. And my
concern is that the uses of the land uses at the bottom of the
building will affect the experience of those living in the building as well as those
using the transit center which we want to increase and which we want to support
we want to make a community where people are more able to use the transit
center to get to work so in thinking about the project overall the daycare center
i think is a really great transit oriented use because People drop their kids off
if they're using the transit center and it saves potentially four car trips a day
and if you are living in the transit, if you're living in the building, you
could also use that and some of it will be set aside as affordable and
so you could also use that and it would save you those trips every day.
And it again contributes to the affordability. I think that It also internalizes
traffic. We're not talking about what are the parking needs for this because it's
a clear transit-oriented use that will reduce trips. I noticed on this big spreadsheet
that parking commute trip reduction investment, I just don't see anything that suggests that
this will reduce Car trips, that the medical dental use will reduce car
trips. I think as Council Member Ramos pointed out, a lot of our community is
currently not all that well served by transit. And so they would be driving. And
I think that using the overflow for the transit center, that would be in direct
conflict with wanting to have more people using the transit center and the park and
ride. There's just a lot. that I am concerned about. And I really
want the transit-oriented development to succeed as a transit-oriented development and an affordable
housing development. And I'm concerned that I don't have the information that I
would need to say that this use doesn't conflict with the transit. I
also think that we really are, I would also want to make sure
that this is a flexible use and I'm concerned very concerned about
um reusing or re-designating part of the medical center i don't see that as i
mean medical is a very serious need in the community has been said and i
totally agree i wouldn't want to have this be a medical campus and then rely
on part of that becoming something else and i also i also am not comfortable
planning on using the amenities that are available to people in the building The
option that seems most flexible to me is the option three, which we really
didn't talk very much about, but which does have some shared spaces. The proposal,
as I understand it, there's a shared space that we didn't talk about, but
that the Kidney Center could use for education classes as well as the...
the smaller Opportunity Center. It just, of the options presented, it seems like
a more flexible space. Also, maybe that could be used for other classes
and maybe those classes and employment services could be more transit oriented. And
so for me, I am still at the point where I don't know
that the medical dental use doesn't directly conflict with the transit-oriented nature of this development
overall. And so I would be more inclined to option three also because I think
it gives more flexibility to develop as a neighborhood over time. Thank you, Councilmember
Hunt. I'm just going to go over a few options that you have before I
call for a vote. We have a motion on the table and it's been seconded
and it's for a 10,000 square foot medical dental option. We can continue deliberations. Show
a hand, you know, if somebody puts their hand up and wants additional deliberation time,
we can do that on this one. There is an option that a Councilmember can
make an amendment to motion for a different option instead of two. We can
vote on the motion that's on the table, and if it fails, it does
not mean the agenda bill is done. We can entertain another motion and continue.
So what is your preference? Council President Martz. As the maker of the motion,
I would suggest we vote on this, and then if somebody wants to make
an alternate motion, if this were to fail. Sure. So we'll close out
deliberations and I will read the motion. We'll go for a vote. Motion
to approve If there's no further discussion, all those in favor
of approving resolution number 2018-09, providing a commitment for the size and
financial investment for the nonprofit commercial space, Opportunity Center, in the transit-oriented
development TOD project, selecting option 2, signify by raising your hand and
saying aye. Aye. Opposed? It passes 4 to 3 with, can
I have the nays? Goodman, Ray and Hunt in opposition. The next
order of business is good of the order. Do any of the
council members have anything for good of the order? Council member Ramos?
It's definitely just a personal thing, but last Saturday was National Trails Day. I like
to always celebrate my trails. On the first Saturday of June every year, I run
the National Trails event where we run from Mount Rainier to Tacoma. It's 50 miles.
We do it as a team. I don't do it all by myself, but we
tag off and run and raise money for trail maintenance. Awesome. Thank you. Anything else
for good of the order? I have a couple of things. June 5th, tomorrow, Tuesday,
we'll be having a special council meeting. It is our strategic plan charrette and it
will be at the Senior Center from 5:30 to 8:30 and it is open to
the public to attend. June 18th our regular council meeting. There are two
potential agenda items at this time. AB 7394 which is approval
of the park strategic plan and AB 7599 which is the
continuation of the public hearing and adoption of the 2019-2024 six-year
transportation improvement program. Anything else? And there being no further business
we're adjourned.