thank you
good evening and welcome to the May 7th
meeting of the development Commission
tonight we will be considering
the site development permit and
Shoreline substantial development permit
for the seventh at Gilman project file
numbers sdp
13-0005 and SHO 13-00014
uh for the benefit of those of you who
have not been here before I'll take a
little
brief time to tell you how this process
is going to work tonight
uh
we are going to we're going to have
start with a presentation a joint
presentation by City staff and by the
applicant that will address the issues
and and the questions and concerns that
were raised at our April meeting about
this uh project and this will be a joint
informal presentation that will is
designed to cover all of the relevant
bases and the issues and to avoid
redundancy and to be as efficient as we
can at the same time covering the issues
uh
during that this presentation this first
one the Commissioners can ask questions
of the city staff and applicants during
during that portion of the of the
meeting
that will be followed by public comment
and after the public comment the staff
and the applicants will have another
opportunity to address issues and or to
rebut uh positions that were articulated
by members of the public
at following the public comment uh
and the staff and applicant comment
this the development commission will
then
do their follow-up and we hope will
arrive at a decision okay
so with that
I will turn it over to Jerry Lind the
city staff and our applicant
are you uh maybe then go over to the
minutes first
how about if we do that from the last
from the previous
let's do that uh the minutes for
the April meeting have been provided to
us I personally have no changes in them
were there any other changes
uh just can I get a motion or I move
approval of the April 16 2014
development commission meeting minutes
second is there a discussion I'm good
all those in favor
aye
opposed all right
they are approved unanimously now
Jerry
so um this evening is a quasi-judicial
matter on which the development
commission is the decision maker and so
I'm going to run through a checklist of
questions to ensure that we have a name
you are impartial decision makers
um so I don't have my usual checklist so
there's going to be more questions than
normal
um and all you have to do is say yes or
no as I ask the questions and you can
say them in unison
um I mean you don't we don't have to go
through and pull
um
are there any family relationships
between the decision makers and parties
of the hearing no
is there any business competition
between the decision maker and any
parties at the hearing no no
will there be any prospective employment
for the decision maker or his or her
family as a result of the decision no
um does the decision maker have any
personal interest in which he or she
stands to gain or lose by the decision
no
is the decision maker free from any
direct or indirect Financial benefit
that could result from the approval or
denial of the request
yes would be there's no financial gain
no oh okay
um free up yes
has there been any ex parte
communication and I'm happy to explain
what ex parte communication is and
anyone has no okay
um and so if anyone has an objection uh
concerning whether they feel that the um
any commissioner could be objective now
would be the time to identify that
is
so yes the um the people who will be
making the the decision and so it's a
question of whether they um anyone has
any concerns about their objectivity
right because they're not making the
decision
I can explain we have a quote we have a
quorum the the regulations require four
members of the development commission to
compose a quorum and we have a quorum
no we have seven standard members and we
knew two of them would not be present
tonight we still may get a fifth member
two and that may be running late
and one other thing that I neglected to
mention uh if any member of the public
who would like to speak and the public
session we'd ask you to sign in please
with your name and excuse me your
address and your phone number as well
and uh that will be part of and then
when you come up to speak we'd like you
to go to the microphone and repeat that
information your name and your address
okay the clipboard and the pen is right
up here on the table and by signing in
you will be officially most of you
already are but you'll be a party of
record till
good evening again
the seventh at Gilman is the name of the
project and it's also got another new
name since we met last it's also now
called Atlas
so I think we've seen uh also the name
Cadence so that one you want to erase
from your mind since we've uh it's
evolved in
and it's possible it could change again
uh this is the vicinity map where it's
located it's the site of the of the
current Gilman Square shopping center
that's also the same site where
Lombardi's restaurant is banned and the
Antique Mall which is still in operation
at the site uh there's a little white
void there you'll see and that's that
means the site wraps around the KFC Taco
Bell site and also O'Reilly's Auto Parts
and so those two lots are not part of
this project tonight
that's a aerial photo you saw this with
the last presentation so you can kind of
see what the site looks like it's you
got the buildings in kind of an l-shape
a lot of parking in this area not too
much Greenery except what is along
Issaquah Creek that's an area that will
be restored as part of the project
proposal
very irregular shape
Gilman Boulevard is to the north
7th Avenue is to the West
and Northwest Locust Street is to the
South and the eastern boundary is a
Issaquah Creek there's a little
Peninsula that's an on
it's not a dated street but it certainly
works as a street at the southeast
corner there's a dental office to the
east of it and a little preschool
operation to the west of that that it
surrounds
uh the description there's three
buildings and they're all five stories
apiece
there's below parking below the
buildings building A's to the north
buildings B and C are to the south
facing seventh and osoloca Street and
there's a Center parking garage that
will serve those two buildings
346 stacked apartments and it may be 344
that number is kind of varied as the
project uh has evolved
acreage is the same at 6.09 acres and
there's approximately 400 parking stalls
that will serve these units they're all
apartments they're not Condominiums
there will be a park with this there is
a shared use route with it too that is
part of our Central Issaquah plan that
connects various walkways throughout the
site
there's a landscape flood Swale you saw
that with the last project that runs to
the northwest corner of the site ties in
with the Gilman ditch
buffer improvements along his quad Creek
and Street improvements so really we're
seeing a total reface of this project
site
there were several ailments that came
out of our last meeting in April
and uh we these were issues that came
both from our development commission and
and the members and our audience too and
so
I've seen the staff reports at least
read the headlines so we understand
building design
was one of the main concerns that came
out of the project
the issues were the building Superior
plain in contrast to the landscape
add solar screens or richer materials
the tops of buildings are rather flat
and uninteresting
the color palette is bowed
and caution needs to be considered in
the use of colors the material board is
again on this table here it's got three
primary colors
the buildings have a rather flat severe
uninteresting appearance and further
modulation in the plan should be
examined how will the Billings appear
from Interstate 90 was a question what
will they look like like big rectangles
this doesn't look like Issaquah and so
the question always comes up what does
this call look to
so
the the buildings I sit here they are
designed by regulated by chapter 14 of
the central Issaquah plan it doesn't
have everything that the
audience spoke about
does have a number of elements that we
believe are being provided in this it's
not a large mass of building it's
actually three buildings when they get
to a certain size they are required to
be broken up and that's what has
occurred here
the
architectural detail was not as
evident with the last presentation there
is supposed to be distinguishing base
middle and top of the building so we're
looking at the the tops of the buildings
where the pear pits are they were rather
flat stationary at a single line now
there's a little bit more modulation and
varied Heights with those modulations
and you'll see some cornice details I
think that adds to what you needed the
building is broken up in different
planes between the second and third
floors and you'll see that with some
drawings that I'm going to show you too
there's a lot more brick elements also
now with the building too so I think
this makes it a little bit richer
um in the material design
it has the ver vertical and horizontal
modulation so we don't have blank walls
on any of the walls there's a lot of
Windows there's a lot of window panes so
they're not just blank windows they're
actually broken up you'll see that there
are unique corners on these buildings
that you didn't see last time there's
some slanted elements over the lobby
areas above those corners of the
buildings and the sloped groups we think
really brings things out a lot more too
so you'll see that with the Twisted
Corners that's done for these buildings
and this is at the prominent Corners as
you enter
lobbies are below it you can see on some
of these
buildings
is this point yes so we can see the
three floors and then how the buildings
are stepped back and there's balconies
and lanais that are incorporated into so
we don't have the flatness it's it's
more varied which is the middle part
that was required you'll see down here
as an example of a building parapet and
they they seem to vary on the on the
buildings we do allow these
architectural type pediments too so it's
not only a function but also an
architectural element too to give a
little bit more variation with the roof
Heights
uh this photo that you see on the lower
right you have not seen before you'll
see how it's got that sloped element
with the roofs and you'll see this with
all three buildings the kind of accent
the importance of those spaces
so they one of the requirements was to
make these Corners a little bit more of
a special entry so we believe this um
Roofing element the Twisted Corners
helps it the colors again are on the on
the
table here there's a grain a red and a
blue and it's not massively useless
colors but it will help residents
identify which building they live and
they can certainly tell their visitors I
live in the blue building or live in the
red building it helps identify where
they're at it's mostly in accent colors
within some of the corners of the
building so it's not solidly
used
do you want to add anything to it or see
some of these other drawings ln2 which
we were talking about since we're going
to do this jointly okay my name is Alan
Granger I'm a GGO Architects and
Jerry and I agreed that we could
actually do a little show together here
so that we didn't have to go all the way
back to the union and talk about the
topic separated would you like me to
bring up that other one too that we were
just talking about the overall
okay let's bring up this one here this
shows all three buildings in one uh one
of the uh
one of the aspects of the buildings
which we believe was not clearly
understood before because we were
looking at straight
elevations
and because there was a lot of
discussion about why don't you add more
modulation to the buildings
we felt that if we started to look we
don't usually
we usually look from the sidewalk up at
the buildings but I'm purposefully
looking down on the buildings here
um so that you can see that there
is not only the the modulation where the
buildings are stepping in and out but
there is uh the courtyards that are on
the buildings uh caught you out on this
building
um
I'm just going to go to
moving around looking from the southeast
you can start to see that there is
a fairly extensive modulation on this
building
and then
um
we should go back to this is looking at
the corner from 7th and Gilman
one of the changes that we made as we
discussed uh the comments from the
public and the development commission
was we discussed with staff
changing the corner at 7th and Gilman
and we actually
um where where this Twisted Corner came
all the way down to grade before we've
actually raised that up and it starts to
add more interest at that corner the
use of the colors that Jody was talking
about are primarily in the uh the upper
levels of these Corners
here you can see what Jerry was talking
about with the the free story sort of
masonry bases that are that are bays
running along
there's penthouses on the top those are
hiding the HVAC equipment fully uh you
won't see that from the ground surface
perhaps if a taller building gets better
in the future you will see that the
buildings will be somewhat visible from
Interstate 92 but as as the centralist
club plan evolves and buildings are
added to this region it'll certainly
blend in and be less visible with
additional buildings and Landscaping too
I'm just going to uh to help understand
the modulation of each individual
building now that we've looked at the
overall site this is building a which is
the one in the northwest corner
and again I'm looking from 7th and
Gilman and pretty much the same
photograph as we were before but from
more down at the ground level you can
see that one of the things that we have
done is we've varied the heights of all
the parapets so a number of the parapets
we've taken down to the minimum that are
feasible from a constructability from
the waterproofing at the edge of the
roof
uh but other places we have raised the
parapet this this is one of the areas
that is that is all masonry that has
been raised up
with a
a parapic detail at the top
and then at the corner entrance that
Jerry was just talking about
be able to go down to the
we've actually taken that low point and
you can start to see the difference in
Heights that we're getting here and
we've actually increased that corner up
as Jerry was describing so we're getting
a varying Heights as we go around the
building
and then you can see it stepping down
again up so we're uh
manipulating with the three-dimensional
massing as to where the buildings are
modulated in plane we're also now
modulating it uh more extensively
vertically so if we're accentuating
those elements
they're gonna
sort of continue around until we get all
the way around the building
and
I was you know studying the aerial
photographs of the neighborhood and
actually
I've always concerned about how the
buildings might look from Interstate 90.
the probably the clearest place where
you would see these buildings from
Interstate 90 is
is actually
um once you've gone across Issaquah
Creek traveling East and as you drive
past the post office site
the driver shouldn't be doing this the
passenger can do this
um and you're going across the overpass
by the post office that is actually
where there are less trees and less
buildings and you would probably from
that point you'd start to look back
and this is the uh sort of viewpoint
from considerably further away but you'd
start to get so from that
Vantage plane the buildings actually you
start to see the courtyards on building
a you start to see the courtyards on
Building C and how they're all relating
Together Al I have a question you know
the end of this new procedure where we
can ask questions
uh you mentioned earlier waterproofing
you said the the parapets have been
lowered to the point that the lowest
point that would that allowed waterproof
or just we have a constructability right
analysis of the detail I I don't see how
do you propose to handle uh the it's a
flat roof building right basically so
where where are the where's the drainage
capability actually all the roofs are
sloping from the exterior of the
building and the sloping down to the
middle of the roof and the roof drainage
is all coming down if you would imagine
where the corridors are in the buildings
in the middle of the building so all the
roof drainage is coming down in Chase's
adjacent to the corridors in the
building so we don't have any exterior
downspouts that are showing uh on the
exterior of the building it's all
internal to the building Mr chairman
quick question
so um as far as you you've uh talked
about the the cap detail on top of the
parapets and
um remind me of or maybe you didn't have
this in the previous design that you
showed us but what's the is there a
color transition that's going on there
in addition to just it I guess the idea
was
um and I mentioned in the staff report
creating the the bottom the middle and
the top and it doesn't necessarily have
to be a big top but something that's is
kind of a visual definition of the top
of the building that varies from the
rest
depending on the exterior materials
we're actually treating the the detail
at the
conus differently which is this piece
right here yeah
um so where we have
the masonry coming up we actually have a
metal cornice which is shaped which is
the termination of how sorry I said the
medal uh the brick where the brick is
coming up the masonry is coming up we
have a metal cornice which is acting as
the detail cap for the type of hose
the corners where the accent colors are
located
are all panels which have got
metal
reveals between all of those panels and
those panels uh we are actually not
adding additional surface treatments to
the outside of those those are actually
terminating oh thank you Vanna
and there are some wooden ailments in it
too and the black and white doesn't show
all that detailing of the brick the wood
and the other the other elements
I'm going to go on to uh
um
Building B and so you can see here also
on Building B we've got the same
slope that's continuing up and accenting
the accenting the corner Building B was
one of the areas where we I think we
talked about this last time but we we
actually took out
a second floor units uh here which was
why Jerry's been so confused about how
many units do we have in this building
well the units have been taken out this
is for future conversion where it could
be used for commercial space too and
that's one of the elements of the center
was a club plan this is not a mixed use
project it's fully fully residential
both are allowed that it's not required
to be commercial or have that in it but
there is a part of the plan that does
require to look at the buildings in the
future for other possible uses so the
the whole end of the uh The West Wing of
of Building B and this is the this is
the wing that is directly across the
street from where the Starbucks is and
it's where the uh the shared use Trail
will come across uh seventh uh from the
west side of a street and start to go
through this project so uh uh our client
gave us the uh ability to actually
reduce the number of residential units
and so we took them out on the second
floor
and this is made double High spaces
um which are appropriate for the entries
in the short term but if there was any
change in use in the future it would be
the appropriate height for a different
use in the future
you can start to see the
the smaller we've got different
sizes of caps as we go around depending
on what the materials are this is an
area of the building where we have board
and battened siding which will be
painted and we're looking at getting a
deeper board trim along the top of all
of where that material occurs
so running running around
Building B and this is the corner down
at uh
Locust and seventh
and then coming around and you can start
to see how the the modulation occurs
through the shared use uh I mean not to
show the Australia the uh
what's it what's it called This is the
uh the corridor between buildings yeah
what do you call that in your zoning cut
off because my mind's gone blank
the
the space between the buildings that uh
the mid block connection I think
um so this is looking down there and you
can see on each side of that we have got
the three-story base repeating again to
reduce the scale we actually call it
through blockcast groups I knew we had a
special name yes it is
we're going to be talking about that too
in one of the other slides too yeah do
you want me to go on to
while I'm here do you want me to talk
about them yeah and just that note it is
contemporary architecture too I know
that was one of the questions that came
out of the
audience last time and back somebody
even gave me a
photograph of Versailles in France
you know for Gem Boulevard but you know
we don't require that level of
architecture uh and the centralized Club
plan doesn't
uh deal with those kind of specific
elements too as far as the architectural
style or color so it really kind of
leaves it up to the absent to come up
with those so while we're talking about
the modulation of the buildings one of
the questions that came up was uh
um the solar exposure of all the
courtyards would you want us to get to
that part of the co we have another part
we have another slide you want to go to
something else well let's let's not jump
ahead okay go ahead
sorry we haven't rehearsed this
it's actually better
I can find where I was
I think this is it and these are some of
the elements that you were talking about
too Alice
uh Gilman bowl of our number two that
was the derive way question the
westernmost driveway to the site it is
being moved Eastward it's about 110 feet
Eastward and then there was a question
about as you can see in the little
uh snip it down here at the bottom
there's three driveways
the westernmost already currently serves
both the developments moving at further
Eastward it will continue to serve both
the sympathy Gilman site as well as the
O'Reilly's Auto store the easternmost
one
is on the property line it's also on
this on the subject site too so it's
it's on there by easement there's not
much we can do about the fact that
there's three driveways until that
property redevelops but it's not a
violation either
they all have right in right out term
movements only and so your only left
turn movements will actually be further
west at seventh where there will be a
new traffic signal in place and Jerry I
have a question about that the traffic
on the like the signals on Gilman are
synchronized are they synchronized they
have been yes and so this will be
a continuation of the synchronous it'll
have to be yes yes
oh just while you're here okay one one
of the uh uh aspects of the relocation
of his driveway was because we've been
signalized intersection
um the Metro buses are moving to the
other side of the intersection which is
where they prefer to stop but also we're
creating a turn lane and that turn lane
is actually preventing
um oh it's helping by prevention a lot
of the difficult turns which uh are made
into the existing location of where this
driveway was and so
um you know as Jerry was describing the
ride out from here we'll avoid the cross
the boulevard uh exiting which
occurs with the existing driveway
location so it's it it's an improvement
in all different aspects of the
functioning of the
the main intersection at seventh I mean
all the subsequent driveway access
points that are continuing down Gilman
Boulevard but certainly a large part of
it is that flood swell that's being
constructed there at the corner that's
really pushing the driveway further
further Eastward too
uh number three was flooding that's
always been a big issue and it was with
the rear and streams board meetings and
they had two of those
uh the site is a hundred percent in the
flood plain today it's still going to be
in the flood plain in the future too but
the buildings will be built up
so that they're above 100 year flood
plain
uh the parking is contained within
garages under all three buildings but
they will be designed to be flood
proofed the entrances to those two
garages which are on the western side of
the site off of
off up where you enter from Seventh that
area will be built up again above the
100 year flood event elevation and so
that will also keep the water from
protruding into those garages it's my
understanding that it's not only for the
100 year flood but it even survives the
500 year floodplain as well too so it's
really uh
they're taking no chances here with that
Jerry how often are those floodplain
Maps updated
uh it's periodically I've seen I've done
a few times usually it's been done more
for amendments when there's been a
requests I've seen it done at the rally
properties I haven't seen one done for
several years now though
um obviously there's been significant
discussion at all levels lately yeah
probably this was done was after the
creek was widened there were a lot of
improvements made after the 1996 flood
the creek was widened and
I think at that time we saw some
improvements with famous cell you know
that's been about 10 years
over 10 years
yeah if I do my math right like 15 or so
almost
when the site does fill out obviously
the big Swale will take the hit of it
because it's designed to take the water
and there were a number of comments
about well what happens to the plants
well if plants are destroyed they have
to be replaced and fixed mud has to be
cleaned up we have uh requirement that's
been always in our landscape called that
for uh forever you take care of your
plant materials then
and this goes beyond the three-year
maintenance bonding that we require for
maintenance of plants so it's it's going
to be forever that we want to see those
taken care of
um
there was a number of questions too that
what about the residents that live in
these buildings and we do a pretty good
job the city does on channel 21 and
putting out notices when there's floods
and what stage the waters are we'll want
to see some pamphlets and some Legal
Information given to the residents that
they're aware that they're living in a
floodplain type Zone too that's
seems to be a reason I believe you've
agreed to that correct for the future
uh the share reuse route Jerry yeah you
want to give them a chance to add the
applicant to add anything oh do you want
to add anything further I know you've
agreed to it no we totally agree what
the staff has responded to here yeah
uh the shared use route is one of the
main elements of the central Issaquah
plan runs through our Valley a good part
of this runs east west in the site
and a portion of the runs also north
south up to Gilman Boulevard the portion
that runs South East is the awkward part
because it falls within a kind of an
undeated Street area that's now served
by the dental office and it's also
served by the daycare facility that's
our daycare of the preschool that's
there at the corner too
and so what makes it tough is you got
the pavement for the shared roofs your
shared use throughout plus the two feet
of a landscaping that's required on the
two sides and that's just not able to be
accomplished within that section there
will be an adjustment of standards
that will be required
for us to look at
and looking to see what is going to be
the best solution for it because we
really want to put the emphasis on
pedestrians first over the vehicles and
there's some ideas that's been exploded
already whether it's Grass Creek or even
cobbles on the side something to
identify Motors that hey this is a
special Trail Drive slowly through here
till
the applicants even suggested a
possibility of dedicating that land to
the state I don't know what the cities
if the city wants it or not but anyway
the offer has been made oh we this is
not
this strip of land is is not the width
of a regular Street
and by the time we have been required to
dedicate the portion which is being used
by the shared use Trail
that's almost 50 percent of the width
and so
Lana has just been considering that they
would if they were left with just this
even skinnier strip of land coming down
there which the two adjoining property
owners uh are using uh for their parking
and for the access to the daycare it
seems more appropriate to dedicate the
full width of that rather than just half
of it
uh and we've had a number of discussions
with staff about resolving the detailing
of
um potentially adding bollids at the end
of the shared use Trails so that
pedestrians and bicycles know they're
entering a different uh area that's uh
uh that's that's going to see vehicles
and then working with the staff to work
out exactly what the ground surface
details are and we're all in agreement
but we'll we'll do that as part of a
conditioning of a project that diagram
shows the area that we're speaking about
the dental offices located right here on
the right side or to the east they use
that space for backing up they have 90
degree parking
the children's play area which is I
think kind of our preschool is over here
on the West side and they use that for
Access coming in and with the shared
route at 10 feet wide plus two and two
feet of a landscape from 14 feet it's
just impossible to accommodate everybody
well here the space
so we are all in agreement
uh number five was the building C
Courtyard that's uh the courtyard that
faces in a Northerly Direction uh these
Courtyards are semi-private but they're
also available to the public I guess too
because the trails run right by them
what was shown was a connection here on
the western side that leads to the
shared use route that's the heavier line
uh
we feel that users within this space
here it's it's kind of a berm space on
the sides and the top so it kind of
creates some privacy there but those
that will be wanting to go to Gilman
Boulevard or to the dog park the new
neighborhood park that's been provided
Gilman Boulevard would probably not
necessarily take the route to the west
but may take a shortcut on the Eastern
side which is more direct
I know the applicant wants to keep the
main trail which is six feet wide here
on the West side and if this becomes an
issue we can certainly still work it out
perhaps there could be some stepping
stones or something of that nature
added into it
but we'll have to evaluate the courtyard
uh
and see if that's becomes a problem yeah
we we don't believe that the single
route is a problem uh and uh
that if people are going out to a shared
use Trail uh they're more often likely
going out
for exercise purposes or taking their
dog for a walk and that the shortest
route is not necessarily the foremost
thing in their mind
but uh
you'll see in the Solar diagrams one of
the aspects of placing the outdoor
seating area in this location it is to
move it as far north as possible to get
it out of the shadow of the buildings
and so we're just thinking of this as
being
an area that has a little more privacy
to sit outside been going across the
street and sitting in the park
where you're in just a much more public
environment so we have a slight
disagreement we do at the same time
chapter two also calls for these
connections to be direct and friendly
towards pedestrians too
so that's the challenge Mr chair just a
question question slash comment behavior
um so this still getting comfortable
with the process and and the little
details we're operating at now is uh not
as at Grant as granular as it was in the
previous process and so when we get into
situations like this you know we don't
have really enough information to say
well
um do something like the following to
create that secondary but not as Formal
Connection
Etc and so I'm hearing a debate between
the applicant and the staff on what we
should do I think where the commission
was I'm just trying to figure out how do
we put continue to emphasize the need to
really explore or create what could be a
future alternative
that provides kind of protection from
trampling of this Landscaping that will
happen if people decide they want to go
to you know take the shortcut and
they're just going to plow through I
think we've actually come to a good
agreement about this you can see that
there's a slight difference of opinion
um and we've come to an agreement about
this that as we go through the
construction of this uh
um the uh the shortcut path uh is
something that we do agree is not
necessarily built to the same standards
as the six foot wide
handicapped accessible path that is
running around because that is why that
is on the longer
side because we couldn't get an
accessible route on your side but the
potential that we could incorporate a
stepping stone kind of path through the
Landscaping there as we all get to look
at how it's shaping up we think can be a
solution yeah I I would agree with that
I think two formal passes Overkill I
think that kind of secondary path being
something simple integrated into the
Landscaping but it's not walking on top
of them we've done something similar
already on this property to the shared
use route which runs north and south
towards the creek there's also a path
there too that's a uh a pervious type
Trail too yeah no more gravel too so
that's kind of a minor minor Trail but I
guess I guess back to the question
process question and so since we don't
have a level of detail that says you
know a specific condition that shall do
the following because it may not be the
right answer to make it a requirement
right now because we don't have enough
we have and explored it further enough
how do we ensure that you know other
than this conversation that this
actually happens that we really do fully
explore it in an end of the day what
seems to be the preferences kind of a
main accessible pathway that meets those
criteria those code requirements and
then this kind of secondary
if it makes sense in the end in the
design the secondary informal connection
to the to the trail
so instead of doing a condition is a is
part of the conversation on the record
enough that will point I I you're you're
bringing up an excellent point and I
mean depending on the commission's level
of comfort too
um I think what we were proposing is
that because we've captured this option
in the memo it and the staff have
described it the applicant has described
it we've concurred that that having this
is an option moving forward we think is
a good way to evaluate it
we feel that having that in our document
which is part of the basis of the
decision is sufficient
however if the commission feels more
comfortable you know having a condition
drafted that that during the um
construction phase that staff and
applicant will evaluate on site the need
for this sort of secondary stepping
stone path we could you know I'd be glad
to draft that while we're reviewing this
evening oh great I appreciate that and
then just another just more clarity on
this point so there were in the in the
memo and the staff applicant memo
they're on the flood plain issues and
the impacts there there were you know
comments made about and they were
responsive to the commission's concerns
last time about providing notification
to the or information to the residents
about potentials for flooding even
though the garages flood proof as
defined in the memo they could still be
trapped as a result of flooding that
happens on the site and so the
awarenessing and so the memo talks about
that but there are no formal conditions
that were created as part of the
original
recommendation and or here within
additional staff recommended conditions
and so again it's it's in the memo but
it's not formalized as a condition there
was also comments about creating a legal
um obligation to do that which gets a
little bit sensitive when you start
talking about that and so
um again I'm still trying to get clear
in my mind about the weight that comes
with if it's in the memo versus it's a
formal condition that has been defined
by the and adopted by the commission and
the standing of those as far as
implementation
so if if this had so I'm going to go
take a big step back if at the time
before we issued the first staff report
we had identified that we wanted we
thought that it was necessary for
instance to put the signage up in the
garage which is something we've talked
about in the applicants concurred with
we wouldn't have probably made that a
condition of the staff report we would
have made it a construction condition
and part of the distinction that we're
seeing there is that the land use
conditions are things that sort of have
site-wide impacts their implementation
of zoning you know that that are really
at a land use level but there are a lot
of things like for instance the signs in
the garage that are important to capture
to make sure that the applicant is aware
of them that
um
that staff doesn't forget about them I
mean it sort of serves as a Tickler list
so to speak and so that's part of why
we've gone to the construction condition
as a sort of secondary attachment of
conditions to the staff report because
we think that that level of community
there's a lot of good ideas that come up
with as we work with the applicant and
we want to make sure those are captured
to facilitate moving into the next phase
um so I say all of that
um
because the thing that strikes me is
that for instance the signage
in the garage would probably be more
appropriate as a construction condition
it doesn't have site-wide impacts but we
certainly don't want to lose track of it
right I guess our thought is that many
of the things that are in the briefing
response memo are the kind it almost
becomes another list that we turn to
because of the level of detail right
um but you know this is a relatively new
thing for all of us as well we developed
that in the fall as we were combining
and refining our processes as a result
of the Kaizen process that Christopher
Wright design described so um as you
asked so I say all of this because we're
still sort of figuring out where things
should be
um where where conditions should be what
should be conditions and so I I think
it's important that if the commission
feels that
um these really need to be captured in
conditions rather than relying on the
staff report as they continue I mean I'm
happy to draft some language that we can
add add to the motion yeah so I that's
really helpful and I appreciate the
audience patience with this as if we're
still finding our way a bit here and
want to make sure we're doing this well
so I guess the way I'll characterize
this is in my mind when it comes to the
official conditions of permit approval
that those are essentially these are
mandatory that we want to make sure that
in this form this happens
things that are captured in the response
memo that are responsive to the concerns
or questions of the commission they're
still flexible they're important to be
addressed by staff and the applicant as
in the design team as you go through
construction we don't have enough detail
to be fixed on it an outcome that we
want but it is an issue we want to see
addressed in the in the
continuation of design development and
that's the way I'll kind of separate
them in my mind but if it's a if it's
something we absolutely want to see
happen and we're going to we're going to
write a condition that goes as a permit
condition
I just wanted to point out that uh
from the previous meeting we've we've
been working with staff we've jointly
responded to the issues and concerns of
the commission and the public
and although this seems like a small
thing to be having a
disagreement over
the applicant has agreed that
um you know as the spaces are created
and the Topography of the courtyard is
in place and the distances are seen
that
we're saying that at that point in time
if it is obvious that this shortcut
stepping stone path is the right thing
to do the applicant is agreeing that
we're just you know voicing at this time
that we don't necessarily feel it's
necessary but we are keeping an open
mind and a committing to working with
staff both in the planning department
and
um in in our building permit
applications that this is a potential to
be viewed as a group uh further down the
road as we're getting closer to the
final construction of the space I think
that's it's a good example for testing
this you know Theory back and forth a
bit again keeping in mind that the
design development hasn't progressed as
far along as we have traditionally had
in front of us so we could be a little
more specific in what we wanted to see
happen and we don't want to do something
that becomes a requirement that
eventually doesn't make sense as the
design develops and then then you're
stuck so we don't want we don't want to
create that outcome either so that
flexibility is important so I appreciate
that thanks yeah
So to that end since we're testing
things I'm going to try drafting a
couple of conditions I'll go over and
show them to the applicant then we can
talk to you as we're getting to a point
where the commission's ready to make a
decision
uh number six was what is the purpose of
the courtyards are they primarily for
public use or the residence or
combination of both and uh the
courtyards are semi-private there's
three main Courtyards you can see the
little black and white drawings on the
lower right and they're by our shared
use routes for the most part or along
seventh
our plan does require that to provide a
number of public type spaces uh
individual spaces which are decks and
balconies you'll see though we sell
those already with the buildings and
there's some lower ones as well there's
some common and private ones such as the
courtyards which we see here there's
also some private spaces within the
recreation facilities within each of
those buildings too that are those are
totally private spaces too these are
kind of it's semi-private but designed
to be more private I believe and and
that also includes the route between
buildings B and C
part of the purpose of these public uses
also includes the neighborhood park and
I checked the snip up from your last
presentation too which it was in which
was in color and that shows the the park
which is just west of Issaquah Creek
so I think the providing them I have a
question on that sure
um
how does
a member of the public
how will they know
what's public and what's private
well there is a separation of a
landscape buffer between the trail
and the courtyard so that will do it
on 7th Avenue the courtyard is actually
built up
elevated above the Street sidewalk
there's stairs
well I'm thinking that well I don't
think they have any signage proposed
saying private keypad well that's that's
my point I mean what I'm thinking is
that we're trying the city is trying to
encourage pedestrian traffic we are uh
and if you succeed there are going to be
people who are going to get tired at a
certain point and want to sit down and
they're going to be others that are
going to want to go to sleep and you
know there is a percentage of the
population there so if if I I would
assume that residents are going to
expect there to be
um
a rational person to be able to
Define what's private and what's public
and I'm I'm it's not clear to me that
Landscaping is going to do it
because then you're going to get into
people calling the police and saying
there's some guy sleeping in our
Courtyard
well maybe I could talk to the bigger
issue of the
um
Public Access and uh
multi-family
housing developments
I think you're aware that the only piece
of this site which is being deeded to
the city is the shared use trail running
through that the rest of this is private
property
what happens with private property is
there is a standard of behavior which is
expected of people who are using private
property even though it appears to be
completely
open to the public
and that is one of the measures that
allows uh
uh you know the uh the people managing
this property to make the decision that
uh Mischief is happening and this is not
within the standard of behavior which is
appropriate on private property
and there will be somewhere on this site
there will be signs posted that that
says there is a standard of Behavior Uh
expected because you are on private
property and this is not the same as a
public Street and it's not the same as a
public park and so uh that that is
underwritten there now a lot of people
um
recognize that
that can have a positive influence in
terms of the policing of a space like
this because if some Mischief is
happening just in a public right-of-way
um you know who is going to call the
police to say that something nasty is
going on
when a private property owner says there
is something nasty happening on my piece
of property we need your assistance that
typically is found to get a greater
response
and so it's a little
complicated but the standard of behavior
for public on private property is a is a
a known aspect of providing this kind of
across the whole site access
so it's it's something that will be
worked out uh uh and language will be
worked out later and I'm sure we'll be
able to share it with the city yeah
these spaces they are geared and
oriented towards the uh residents
themselves that's correct
and I think part of what you're hearing
is that uh
while there may be some signage to
further
um
inform people who are coming to the site
that a lot of it is you know non-verbal
communication that is used in the design
to be more inviting in the park space
and maybe less inviting in certain
Courtyards that are intended for
residents
and you know those things sometimes
evolve as you see how a site is used
because the intent is that the park site
would be available generally for the
public and we actually have designed the
free Courtyards to have different levels
of
uh containment
on building a
which is I'm saying oops let's see okay
on building a uh the access to this
Courtyard which is on the east side of
the building is only through the
building
there is no problem unless you scaled
the wall coming out of this whale
there's no public access to that
courtyard
the courtyard in Building B which opens
off of the seventh actually it does have
a three foot high fence with a gate
and so it's
um the intention there is that the the
space and the Landscaping are sort of
being contributed to the public realm
but there is clearly
um a point where you would know you're
entering something which is uh
semi-private and then Building C
Courtyard is the most open of all of
those Courtyards because that is where
uh guests and residents actually just
walk through that courtyard in a very
um traditional Courtyard apartment
approach to a building where you're
walking through that space to get to the
lobby and um you know again
um
depending on how the resident was
wanting to feel the resident has access
to all of these different spaces
and so we're incorporating of course you
get across the street of a park it's
fully uh fully open to the public
I would imagine the management of the
apartment complex will have to monitor
this as well too yes so
oh the management will have to monitor
behavior in these spaces too
seven really came through this through
block passage I think the question was
uh
I can read it here
with all three buildings being five
stories in height will there be enough
sunlight for the plantings proposed the
public private space with the primary
through block passage between buildings
B and C may be dark and mossy due to the
five-story heights of the Jason
buildings uh the space is about 40 to 50
feet wide and it also has a very good
Southern Exposure too which is very much
to its Advantage so certainly during the
noon hours of the day
it'll receive the maxim sunshine and we
did ask the applicant to provide some
solar studies on this too and we have
some of those too which will show the
spring is it the Equinox I guess as well
as the peak of the summer on June 20th
I will um
this is March March 21st the day we just
passed yeah and so this is taken at 10
A.M in the morning so what we've done is
we've looked at the solar shading for
every hour through the day starting at
10 and going till three o'clock in the
afternoon
and as designers we're not just looking
at what sunlight is falling on the
ground which if you actually look at the
free Block passageway
um the the ground is in shade at 10
o'clock but the key thing here is that
the East face of Building B is pretty
much completely in sunlight and
therefore is reflecting light into the
space so as we go through these
and we
you know move an hour you can just see
um and this is also applying uh to the
Courtyard that we're just looking at
you can start to see how the Sun is uh
getting different access to different
parts of the courtyards so at different
times of the day there are going to be
places where uh you know residents could
predict where the Sun is going to be
and then when we look at um
one right next to it
um in in the summer
you can see it by 10 o'clock in the
morning we actually have sunlight
falling on the through block passageway
on the ground well and obviously as well
shining on the building facade
and this is uh running through on an
hourly basis you can see
um part of what I was talking about with
the sort of use of the of this space's
sitting area and then the the other two
Courtyards as we're going through
uh the day obviously at noon we're
getting light all the way down the uh
through block passageway
and then it starts to move over in the
afternoon until we're three o'clock in
the afternoon you can see uh it's it's
starting to get shadier again
the main emphasis was that through block
passage between buildings B and C
certainly building a will get the most
more enlightened Building B will get the
best of the afternoon light too yes
the plants are kept fairly low between
buildings being C so they're not going
to be casting a great amount of shade
there's also a lot of lights that will
be strung between the buildings too also
further lightened up too during those
darker sessions as well too
there's an example in Seattle that we
included in your briefing report and
that's with an alley in Seattle it's
near the REI store and so you can kind
of see an example in Seattle of a of a
similar type
passage although there's a little bit
more narrow and even with that there's
quite a bit of light
that one also has a Southern Exposure as
does this one here
uh eight was having to do with mixed
uses
you know the question was why isn't this
a mixed use building consistent with
this Central it's a plan instead of a
single-use building whether it be rental
or retail I should say in the future
where will the residents work will there
be where were the displaced businesses
go and uh you know Darlene you're here I
know you've brought that up yourself I
think that particular
question
okay mixed juice is not a requirement of
this plan
it's certainly something part of this
plan it's something we certainly
encourage but it's not a requirement
they could have gone all retail they
could have gone all residential and they
chose to go all residential again as we
discussed earlier they still have to
provide an option of this building for
changes in the future which you saw
earlier with Building B with the taller
Lobby and the dwelling units above are
taken out so there is an opportunity for
future commercial within that space
as it goes over time
uh we don't know where the residents uh
will work they could work anywhere in
the city or outside of the city but
there certainly is a lot of retail and
offices within the central Issaquah plan
of over a thousand acres that
accommodates uh
a work workspaces for a variety of
workers of all levels have you done has
the applicant done
demographic studies or Market studies of
the the desired customers
residents
talk Tom about that
yeah I think Tom Bartholomew with the
applicant with Lennar
um
we see the target market I think as uh
being composed of
young families it could be even single
parents small families in part because
the schools are so good and so close by
the the elementary school so close by in
terms of where people will work which I
guess is is the real question the other
thing that attracted to us this property
us to this property was the walkability
that that such a high box score in a
Suburban location is pretty unusual and
also that great access to Transit so
right outside the door both going and
coming there's express bus service to
downtown Seattle Bellevue and Redmond so
I think there's there'd be I think the
answer is anywhere okay yeah
uh you brought up another issue that I
still am not clear on and I've asked
this question a number of uh meetings
with a different number of different
applications
you mentioned uh small families single
parent families uh what what is the
process I still don't it's not clear to
me what the problem this is for the
staff okay uh it's still not clear to me
what the process is to
communicate what process if any how does
the school board doing their
responsibility
become aware of increases in the
population the number of kids in the
community for their planning purposes
how does what what is that process
we actually have that here in the report
too
that was item number
well item 25 if it's addressed if it's
addressed in the in the report I didn't
see it number 25 number 25 that one too
all right then we can just because we
certainly work with the school district
on
honor a comprehensive plan two and and
the densities that we expect to
well and I think the mo the easiest way
that they find out is for those
residential units they get impact fees
so that's one way that they know that
things are being built they also have
demographers that you know are
projecting based on births and trends of
people moving and building permits how
many people they expect to be in the
schools and where they'll be living and
what the ages of the children will be
and we work with the school district
it's predominantly their
you know their decision but we work with
them on locating School sites if
necessary or and collecting the school
impact fees and it's kind of interesting
with impact Feast because many years we
collected for the school district
impact fees for single family only we
weren't collecting for school district
school district district did not require
an impact fee for multi-family and so
that's just recently within the last
couple years that we are now assessing
multi-family
okay thank you
just another quick question on that
um do you did you do any kind of
estimate of
accounting for a vacancy rate the number
of people that would be residing in
Atlas at any one time and then
um like a range of school-aged children
associated with that as the architect
I'm going to pass that over to the
developer
you were looking at me it's a quick
answer no not to that level of detail
and and I think the way the city would
look at it is
um
the way a building like you know we
often have applicants that come in and
say we won't have children or we're
going to have tons of children or you
know they they know the market that they
think is going to be attracted to the
types of housing that they're building
and it is somewhat different with a
rental project because if they're owning
it they recognize what I'm about to say
but you know with townhouses single
family homes and other kinds of condo
projects
we're trying to think about who's moving
in now but also you know how it may need
to be used in 10 20 30 years and so it's
kind of a balancing act between the
requirements that we have now and
setting it up for some flexibility
um long term over the total life of the
building I know this is going to be I
know it's addressed in in number 25 but
what I'm hearing is that there really
isn't a
the one of the last
developments applications that we looked
at I think it was even last year was a
an apartment complex on Newport
right where seventh basically we're
seventh and Newport intersect uh and as
I recall it was a rather large structure
with lots of units and it's basically
across the street from mississaug
elementary school and I asked then you
know does does the school board know
that they're going to be uh so
what I'm hearing is that there really
isn't
a
formal process of saying 343 rental
units are going to be constructed at
this site
and
the statistics are that X percent of
those will have school-aged children uh
there's no there's no formal it's it's
like the rental or the the impact fee
goes into the account and then they do
their thing too extrapolate from that
and and I would say yes that's right and
that is really important that they're
doing that extrapolation because they
really are they have all the statistics
um and you know while you're right we
could provide
um
census and other kinds of information
you know their level of knowledge of who
moves in where and the implications of
that for specific to not only the
Issaquah school district but the
individual schools is going to be
superior to anybody else's just because
that's what they spend you know all
their time I'm not suggesting that it's
the city's responsibility or the DC's
responsibility to do that but it just
seems to me that that
making sure that that knowledge that
there are 343 rental units going in at
this site we're considering an
application for another 250 100 yards
away that they get that to do their
thing with it and is their
responsibility but you know all of us
are concerned about quality of life for
residents in Issaquah I mean that's
basically what this is all about yeah
they typically don't get a notice of
application when an application comes in
saying this is how large it is this is
how many units it is in this case their
Studios ones and two bedroom bedroom so
they're not really large family type
units but I I think that that the point
both of you are making that's so
important is I don't think the school
district is as interested in land use
permits
um because land use permits are not
I guarantee that that actually is going
to happen and so I think that the um
their interest is in the actual issuance
of a building permit which is when we
collect the school impact fee in which
it when it would be passed to them and
you know with most of the projects that
they're really going to care about
there's usually at least a year of
construction
that takes place so at the point the
permit's issued there's probably a year
before anyone's going to be present that
might be generating school-aged children
and that while not enough time to build
a school is enough time to begin to
consider how things you know those
shifts because it usually is several
years before they um
have you know the the impacts are
sufficient enough that they are making
significant that timing can be very long
time long term too that's not always
just a year or two kilkari condominiums
for instance is an example as a master
site plan and that's 15 years later and
they're still not built out yet
I think something that I want to add too
is that these units are relatively small
say compared to the units that are up on
the plateau in the highlands and so
kids who are in these units likely are
going to be younger and quite possibly
preschool age these units are not
intended for small families per se
the bus stop is being moved Eastward I
think we heard that earlier with the
last presentation there was a discussion
that
from the applicant about gravel
surfacing being placed out there which
the city doesn't allow we don't want the
gravel up flying out of the street into
the right of way and and nicking
vehicles out there either so
I will have to be a hard surface of some
type of material where we're just
working with the
City to arrive at the right
permeable material so that we are able
to keep the trees that are going to be
lining Gilman on the regular uh tree
spacing but make sure that the one's
close to the bus stop get plenty of
water so we're working together on the
on the solution yeah I mean irrigation
can work this out pervious pavement too
so there's different solutions that can
work to make this
affected with the Landscaping
signage was a question this is a new
illustration too
this is at the corner of seventh
and Gilman has the new name too on it
Atlas
and this is one of these Street walls it
has varied Heights but this is a
an option that has been presented by the
applicant we'd rather like it too how it
fits into the space architecturally it
looks really nice
and we'll be talking about this corner a
little bit more too in in this briefing
report as well
we don't have any sign up permit
applications yet
number 11 does relate to what we just
saw and that is that there is a bill to
line presence required getting the
buildings within 0-10 feet of your
streets we see that being provided for
buildings B and C on Seventh and Locus
and for part of it for building a along
seventh also but with guillem Boulevard
that's a little bit unique because of
the
drainage
blood swell that runs east and west
through that portion of the site so it
doesn't quite meet it we'll take an
adjustment of Standards to uh
deviate from that standard but we are
going to want to see some vertical
elements within this area
the central Issaquah plan does talk
about vertical architect elements
running 60 feet in each direction of the
street and that's what they've shown
here in this newer drawing there's some
openings too which is fine
there's some walls that are Landscaping
there's some seating there's some
pedestrian lights too to bring in some
vertical elements of that too
quick question just to make sure I've
got the design so the the bench faces
the bench faces inward in towards the
green into the Swale drainage swell yeah
concrete wall provides kind of shielding
from the roadway the detail yes because
we've got some more drawings okay the
other way facing the street would not be
very yeah
here we have
what uh
what we have here is that uh
we have created uh We've adjusted
actually from the last time you saw this
we've adjusted all the spacing
um running through here uh it's a little
complicated but we're trying to make
sure that the buses aren't
the active pruning of the trees so we're
we're pulling the uh trees in and we're
creating a slightly wider planting area
adjacent to the boulevard than is
required
in order to let the trees the location
of the trees be further away because
this is where the buses are swooping in
to come to the bus stop
we are proposing that it was only a
couple of uh the uh hazelnut trees that
were a healthy enough state to keep but
we are now proposing that we actually
take those couple out as well as the
unhealthy ones they've been taken away
already on the western side of seven by
the city they weren't healthy trees
they've been replaced with newer trees
since so by the time we make an alley of
the trees on each side of a sidewalk of
the second row of trees is basically
falling on the on the property line
the other thing that we're dealing with
here is that we actually do have a gas
line
which we are
slaving past the trees but it is running
on the edge of the planting area so it's
not falling underneath the sidewalk uh
so we don't rip up the sidewalk if uh of
a city we're up the sidewalk if there's
any need for repair to that
and so what we're creating is a a series
of
walls which are parallel they're spaced
about 18 inches away from the back of
the sidewalk It's Our intention that the
concrete wall facing the road actually
will become a green wall it'll be
planted so that it will get covered in
in Vines but the uh side of a wall which
is facing the Swale gets a bench and
then a pedestrian pole light at each one
of those
so that is
in scale these are on
on the side of this wall where the hand
is is four feet tall and going up to
five feet tall so each one has gotten
now this is picking up the sloping top
which is on the top of the buildings as
well
and that gets to the corner and it runs
up so the wall here is five feet and
then back down and then we're repeating
the same element coming down the seventh
uh we're actually using the required
spacing of the trees the 30-foot spacing
of the trees to actually
say where these walls and benches should
go so they they're in the middle of a
tree spacing and the uh they're also
spaced far enough away but we're but
we're not uh
interfering with the roots of the new
trees what we're going to be planting
adjacent to these areas
we also the issue of Safety and Security
too with the benches I think that needs
to be brought and that was one of the
reasons why we actually have a
pedestrian scale pole light at each one
of these areas and we didn't want people
to be able to sort of walk along the
sidewalk and
hit people sitting on the benches on the
back of the heads also
we were looking at this as a complete
element we get a bench
um here too so
these five benches here are all focused
in towards the Swale area
um
yeah and just as far as the Wall height
that you were talking about
four to six or four to five feet tall
which I think it's good because I'm
guessing I don't know if police looks at
these things but from a public safety
standpoint you want to create places
where people can hide and surprise
people Etc particularly walking along
here at night so I I the design actually
seems to find a balance to create
something interesting but also doesn't
appear to create any sort of a security
problem we were concerned about
I mean we understood the notion that
we're trying to replicate a building
a built to line for a building
but we feel like we've reached a happy
medium here that we're getting something
that
can be substantial enough that there's
the series of walls but that we're not
running foul of the of the safety issues
well I'd like to just ask a really basic
question can you tell me again what the
purpose of the walls behind the benches
or in front of the benches is the case
what what the fundamental purpose is
fundamental purpose
and I'm saying this without
any implied
irony is that the central Issaquah plan
has a requirement for buildings to be
built within xero and
10 feet of any property line
we're not able to build any buildings
within that area because of the existing
drainage pattern right which runs all
the way down you can see it all the way
down Gilman Boulevard that's where the
Swale runs all the way along the street
and so that is the destination of all
the storm water is connecting into that
existing Swale running through there so
that's our connection to the existing
stormwater system that the city has in
place
well we've been doing here is arriving
at a solution which
in a creative way is meeting the intent
of getting a definition of a bill to
line without having to build a building
at the bill to lines so we're creating a
uh this series of walls and let's just
go back to the next slide we're creating
a series of walls oops
um which are running along here we're
actually going you know from the corner
down here we're actually running about
72 feet rather than the 60 feet that the
city has in uh the plan
um but we are spacing these out so we're
getting a combination of walls trees
Landscaping seating areas uh and uh it's
a little subtle here but uh a change in
the paving pattern
um running through this area
all to work together
to satisfy the fact that we need an
adjustment
to
the fact that we can't meet the bill to
requirement
can I address that as well
I'll just address it by saying we asked
the same question
about the importance of that wall
we were skeptical as well we understand
that it's in the plan but we were
skeptical about it well actually I was
yeah I don't want to uh so my
understanding is that there is no
aesthetic
that this is a code compliance
requirement that you are attempting to
address
but it has no fundamental security
require a benefit uh it has no
fundamental aesthetic benefit I mean
you're putting vines on it to make it
look less like a
I guess I guess
and we're going to discuss this later
but uh
I I well all right I'll we'll discuss it
later
we're trying to satisfy a city
requirement in an aesthetically pleasing
and safe
with aesthetically pleasing and safe
solution
and we have been working with the city
staff on this
for about six months now to arrive at
what the intention of this regulation is
and how we might arrive at a compromise
as to
alternative having the street wall
versus a building there which is not
practical well Jerry let me let me ask
okay the city this then
is it
is it the city's contention that these
four to five foot high concrete walls
Behind these benches
is uh desirable or is it required and
there I'm it's not just a question of
somatics here
I think it's a little bit more desired
It's Not the Only Solution we gave we we
provided with the last step report
several different uh
photos I think we provided four photos
of different types of examples of how
this could be achieved since they can't
get the budding up front you know the
street wall what could be done and there
were some artistic things that were done
uh this was a proposal by the architect
of what they're trying to share with us
of how they think they can meet it
so what would be the consequence of not
having those wall having the benches but
not having the walls what would be the
negative consequences well we did want
to have some vertical element with it
and benches would not provide it nor
would just Landscaping either
it needed something more physical
something that relates to the building
itself too
so
we are finding our way through sent this
is of course our first significant foray
through the central Issaquah standards
the standards as Alan did an excellent
job of pointing out
require that buildings be zero to Ten
Feet from every property line no
exception right
um
the uh and there's also another
requirement that there be 60 feet of
building
along from a corner back
um
so you know clearly with the Swale there
it is not possible to have a building in
that location
so our work with the applicant was to
say what is an alternative
that both is in because in keeping with
the architecture of the building
that
let's say implies
where the street wall would be without
building a street wall
and that
carries forward the goals of those
requirements which is to create a good
Urban environment that's comfortable for
pedestrians
um
the particular solution as Jerry pointed
out is really it's the applicants
um we'll be honest they would prefer to
not be doing this
um
but
I think staff felt that that while it is
absolutely accurate that a building
can't be here that there are
um
elements that could be provided that
respect the
standards in the central Issaquah plan
okay
all right thank you
yeah could I if it seems I if I'm
looking at the schematic correctly it
looks like if this if the code or the
centralist quad plan requires a 10 foot
margin those walls are 18 feet away
right if the planting strip is is 12
feet and the sidewalk is six feet if my
arithmetic's right this is the property
line right here see where this is okay
I'm sorry it's not back here or back
here it's this line right here thank you
and the building would need to be either
here
or
10 feet away over here and as you can
see we get we start to get into the
shaping of the
storm water uh Swale
huh I mean we we believe that this will
be an attractive place for people to uh
to look at it's been you saw how nicely
it's being landscaped yeah it will be
turned into an amenity besides being
functional for the flood Jerry the the
applicant mentioned that this wall might
prevent people sitting on the bench from
getting slapped on the head by
skateboarders or whatever but has the
police department looked at this uh no
they have not
because if
well
I you know I
to me well I I'll save my comments for
later
we can go on the next one
number 12 there was concern about
contamination of the soils and with the
applicant's presentation
in April
they kind of gave some history of the
property I think there's a dry cleaners
maybe it was our gas station there too
but anyway the soils particularly on the
on the western side are contaminated and
they will be required to comply with all
applicable codes for the removal and
stabilization of those contaminated
soils and it's not only the soils on the
site but also in the buildings when they
get demolished too there could be
Asbestos and that would have to be all
properly removed and disposed of too
speaking of
disposal and removal
um another hat that I wear is on the
frenzy salmon hatchery and one of
the things that we've learned is that
about 85 to 90 percent of the fecal
coliform bacteria in Issaquah Creek
comes from dogs and people not picking
up after their dogs
uh
we are going to encourage pedestrian
activity here we have a dog park so
as long as we're talking about
contamination and removal who's going to
be what Provisions are going to be made
to make it uh as easy as possible for
people to clean up after the dogs and
then who cleans up after the people who
clean up after the dogs
whose responsibilities
uh well the uh at the dog park which is
fenced there will be uh uh bags
available
um so that people with the dog can pick
up after their dogs and then there will
be
a waste
bin for those bags to be placed and then
the uh the managers of the total
property will be responsible for uh
removing those for disposal
a few other aside from the dog park will
there be one or two other receptacles on
the site for people using them we expect
that because there's going to be more
pedestrian use with the shared use trail
running through here we expect those to
be on a regular you know basis through
the site
receptacles benches All The Pedestrian
amenities
Transportation concurrency traffic was
an issue that was brought up and it was
dealt pretty extensively in the CPD
termination you have that with your
original staff report
uh
what will be the impact of new traffic
with the number dwelling in its proposed
does traffic concurrency show no impact
from this project will the proposed
signal be too close to the existing
signal those are the basic questions and
there will be new traffic
generated by this project they are
however receiving credit of course from
the commercial use of the property
that's been there today
um
the traffic study determined that the
beginning 74 new PM trips now most the
traffic that enters the site today of
course is off Gillen Boulevard this
traffic 90 percent of it would be using
7th Avenue and about 10 percent would be
using Locust Street
there are there was an analysis that was
done with the poor nearby Street
intersections to the level of service uh
is going to be improving with this
project too at 7th and Gilman there is a
requirement through cipa that they
provide a new traffic signal there and
the channelization lanes that will go
along with it too some further traffic
analysis is still going to be occurring
too on left turn movements from Seventh
into the site
Street Improvement projects to the plans
requirements that's Gilman Boulevard 7th
and locus of streets are going to be
widened new sidewalks
bicycle ways those are all requirements
to be put onto those streets that's
going to help the situation too but
there there is an an increase level of
traffic so we can't hide that point
did you want to add anything further
about uh
traffic you've given quite a bit of trip
generation information within the the
applicant's response here too
details are all here
uh Seventh Avenue ditch
is it considered habitat area and I
think it pretty much is this is a
photograph I took of it you saw some
photographs even more that I took the
site the first time around you can see
in the foreground this is the open ditch
and as you get down to about halfway
through the site the the northern part
of it's already been uh placed into a
culvert many years ago and so the
remaining part of this ditch here now
would also be in a culvert and amenities
walkways Street improvements buildings
things that serve the building would be
placed in this in order to convert this
into the pipe then there was also an
agreement that they would have to
provide mitigation Elsewhere on site
you'll see the vast majority of it will
be in the new flood Channel and there's
a variation of Quite A variation of
different plants that will be adaptable
to the water levels within that area and
then also with the off Channel repairing
habitat area that's being posed along
issquock
Creek itself too
I don't see how much Wildlife there is
in this particular picture but I'm sure
you know I'm sure there's some
you know you'll see some frogs and other
Wildlife that would be using like
there's some standing water public to
hold their comment until public comment
time uh I want to make real clear that I
understand
this ditch
there will be no under the proposal The
applicant's Proposal there won't be any
runoff from the Swale or from the the
drainage system that goes through the
site that you're proposing the flood the
over the flooding it will not go into
this ditch it will go into the
intersects the area at the intersection
of 7th and Gilman
right that is correct okay so the water
that is it that goes into this existing
ditch now
primarily comes from where
South
from the south okay yeah and drains and
drains it runs right to the north yeah
it's running up there it's going in that
pipe right coming out again and it's
going under seven okay in in uh the the
the Swale drain does not have a drainage
out of it it just percolates through the
ground any flood water that goes in
there where does where does it go into
this system no the the Swale the new
Swale right goes to the existing uh
pipes that go underneath seventh and
connect in with the whole stormwater
system that runs along Gilman Boulevard
okay this when it is just half of this
goes into a pipe half of it is already
in a pipe it's also going in the same
direction
and it continues I just didn't see in
the earlier uh illustrations of the
Swale I didn't see where that activity
occurs you know any any obvious sight or
sign of of where that drainage would
would occur it's actually in that uh
area where the intersection is uh just
this this pipe comes into that area and
then there's a dream which goes out and
across the street
yeah this is obviously this is a major
concern for for a lot of folks so that
understanding how that's just this
proposed system is going to handle that
water is a really really key yeah and I
mean there's I I think you're correct
here there's two issues one is that
there is habitat associated with this uh
intermittent class it's a class 4 stream
um and so there's that habitat is being
recreated in two different places on the
site wanted to Creek with additional
enhancements to the creek uh than were
necessary and one additional area in the
bottom of the Swale the second piece of
the puzzle is this South half of this
area where it is the open ditch
is being put in a pipe but the course of
direction is remaining the same and it's
leaving the site in the same way okay
the square footage of this area that is
being lost in the ditches being fully
compensated uh square foot per square
foot in fact it's a little bit larger
Within These two new areas that are
being created
impervious surface I think the
development commission brought that up
we gave the percentages and a table in
the staff report the central Issaquah
plan allows 90 impervious that's quite a
bit larger than the the previous 65
which was allowed by the former R zoning
of the site they'll have about 65
percent there's quite a large area
within the new neighborhood park this
quad Creek the buffers along there the
Swale
as well as all this additional
Landscaping that is occurring within the
parking lots along the shared use route
so it's certainly going to be a lot
greener I don't have the exact square
footage we do know it's a
percentage-wise it's about 65 percent
and as we get to the construction phase
of it we'll get those details of how
many square feet is Purvis versus how
much is impervious
16 was about parking
they are providing a
approximately 400 parking stalls on the
site that's kind of in the middle
between what is required 339 that's
based on whether they're one bedrooms or
two bedrooms or studio type units and
then there is a maximum number of Park
installs required now by the central
risk Club plan we did not have a maximum
under the old code
they would be allowed to have up to 530
spaces in addition they have the
required requirement to provide parallel
parking on the streets too as part of
the street standards but they will not
get credit for that parking
for the apartments
street parking applies to commercial
uses
the average
oh we calculate is about 1.2 stalls per
unit they'll also be providing
motorcycle parking and a generous amount
of bicycle parking both within the
garages and also outside on the on the
site till
I have a question on the parking oh okay
it seemed like
I was a little confused on on how many
how many units are really being
developed so it the numbers seemed very
little so I guess it's 340 is the number
we're using 344. and it seemed like in
in reading through the the staff
recommendations
and I unfortunately I made copies of
what I wanted to say and I I've left it
it's on my desk at home so I can't
remember exactly but it talked about a
recommendation of 1.6 stalls per unit
was recommended by
somebody that was had done some recent
studies but they really thought it was
1.2 and the bottom line for me is it got
real confusing on
thinking that there was adequate parking
I think that and I think that the
real fear is that the that people are
going to move off site to park
especially with uh parking uh a retail
center right across the street it's
going to be a real attractive nuisance
for people that don't want to pay for
parking to just to go over there and
walk across the street
uh it's not obvious to me that that
I got confused in reading the
documentation of what the real number of
the recommendation of stalls per unit
ought to be
well the requirement is for your Studios
it requires 0.75 per unit
perk installs
for a one-bedroom unit and a two bedroom
it's one pre-unit and that's the minimum
requirement
and based on the 346 parking are 346
units a minimum of 339 parking stalls
would be required
now as far as the maximum which is also
looked at
Your Studios the minimum is 0.75 but the
maximum is one stall per unit
um
with a one bedroom unit it's 1.25 per
unit that's the maximum
and for your two bedroom units it's two
per unit uh in the olden days before the
before this plan was adopted it was a
minimum of two parking spaces per
dwelling unit and it didn't matter
whether it was a one-bedroom two-bedroom
or a or a three bedroom but it's much
more restrictive now in that respect and
uh
putting more emphasis on the bicycles
too
um
to speak to some of the numbers that
you're you're thinking about
um
King County has recently undertaken a
very detailed study
of residential parking in certain areas
which includes some portions of Issaquah
including the site
when you uh so then the 1.6 and 1.2
um
what they found in that study on average
in King County
um
there was it says
Suburban King County multi-family
projects are built with 1.6 stalls per
unit on average but use only 1.2 stalls
um the uh and then which is about what
this project has
um the calculator that King County has
um created uh has estimated 1.3 stalls
per unit as the need which if you do
count the on-street parking is the
amount of parking the project has but
the important thing I think to emphasize
is that as long as an applicant is
between the minimum and the maximum it's
at their discretion where they choose to
fall in that range
number 17.
is affordable housing required for the
project I know it's not a requirement
for this project it's not a requirement
by the central Isla plan
if you get into the bonus density bonus
program for say increased Building
height then it comes into play
there may be a
some studies done in the future about
revising our centralized Club plan to
require affordable housing
no that's been thought of but it's not a
requirement today
fire access and circulation you asked
whether the fire department had looked
at the plans and they've they've
approved it they have no problems with
the way the circulation and the Turning
radiuses work within the the
circulation system for the project and
there was a little sample of their fire
truck that was on the plans and it's
pretty close to what uh
our fire department has two similar in
size and it did receive their
endorsement
number 19.
well residents have secure access to the
buildings the applicants stated yes that
they will be allowed there will be
required to have keypads so for that
security and the city only requires that
uh
you know by only as a by cold we can't
require it
they uh the city does not have a section
that says you shall put in a uh a
security
type system
with the building
you know for the entrances you know
whether it's cameras
uh special
vestibules or locks
key key locks combination types the
bottom line is that no one will be able
to enter the garages or into the
buildings without the appropriate key
card if it's a key card system it's just
at their choice
and
they've stated that that's what they are
going to provide correct
there is a mid-block Crossing with the
shared use route here on 7th
it's circled there in the red and
the IG came up maybe Flash and signs
could be used to
signal a motorists and the pedestrians
that it's a safe
time to cross and you've seen this in
some cities it's it's still being looked
at by our city whether it's appropriate
or not there's been mixed feelings about
it well we'll be considering this
idea as the project goes under review
for our construction permits
Jerry remind me what the mix you
mentioned this in the last meeting
remind me what the mixed feelings are
because we've got the one on Newport
where the Hatchery is and I think
there's at least one other one that I
know and sir we have two in the city I
know we have that one what is chatri
so that was my report
there was one discussed at Issaquah
Highlands
desire I can't remember if it was a
desire by the commission or exactly
where the request had come from
and the police department so I wasn't
aware of the one at the Hatchery so I
didn't have that example to give
um
but there was just a lot of hesitancy
about using the um
those flashing signals that some of the
research is beginning to indicate that
it creates a false sense of security and
the police department
likes to have more consistency through
the city in terms of the way they
communicate like conditions and so it's
um
I think what we want to do is is we did
not have
honestly the time to go to the police
department at this point we will you
know we plan to go and talk to them more
about this but at this point we're just
not we do we're hesitant to put any kind
of condition on requiring this because
of some of the comments that we've heard
under previous circumstances
mid block Crossings are also discouraged
too but sometimes unavoidable too
tax credits for the project there are no
tax credits for affordable housing with
this project
and again
affordable housing is not part of this
project so no tax credits
herbicides and chemicals I know there
was a concern about
whether they be used on the site and
they should be restricted and we do have
some rules about them using about
chemicals being used near our creeks and
waterways and that's in our
environmental regulations in place and
the applicant has already stated that
Dave will be restricted on the entire
site so not just along the Issaquah
Creek area but the entire site itself
there are some views of artist quails
there you can certainly see this picture
that's above the rooftops that's Tiger
Mountain on the left side
over here
squawk Mountain on the right side and
these views will still be maintained
there's a lot of peekaboo views
throughout the site both through the
through block Passage through the shared
use route probably one of the largest
areas will be with the new neighborhood
park which will allow these views to
continue as well too now the applicant
is built in these Heights to the base
height which is 54 feet they're allowed
54 feet with the underground parking
below those buildings
the zoning would allow buildings as high
as 85 feet so that
also will help retain these views that
were of concern on the site
building foundations
whether they're on pilings or designed
some other way
they are going to have to be designed to
meet the international building code and
have the structural review and
Engineering reviewing a lot too
applicants already had a professional
analysis of the soils on the site too
and feels that they're uh system that
they've proposed
is acceptable and will work for this
project you want to add anything further
Ellen on
a foundation nope
uh impacts for the school district we
kind of got to that a little earlier too
but there is a fee it's a 1097 per
dwelling unit and generally the school
district revises their impact fees each
year usually around December January
sometimes they go up sometimes they go
down
uh number 26 here
are
is in two parts and it's a
it's about condition number seven and
that's for the
for the neighborhood park it's got a lot
of elements with the dog park it's
pretty much of a passive Park but the
plan also calls for providing some
elements that can be used year-round
when it's rainy like it's been this uh
most of the spring so far you know like
a gazebo for instance and we'd still
like to see something
of that proposed with this Park
the applicant's been a little bit
hesitant towards
providing such an element
it's a cost at home and I get cost issue
I suppose but I think that's something
we can still work out with uh it's
designed to it's a design issue
design and cost
uh design issue okay
Well we'd like to still work and discuss
this further too as we go through our
construction permits see what can and
cannot be done
for such a structure
number eight had to do with the parking
and there's some new language which you
see underline in some language which we
took out
with condition number eight this is with
the staff report there were some more
pretty stiff penalties you can see that
in the final line failure to perform a
result in civil penalties and we've
taken that out we still want to see a
that parking will be
at a cost for the residents we want to
see a reasonable use of those garages at
the 85 to 95 percent if they're not
uh
being used at that 85 to 95 percent then
perhaps the cost is too high and we're
going to want to see some reports on
what is the percentage of these garages
being used uh if the parking is too high
Autos will of course use a lot at
Safeway and other budding properties we
don't want to see that happen
there's only so much limited parking
outside the buildings too
so I would expect to see some monthly
reports to see if this has been achieved
could it could it not be a result of
people doing what they're being
encouraged to do and just using mass
transit and not having a vehicle
that was exactly the applicant's point I
bet he's very happy to hear you say that
thinking that same thing
so the point is that there is the
ability to adjust
depending on the usage right well so the
condition this condition what had been
used in another project in Issaquah and
we we just carried it Forward
um and in further discussions after the
staff report was issued
um the applicant uh pointed out exactly
the point and so instead of making it a
required annual element we asked that as
they do studies that they you know of
parking usage that they provided to us
but we also wanted the ability uh to we
wanted to be clear with them that that
if we were seeing parking lot Safeway
parking lot filling up with people or
Safeway was complaining that we needed a
mechanism to come back to them and say
we need you to verify that your parking
is being used partly the reason for the
the addition of a range was that it
might very well be that people are
choosing to just give up their cars or
maybe Zipcar or car to go comes to
Issaquah and you don't need to have a
car under those circumstances there may
be a period of vacancy with the
apartments too so that adds them to it
right so uh just follow up I'm trying to
understand so is the charge for parking
at the discretion of the applicant or is
that a city requirement that there's
that's at the applicant
okay
yeah this will be a hard one from an
enforcement standpoint trying to figure
it out so
um I I actually appreciate that it's not
a bright line here compliance or
non-compliance but it it's still a
challenge to try to understand the goal
here that the parking demand for the
project should be managed within the
project and not spill out elsewhere and
cause other that is problems that's the
goal but the other part of it is and
that was the point that the chair made
is well we're trying to encourage people
to give up their cars and provide more
convenient public transportation to meet
their needs or other alternatives to
minimize the amount of you know cars on
the road kind of a thing and the
associated cost so you know anything we
can do to accomplish that too so and
actually paying for parking is one of
those mechanisms so this is a
challenging issue I understand what
you're trying to get to I think the
Amendments well and and I think to add
to those excellent points
um you know a reasonable property owner
is going to want to set the rates at a
at a level at which that is attractive
is attractive I think our concern is an
unreasonable property owner not that we
have any concerns about that at this
time but over the life of our project
um we just wanted the ability to begin a
conversation if if it does not appear
that the rates are set at a at a level
that's successful
just a follow-up question on this is for
staff and it related is does the city
require transportation management plans
be that they're submitted for larger
projects or have you contemplated that
where you know things are done to create
incentives for people to actually take
mass transit
um
kind of minimize the demand for vehicles
Etc and then you're kind of looking at
ins it's through education it's through
providing bus reduced cost bus passes or
things like that
um I don't know if that's something that
I have not seen that in the central is
Club plan the the main coat has that
element in it uh for instance some
projects do share parking between uses
between peak hours and we saw that for
the Marriott hotel with the Maple Street
Building for instance too as one and
we've seen it for the cinema over at
Pickering place too where we've had
traffic these plans that you're
referring to yeah okay so a
transportation management plan is
generated through state law I mean we do
have it in the city code and it just
applies to non-residential projects over
a certain size
so you know from a requirement
perspective that's where that's
triggered but the city does actively
work with property owners to encourage
exactly the kinds of programs and so
there's an outreach program I I'm not
sure whether it's residential or just
non-residential but there's
um definitely the offices of office of
sustainability is very open to working
with all property owners who are
interested thank you
I I guess I'm I'm a little concerned
that the proposed revisions doesn't
accomplish the goal and I uh I guess for
me that
it's a bit nebulous to know what time to
time is
and and so I think that any fee for the
parking is is going to put some people
in the adjacent parking lots and so if
I'm and it doesn't seem like the
language allows adjustment in the rate
if if in fact the optimistic conclusion
is that people don't use their they
don't even have cars so they can't fill
it the owner has to lower the rate to
where it's free then they're still not
going to use it they can't meet that
requirement you know they can't it says
that the property owner must adjust the
rental charge monthly until such time as
a minimum use rate of 85 to 95 is
achieved wolf
20 percent of the people have cars they
can't get there so the the language
doesn't allow you to comply with the 85
to 95 percent if I if I'm understanding
that correctly right
so
and it would seem that there would be
more value in my mind to be
to require some kind of effective
analysis that makes decisions on
the number of people that have cars and
the number of people that are using that
facility
and have that be reflected in the
percentage of use
but if if there's 340 apartments and 40
people don't have cars you're not going
to get you're not does that make sense
is what I'm saying makes sense well and
and in reality that not all the parking
I I believe that at least currently only
the parking under the building has a fee
associated with it that the surface
parking
between the buildings that kind of winds
through the project is free
so that's a factor as well
um
let me Ponder
you know some families will have two
cars a piece
yes I know
I'm just talking about the pumpkin I
just wanted to go back because I I
just commented with the gazebo in the
park was a design issue it's actually uh
a bigger than just a design issue it's a
design issue it's a management issue
it's a security issue we're anxious not
to provide a shelter in the park which
becomes a dry Hangout
for
anybody
whether it's the people dining in the
adjacent restaurants to come and sit in
the park and leave a letter behind or
whether it's
a smoking shelter or whatever it is
we're just concerned that it uh
has the potential to become an
attractive nuisance that needs to be
extensively managed
rather than having any real purpose of
people in this part of the world know
that it rains all the time and walking
in the rain is part of the outdoor
lifestyle and to actually have to go
across the street and sit under a
shelter it doesn't
seem to fit with our vision of that as
an outdoor space I I would comment that
I believe your especially your focus on
security as far as I'm concerned is very
legitimate because in Issaquah recently
we have had well-publicized incidences
of increasing
incidents of
folks using facilities such as the
shelter at the Hatchery for cover at
night for not only from the rain but for
cover for illegal activities ended and
there has been a recent uh violent
activity at the Hatchery that has re has
required additional patrols from the
police department it has required the
State Department of Fish and Wildlife
which owns the Hatchery to have an
enforcement officer that has that now
routinely goes by there the point of
this is this is like the old squeezing
the toothpaste thing if you if you have
people that are inclined to do that kind
of thing
and you run them out of one area they're
going to go to another area so I think
that's a very legitimate concern to have
an isolated relatively isolated as far
as the view is concerned site that is
going to have a facility like that
that it you know unfortunately I wish
this weren't the case but I think it's
that the security is a real legitimate
concern
so what what staff has communicated to
the applicant is that we are willing to
have a conversation about an adjustment
of Standards the standard is really
clear
um they bought brought up concerns and
we're willing to have that conversation
but had not gotten through that process
at this time yeah I once again I think
this is another area where Consulting
with the police department would be
would be real helpful because they're
the ones ultimately if there is a
problem that they're gonna have they're
going to have to deal with it and I bet
they have an opinion on what works and
what doesn't in terms of attracting or
discouraging that particular clientele
yeah this this uh neighbor Park won't
cover everything anyway
the plan calls for two acre Park this
does not have two acres in fact the plan
that we showed a couple weeks back you
know extends it up both on the north
side of Gilman Boulevard and the Park
event going further south of locust so
there'll be other elements to this
neighborhood park that stretches Beyond
this piece of property and so there
could be some other opportunities for
some covered elements even within those
phases
those were the questions that were asked
of our
of our commission members
the next steps would be preparing a
findings effect and have them signed and
then issuing a notice of decision a
notice of decision would be given to the
applicant team as well as to all the
parties of record that we have on file
and there'd be an appeal period
established on that
there is a shoreline permit for the
improvements that are being done along
the creek
with the park and the trails
once our appeal period would expire then
we would have to transmit the decision
also to the Department of ecology and
they have a 21 day period too in which
they can look at the project
and then following that through would be
construction permits both the demolition
site work and then building permits for
each of the three buildings
that that assumes that the development
Commission
that assumes that of course yes
you need to make that clear
all right thank you very much Jerry and
thanks to the applicant for that
real in my opinion good response to the
issues that and the questions that were
raised last time I appreciate your work
Jerry The Next Period of this meeting
will be devoted to public comment
once again if there are members of the
public that would like to speak we ask
that you come up sign in identify
yourself and then identify yourself at
the microphone with regard to your name
and your address
we have built Conley
so
Mr Conley if you've already signed in if
you can go up to the mic
thank you for allowing me to speak my
name is Bill Connolly and I live in
Spokane
I own the property
um
a property that's adjacent to the site
it's a formal address is 1005 Fifth
Avenue Northwest
um
the point one point on that is that the
um the flow into the parking lot area
for the that's the Montessori School
and from a safety standpoint it it
circles
the parents pick up their children in a
circular fashion that's very safe right
now and we want that to continue and I
don't see any problem
so far with this project but just to
point that out the building's address is
1005 Fifth Avenue Northwest which is uh
Fifth Avenue is that little
strip into the driveway of that building
right there it's not Locust so
the bigger concern that I have and I
just want to voice it is the the
potential for elevations at the site
ground levels to uh to be changed and
cause a change in the uh
High storm events of the creek
the building was built on the original
family home site of the original Farm it
was the high point
of the farm and it never flooded and
when the building that's there now was
built it was built two feet above the
hundred year flood plain
and the water was to go underneath the
building and not impact this what they
call the storage capability of the
of the floods
um since the building was built there
have been many events where it's gotten
within six inches of the floor so we're
a foot and a half above the 100 year
flood plain many times if there is an
elevation change in this development
that by accident not you know not
designed causes a backflow of water to
where there's uh
a change in the high
water event it could start to impact the
building and that concerns me a lot and
the points that have been made there the
the build out is being made of the
hundred year flood
and then also to the 500-year flood
levels
the this means there there is potential
for changes in elevations on the site
causing a backflow imagine
um
um uh uh the sink your kitchen sink
where the drain starts to get plugged up
with uh stuff in the sink and you're
running the water at full full capacity
all the time the sink drains itself but
if it starts to get plugged up enough
pretty soon you start to see the sink
fill up and that's the potential that
could occur here so I'm just expressing
my concern and in hopes that the
elevations that the developers and the
architects who are very very good at
what they do
will make maintain that those elevations
so that when that sheet flow goes that
the water will continue to do what it's
done for the uh the last 60 years
so and also
I wanted to point out that in the past
the Issaquah Creek goes down Locust
Street at such a high velocity that when
I would walk out onto that street I was
concerned I might in fact people did
fall down because of the current flow
going down Locus during the middle of
that high storm event it's actually very
fast and when it and it would go down
into that open ditch that we saw in the
pictures up here and would flow at a
velocity that would move past the site
now with that ditch being tight lined it
could cause water to back up
I don't know what how much time you're
giving me but I I think I've probably
exceeded it so thank you very much
my name is Darlene Cullen
one of the things that bothers me about
this is the party is unrealistic
um I think that most of you here are
either married or something else but can
you imagine telling your spouse if you
were in a one-bedroom apartment that she
couldn't have a car
or is she telling you that I think in
the world of being in a hub situation
like the University District Capitol
Hill downtown Seattle these numbers are
realistic but this is Issaquah
and most of the people that come in that
I know have three or four cars sometimes
in the family and it's totally
unnecessary but they just own them
I think we're in a outside still of
everything we're not over Lake we're not
a hub situation yet we haven't reached
that point in Issaquah and I feel one of
the things that are really necessary in
meeting the needs of the people who
would like to move into this community
is realizing that they're not going to
sell their car to live here nor at the
rate that these apartments are renting
are they going to be living alone
they're going to more than likely be
living with a partner and they're going
to have more than one car so I think we
realistically have to look at who is a
client is today and who we are going to
be in the future and address both of
these needs
because
as we excuse me as We Know
in reading the papers and everything the
situation that's going on in Overlake
and they're saying now okay there's no
there's not going to be direct buses to
the city here they're going to be
they're going to be going to Mercer
Island and you're going to be
transferring nothing was just in the
paper
um and I think what we have to realize
is that a lot of people who are going to
be working from this area since you're
not creating jobs
are going to be using their car to get
there
I mean if I worked in the highlands and
I was living down here I certainly
wouldn't bicycle up the hill
so I think that parking kind of bothers
me that it doesn't really meet the needs
of people who would want to live in
Issaquah
and then there's one other thing I
wanted to dress that Mr Brennan you know
was kind of touching on the issue
earlier is that during the field and is
it field in stream no that's the
magazine it's
with his rivers and streams I'm sorry
thank you
um there was a fellow that was in the
audience that brought up something that
I didn't think of I don't think I don't
know if even Connie thought of it to
tell you the truth is that Connie you're
over in the corner is that you know what
if it does flutter what if there's a
flooding situation which we know it does
in the area where what happens with
handicapped people on this site
is it handicap friendly for people and
we all could become handicapped you
could break your leg tomorrow you could
have a hip operation and so we all can
become handicapped we don't need to be
born that way and I don't know if it's
handicap friendly and that's one of the
things I'd like to ask
that's it
the flood Blake flood
what about the last name
what's he going to talk about
it
it's true my I've spoken before just
that I'm I'm not just opposed to the let
me get you to leave your address too
sure 34213 Southeast 40th Place Issaquah
98027
uh not opposed to the building I've seen
what gglo has done in Redmond in
Seattle
to me the whole issue is the site
I don't know how many people here are
residents or business owners in Seattle
in Issaquah but
I'm sure anyone who saw the last
flooding event
the last thing that came to their mind
is let's put 600 people 400 cars three
three large buildings on a site this is
going to be in a it's a guaranteed flood
plain right we know it's we know that's
uh an unusual situation I don't know how
many buildings you're currently doing
and 100 floodplain
gglo
is this are you doing other buildings
well I'm assuming since you can't name
one that maybe not
um to me it to me it borders on reckless
endangerment that's my whole
it's when we watch TV and we see flood
things and we see people rebuilding
the typical responses what were they
thinking
that's the question I'm asking you guys
to ask yourself now so
uh
assuming it goes forward
uh just the whole process I think it
should be
it should be beneficial to the developer
I understand that should be beneficial
to Issaquah should be kind of an even
should be good for both of us my feeling
is they're getting the better of
Issaquah ones
and I think the example of that if you
look and see where they're doing
developments elsewhere
they're getting they're having their way
with you in my opinion okay
uh
pricing I've heard mention that there's
this is a good price point I don't know
what that number is
what what these are going to rent for
what's that
well that's a question that I've asked
and I don't know what it's going to be I
heard someone here last week say it was
a good price point
what is the price point to the people in
Issaquah know that or are we waiting to
find out
uh who will be managing the building is
it Lennar or an outside
okay is it is that the name Atlas who's
is the management firm Atlas
okay
I know no I'm just asking I mean these
are questions
no so do we know who the manager so
the applicant has the opportunity and I
can also okay
okay
oh
make sure you're speaking into the
market no that's me I'm sorry uh the
economics are up to the property owner
they are not an issue for us to consider
I'm saying since this is the first one
that you're doing
I'm I'm just saying that if you if the
more you know knowing who manages it may
be an important question to ask that's
awesome
um and that's again that's your dialogue
with them
uh
traffic the one the one traffic issue I
had is seventh gonna be a two lane
road so in other words when you're
exiting seventh onto Gilman
there'll be a signal is is it just one
lane to go left and right
Jerry there'll be a left turning lane
onto seventh at the signal so people can
go right without having to wait for
lunch right that's what's been looked at
right now is the channelization
so that's the Middle Lane the Middle
Lane yes
because I know
my feeling is people having to make wait
for people to make a left turn making
right turn they will find other ways to
get out onto Gilman so I just see that
as a potential traffic problem there is
additional traffic review being done on
that right now too on this
generalization
uh and again like I say my whole thing
is is putting a lot of bodies where you
know there's going to be water right now
people cannot come to work
uh but when you live there you've got to
come and go there's kids there's adults
uh
so something to think about parking the
only parking issue I think a couple of
you guys have touched on it
if people have to pay to park
tendency is to not want to pay and to
try to find that becomes an Enforcement
issue for Issaquah these people renting
are going to have friends and family
they're not shut-ins and social outcasts
they'll have visitors uh so again I
don't know if that 1.2 if those numbers
factor in those things
that's all
thank you sir thank you
next is John Trager
foreign
ER at 710 7th Avenue Northwest I'm also
the vice chair on East economic Vitality
commission and so my first remarks are
part of the commission and my later
remarks are on part of just being
resident about a block and a half away
from the proposed site so from the EVC
economic Vitality commission lens we're
excited and supportive about this
development one of the gaps that we've
discovered and potential threats this
was economic Vitality in the future is
there's a shortage of Workforce housing
in our city young professionals who may
be working at Costco headquarters or at
the hospital or other down at the
Microsoft Siemens office they have to
come from out of town There's No rental
housing really available
so even without subsidized units this is
a beginning of a good development in
central Issaquah which is definitely
part of what the plan is is to have
quite a few additional residents live
in the Central Square area so this is a
step in the right direction
um so as a resident a block and a half
away on the parking issue
I think it's good what you're doing I
think we have to start somewhere such as
Club plan says that
1.2 units and there's a reason for that
and there's some sort of a chicken in
the egg thing you've got to start
somewhere and once we start building out
Gillen Boulevard and
and of course you have to support your
legislators and County to get the
transit funding to come with it but all
the other cities that we're competing
with are doing the same thing they're
building Transit oriented development
they're not Paving over the world for
parking spaces and this is the right
thing to do
I also understand this is a difficult
site and it's unfortunate the buildings
are set back from Gilman
but it's good to see that there isn't a
sea of cars in front of the buildings
that they're in underneath or internal
so that that's definitely a good visual
impact I appreciate the design there
and as far as those walls go I wouldn't
be unhappy the commission granted a
variance to do something different than
the walls like maybe art or something
because I think those little stub walls
are
I get the letter of the rules but
the surface water kind of dominates in
that site so they don't really have a
choice
I don't think the Gazebo is a good idea
for some of the reasons that were
already discussed I walk this area
frequently every night and there's
already some transient issues right
there on the bridge over the Issaquah
Creek on Gilman so this would just not
help if they had some space
on traffic mitigation the new light on
Gilman is really appreciated it's
actually needed right now so there's
it's a pretty dangerous left turn
scenario on on Saturdays when Gilman's
really busy
um
but I am concerned about the speed and
volume on Seventh between Juniper and
Holly
the Bridgewater Condominiums have about
10 driveways that back directly out of
their garages on to seventh and there
will be you know you already mentioned I
think it was 90 of the traffic was going
to go out through seventh and so I'm
concerned with that additional traffic
they have two options to get to Newport
Way and they will take cut through
already people already cut through just
to take the other stop sign and uh so
it's it's potentially dangerous
condition so I'd like to have a the
commission uh add an additional
um
requirement for a speed humps on Seventh
for traffic to keep the speed down
they can drive through there but if they
already drive the pace they are now but
double the traffic it's going to be very
dangerous
and that's it thank you
uh this we will now go into give the uh
staff and the applicant an opportunity
to address this will end the public
comment we have no more uh I'm sorry
you you are going to speak okay would
you sign in please and
my name is Connie Marsh and I have a
store at 1175 Northwest Gilman Boulevard
suite b11 and I also live in Issaquah
so in the design changes I was in
Redmond this weekend and I saw very
similar buildings but the windows were
much smaller suddenly and it didn't look
very good so I see the pictures and I
see the size of the windows and I see
the strong horizontal lines and it makes
them more appealing
I don't entirely understand how much of
the details that is on the buildings is
a requirement for what we will see
and so
small changes like that I think can make
a big difference
and I think that's just something I
don't unders understand not doing the
architectural things that often also in
Redmond with the same sort of
small modulation in height from a
distance it looked very level and I
wasn't so from a ways away it was still
very flat and I'm concerned with these
pictures that it's still going to seem
very flat given any distance away
um
then when Lucy was talking about the
conditions going into potentially
construction conditions I didn't
understand how that would
anyone would be able to understand that
it's actually being put into a condition
because it sounded like there were still
a lot of discussion and so it was hard
to know what actually was going to be
required
and that that makes me a little bit
uncomfortable
as as sometimes things get lost that
seem important and through no one's
fault it's
it's just not there and we're surprised
one of the things that we talked about
at the last meeting and I think there
was a little support was some potential
for interpretive signage on the lot
so that when people were walking through
the public areas there was a learning
experience happening at the same time
and I didn't see that responded to in
the um
in the staff report
um
I did I agree with the comments of
uh
uh I I have grave concerns on putting
this many people in a place that floods
where there's no place where you can
walk or drive out of it that is not
through water during a flood even if
they're told about it it seems
uh like a bad press release waiting to
happen and we're going to see it on the
news and that isn't really what I want
to have for my first project in the
central Issaquah plan so at a very base
level I disagree with what is happening
and probably the first thing I would ask
for was a large Capital Improvement to
prevent
all areas around this being flooded if
that isn't going to happen from this
development because I don't think it's
responsible for
to approve this development with that
restriction even if our rules do not
precisely say that we cannot I have no
control over that but I do
know what I want is I want an awesome
City I want an awesome Central Issaquah
plan and so we have the strict rules and
then we have what steps it up and makes
Issaquah even better and what were the
things of this for me that were missing
to make it awesome because I like the
Landscaping the building is sort of meh
for me and uh
so for me what was missing is Amusement
it doesn't seem fun
it seems green sort of and it seems wet
but it doesn't seem human or fun or
frivolous or
I don't know you know my Issaquah may
not be everyone's and the last thing of
course in the middle of the night I
thought you know I really want a
restaurant up there because I want to be
eating on my barbecue on the top of
their building and looking at the great
views they're going to have and that
seems like a totally missed opportunity
but
you know will you give me a restaurant
okay that's it thanks
thank you
at this juncture as I understand the new
process uh staff and applicant will have
an opportunity to address correct rebut
if you so choose
so um
Mr chairman mostly we feel that the
comments that have been made were
addressed in our briefing response memo
and we didn't need to add anything but
I think there are two pieces that Ms
Marsh brought up that we'd like to touch
on one clarification is around the
construction conditions because I
realize that's a new tool to us and a
new tool to you so just to hopefully
um
give Connie a certain level and everyone
a certain level of confidence the
construction conditions is a document
that's attached to the staff report so
it isn't a nebulous thing floating
around it's actually a list that is an
attachment and part of the materials
that support the staff report
um
and the staff report will be available
to the public online they can go in and
call it up on the website
yep
that's I'm just underscoring that yeah
it is immediately available to the
public I think it I mean it was
available on this you know a week uh see
if I can do the math April 9th when we
issued the staff the first staff report
um
the uh I I think staff is supportive of
the interpretive signage that um I don't
think we intentionally didn't include
that in the briefing response memo it
just was overlooked
um
the uh we're so we're supportive of it
um
in looking at the central Issaquah
standards while Ms Marsh finished her
comments
um
there's a clear
um
expectation for wayfinding signage
um I I don't think that the interpretive
signage is in Conflict but I'm not sure
that it's specifically called out so it
seems like something that we will work
with the applicant on I'm just not sure
that we can add it as additional
condition but I'll keep
looking at the code as we speak
is there anything else the applicants
that will clear clear up anything
comment refute rebut
all right in that case excuse me it is
uh time for us to go to the commission
and we will have this will be two parts
one will be
comments by each commissioner if you if
you are so inclined we'll go around
and do a cumulative review of that and
then the next step will be to decide on
what make the decision
and record it as needed and I just
wanted to let the Commissioners know
that so we've been drafting conditions
as we go along and just let me know when
you would like to see that okay
the last thing
I think we've got
similar to the green
s
so this uh this is the document that
we'll use as we're going through the
ultimate process the decision process
okay so Katie our commissioner Karis if
you would like to start with your
comments reviews if you have any
is your microphone on
I think staff and the applicant have
done a good job with their responses to
what was brought up in the meeting in
April and um
I am generally comfortable with the
project and the mitigation measures and
the analysis that's been done I know
there's a concern about
flooding
um
again I'm comfortable with what has been
done and the the planning and
Engineering that's gone into it and I
think
I'm in I think it's a well thought out
project
um
am I allowed to ask any more questions
or is this okay I know that we're at
really the preliminary preliminary
stages here but
um I'm used to seeing a little bit more
uh discussion about the actual
construction phase in the super
checklist and I'm wondering if there's
any information about
um
time period phasing truck routes
I know it's not a huge project but that
comes to mind
when we're talking about all these
things
okay the plan would be to initiate
construction probably first of June as
soon as we can so first first part of
June certainly yeah as quickly as we can
2014. I'm sorry 2014. yeah oh yeah I
think with with the approvals we're
pretty far ahead in terms of our
architecture to be getting land use
approvals really so we will be
submitting for actual building permits
in about a month and we've just recently
submitted permits for site work and for
flood Hazard and those kinds of things
construction will take about 22 months
what was your other question oh truck
Hall routes they were just submitted
today as part of the demolition permit
it's kind of moving around okay
and it's I'm sorry just one thing it has
it's a follow-up on the staging and the
timing uh the anything that's going to
be done with the creek and the
modification of the of the uh
riparian area right is already been
looked at with regard to the run the
salmon run that starts in August and
there is not going to be any I mean
there's there's not specifically gnome
and that's that's a good thing to point
out yeah I would yeah because
schedule-wise these are these are
federally protected endangered species
and we need to make real sure that we
don't run a foul of the EPA when we're
modifying a habitat right as I try to
visualize the schedule I think it's
actually next spring that that work
would be done anyway we want to catch it
so that we have as much dry weather for
the for the plants to take hold as
possible
and I would just add that um
you know this is a land use permit which
is kind of a big conceptual framework
there will be construction permits
required for everything and that would
be the time where conditions about the
timing of of work associated with the
stream would would be worked through
based on the kind of work and impacts it
might have okay thanks
um I I also was just wondering in when
you did your traffic study is that based
on uh
like square footage of type of building
or number of units or number of people
all of those things there's yeah there's
a really extensive model that's been
developed by ite International
Transportation Engineers I think
and we took very conservative positions
on on all of those things both in terms
of
characterizing the existing uses in the
shopping center we also didn't take into
account things like people who would
take buses people who would carpool
um we did not count those so the
Assumption was made that all of our
residents would drive
so it's it's I think the results are
very conservative
compliant and I know that it's a
requirement that buildings are all ADA
Compliant I think the concern was during
a flood
um
could you speak to that a little bit or
well the buildings and the site entirely
will be ADA Compliant and in fact
it's important enough to Lennar that we
pure we actually peer review our civil
engineers and our Architects work
separately just in terms of ADA
okay thanks
I think I'm done with you I'll stay just
a minute
um
I also I want to
emphasize that I also feel I think it
was mentioned the chicken and egg and we
know what we want Issaquah to look like
we know what we have in the CIP and this
project is really meant to
um
lead us toward that lead us toward a
community that's more
dependent less dependent on vehicles and
um
I think this is a step in the right
direction
so those are my comments commissioner
Commission
well I I also think that the the staff
and and and the proponent made a
responded well to the comments that were
made I think the things that were
brought up tonight that uh raise
questions in my mind were while they
there was a traffic study it wasn't
obvious that there was traffic study
affecting Locust Street and maybe there
was I just it just wasn't obvious to me
that that happened and so
all right I I would hope it would it
just seems like there's a there's a real
liability there if it doesn't because
people are going to go the path of least
resistance and so I would hope that was
the case
uh
I I
I'm not sure I know what a fun aspect of
a project like this would be but I I
think that the colors are appealing the
modification of architectural design was
pleasing to me and I think that it was a
good effort so I don't really have any
any other comments I the other thing I
guess other than
I understand the zero to ten foot
buildings building line that's not a
possibility I kind of like those walls
and I think that it would be valuable to
have law enforcement take a look at that
and make sure that wasn't a liability
but I think that the notion of having
somebody with their back to the street
would be way more imposing to me than
having a wall there that would offer you
some kind of protection and and I think
over time we're going to see Gilman
build up and there's going to be more
and more structure right next to the
sidewalk or the property line anyway and
I think that this is a good start so a
good job on my on your part
like
thank you
um
I agree with previous comments about the
responsiveness of the applicant team
appreciate you taking the time to
respond to the questions and concerns we
expressed initially particularly around
the building design understand that
you're getting close to building permit
that means you've made a huge investment
in making changes is costly to do that
but appreciate the changes that you have
made I want you to encourage you to
continue to work with staff and tweak
the building design make sure that it
really fits in the modulation and things
you've talked about I thought were nice
additions there I also appreciate your
the applicant's patience I'm sure when
you heard you're the first one coming
through the new process for the central
Issaquah plan you probably wondered if
you wanted to take that risk and
appreciate you somebody has to do it and
I appreciate that it's somebody that's
very competent at what they do so I that
that that's helpful some of the concerns
I heard tonight that I I agree with and
I think they've been addressed in
addition to just the building design is
dealing with the flooding and and the
response in the response memo much more
detail about the height the uh to study
the flood study that was done
the compensatory storage and how that's
all worked I understand I also
understand the concern of the neighbors
and the residents who are familiar with
what has happened on this site
previously and not wanting to see that
uh change on this property create
off-site impact negative offset impact
so just a quick comment to Steph there's
a certification process required for
FEMA in the flood plain for this
particular to establish that the
building has created the floor level
it's the above above the 100 Year flight
elevation but what about the
displacement that might create is there
a certification process that's required
to ensure that we're not that we in fact
are satisfying the compensatory storage
requirement and we're not creating an
off-site negative condition you know if
that's
part of it there was a comment in the
response memo that there was a
certification requirement and it wasn't
clear to me how that works it says by an
engineer with appropriate Hydro
hydrologic modeling methods were used to
comply with these requirements shall
comply
uh shuttle company the flood Hazard
permit
so I'm I'm not super familiar with all
those details I do know that the
compensatory storage was built many
years ago right and is associated with
this project I think the other piece
that's in progress is that the city is
doing a third party peer review of the
flooding design or the the design to
avoid flooding and so I'm not sure that
that's is that complete yet
I think it is but I am okay okay well
that that's good to know I mean that
kind of
and I think it's good just because the
sensitivity around that
um
by the community but I think even by the
city and from an environmental
standpoint so I think it's appropriate
that there is a third party review going
on to ensure that that that's
um that it satisfied those concerns or
address those a question raised about
the traffic impacts on uh 7th Avenue
Northwest in the additional demand that
we're pushing out there and what how
does that impact potential conflicts
with other neighboring properties I
think we want to make sure that that the
transportation folks are paying close
attention to that and dealing with
additional calming or traffic controls
that are necessary to make sure we don't
have safety we don't create safety
issues because that increased demand
along that street so I'll probably
suggest adding that condition just to
make sure that that is being looked at
I'm guessing it is but I think it'll be
important so let me say two things that
you brought up a point that I I forgot
that maybe we should have touched on so
speed humps
um the East Side Fire and Rescue is very
strongly opposed there are certain kinds
of pedestrian tables that are being
employed in Seattle that allow that are
different than what East Side Fire and
Rescue has been opposed to but I'm I'm
not really certain that that is a need
that we need to go to I think part of
what we'll see is that the narrower
design of roads that are in that are
built into the central Issaquah
standards are inherently ad traffic
calming as well as some of the curb
bulbs that the applicant has proposed is
consistent with the standards and that's
part of why that's there is that it help
with the street trees with the curb
bulbs with the on-street parking all of
that
um
creates an environment in which drivers
are not as comfortable driving fast yeah
no and and I guess my suggestion was not
to impose a solution like speed humps
where everybody seems to go real quick
if they want to try to slow people down
there are other ways to do it that
aren't quite as invasive and don't
slower emergency response folks down but
I did the point was just making sure
that that has been looked at let's make
sure that if there are adjustments that
need to be made because of the engineers
are saying they're still going to be
coming too fast through here we've got a
lot of volume that is going to create
conflict let's figure out how to
mitigate that
and I'm not going to suggest the
solution but just the the concern
other than that I was
I'm happy with the project I think it's
a good project oh one more minor
Connie's point about interpretive signs
in the park at least down by the creek
that might be a nice addition simple
interesting gives people who are
wandering around something to stop and
look at and it it's part of the that is
a qua image it's kind of focused on the
environment so I think that would be
something that would be good to see and
I think I would enjoy that personally
um that's all I've got to say
I'm not going to repeat uh
many of the points that have already
been made by my fellow Commissioners but
I do want to say that again we're we're
feeling our way through this new process
and I am encouraged
by the uh by so far how this has come
out I hope we continue to do this
they're obviously refinements that need
to be made I do share the concern that
was expressed earlier about the need for
a little bit more detail in some of the
construction areas I also
believe that the process and this was
touched on by one of the members of the
public that spoke and and you mentioned
you did address this Lucy but I have
seen projects that have gone through the
development Commission
and then when they were finished and I
drove past them I said whoa
when did that happen and I I don't quite
understand that I I wish there were a
mechanism
for
and I'm not quite sure how to do this
but but the the fact is that members of
the commission frequently get asked by
members of the public did you approve
that or you know I mean it's just fact
it's one of the things that goes along
with the job and uh
the overwhelming majority of the
projects that we've done as far as I'm
concerned are are fine are great but
every now and then there's one that
seems to me to be different in the color
the color palette that's used in the
building or some of the materials or
whatever and I'm I'm not sure how that
happens so this is a general thing I'm
not saying it's going to happen here but
I do agree that that that it would be
nice if there were a way of informing
the public and the development
Commission of changes that were agreed
on by the staff by the city and the
applicant that are going to result in
changes in the appearance or the traffic
flow or you know whatever they are so
we'll know and and not only will we know
but we'll know in the future uh when we
have issues like this that come up that
this is the way they're addressed or how
they've been addressed in the past may I
speak to that sure
um so I was looking in the staff report
there's some language that we often have
used in the urban Villages and I think
it may actually be somewhere in the
central Issaquah plan which is why we
didn't put in the staff report and maybe
Jerry will um will have a Vulcan mind
meld and he'll find it for me
um
generally speaking the way we approach
it is that the you know you've seen
certain plans and drawings and we
recognize that this is a more conceptual
level and things are going to continue
to evolve there's a certain uh
envelope that's been created through
this review of of expectation
um and uh
if things stay within that sort of
Envelope as they evolve and refine and
go through construction then
it's it's not considered a modification
because we're pursuing that so if maybe
to take Connie's example
um and I'm getting more informal I'm now
calling her Connie instead of Miss Marsh
uh that uh
for instance right now the the Issaquah
standard design standards talk about
multi-light Windows they're showing
multi-light Windows
um let's say half the windows became not
multi-light windows then you know and
and this has come up you're talking
about a level of detail that might be a
point at which we need to say the
applicant we feel like you're beginning
to get to the edge of that envelope and
um we need to have a conversation about
it
um if there was
I'm trying to think of something well
something egregious I mean it's a
requirement if the park went away we'd
be back here having a conversation with
you so you know there's there's a
certain level of uh of um degrees of
change it is a judgment call
um our intent is to use the not only the
staff report and the memo but the
conversations that we've had we've heard
with the public and with the commission
to sort of establish that envelope if
something isn't really addressed in the
staff report the commission's never
really commented on it we've we feel
like that's probably a lower priority
and that we're just working that out
through the standards that are in the
plan if it's something that you have
spent a lot of time talking about the
public has raised concerns about or
um it's inconsistent with the plan then
we may very well be back here having a
conversation okay
I I I would just observe that the the
objective as far as I'm concerned is to
give the public to give everybody but
particularly the residents the taxpayers
as much visibility as and have the
process be as transparent as possible
now the definition of as possible
obviously we're talking about City staff
time and you know new websites and
things like that but
if we're going to have the minimum
degree of cynicism frankly and the
maximum degree of faith in the process
that's going to come about by
transparency and And Timely awareness of
changes and proposals and so on and
we're doing a good job of that but I
just I just think we need to constantly
be aware of making sure that when
there's a change people understand
why and uh you know what the
ramifications are Mr chairman
Mr chairman
you know I just had an epiphany I guess
that the new process
as best I can tell doesn't include some
of the specificity that we've been used
to in the past right the consequence of
that is that we've created an
environment where there that we can
express our views and opinions and ideas
but we're really giving a end end
product
uh specification that says in general we
want it to look like this and so as the
applicant listens to the public and the
Commissioners and people that have that
input there's a trust that starts
getting developed that has to be
Redeemed by the applicant and the
process will only be as valuable as the
Redemption of that trust you know so as
you heard the comments and understand
the concerns you can make this really
great or you can make it really awful
and so that's just an exhortation that I
I would offer to to you folks that as it
proceeds if it does that you understand
there's a lot at stake here you know I
think the the process is is a is a good
one it requires a knowledgeable group of
people getting together and saying
here's our best thoughts here's what we
want and then having you put that
together and when we come back here in
20 years if it's still here and if it's
done we say wow we got it that was that
was really good thing so I I think that
I think that whole notion of lack of
specificity is making all of us a little
nervous because each one of us have a
certain thing that would like to really
get wired in and say man I'd really like
to see 1.5 parking spots for whatever do
I don't care what the number is or uh
anyway so I sorry thank you commissioner
I I so I'm going to continue here and
I'm just going to say that we brought
this up at the last meeting as far as
the applicant and you being the first
out of the box I used to jump out of
airplanes in the military and you start
doing training at 1200 feet and then at
in daylight and you end up going out at
800 feet at night and the first guy in
the stick the first guy out the door is
either owes the jump Master money or you
know is just really asked for it you're
going to be the first out of the door on
a night jump with this so the the
expectation is
that the system the CIP the application
the city staff is going to result in a
net Improvement in the city I mean
that's that's the ultimate goal so
you're you're really you know set the
standard on this and the expectation is
that it's going to be it's going to be a
net Edition it's going to address it's
going to mitigate extant flooding
problems it's going to make them better
not worse the traffic coming make a left
turn right now on 7th Avenue onto Gilman
I don't go there literally I don't go
there I never go there I've had to go in
and get a lunch while I'm waiting for
the opportunity to get out on Gilman
so uh I I do take a different opinion on
the walls behind the benches
uh it's ironic that on the very first
application for a project in the central
Issaquah plan as much work is going to
that I I would like to see a variance uh
I just don't
see the benefit of other than compliance
with the plan
and that's important and I understand
that this is precedent setting as I just
got through saying but I
I just uh I I don't to me they're ugly
and I don't see a functional purpose for
them other than compliance with the plan
and
I I don't I'm not really comfortable
saying they ought to be done away with I
maybe maybe I don't know if you've
considered things like heavy grills that
are open that can still have Vines
growing up on them that just aren't
concrete if we're going to have to have
something there I don't know if that is
could be code compliant but the idea of
gray cement walls every however what the
feet is the distances between them to me
hinders appreciation of the Landscaping
the architecture the swales and
everything from the street side
and I don't get the benefit of them
other than compliance so I'd really like
to see
perhaps some negotiation there if it has
to if it has to result in uh you know a
request for variance then then maybe
that's the way we do it but it really is
a significant issue to me because it's
right there
and I think we need to be flexible
um
the interpretive signs if for I think
that's a great idea I would suggest you
go to the Hatchery and go into the uh
the native vegetation is that's
maintained by the Issaquah Garden Club
uh they have signs there and I I expect
you to be using native vegetation in the
in the riparian areas uh it would be
great for people to go by there and for
them to understand this is stuff you can
plant in your property that doesn't need
fertilizer it doesn't need watering and
so on and so forth but I would counsel
it if you're going to put any kind of
thing like that in there they got to be
Vandal Proof
uh it we don't have a problem with that
at the Hatchery but if they're down
there they're going to end up in the
creek if they're not you know so then
you get into a cost of of individual
signs but but there's no percentage in
putting them in if they're not going to
stay there and resist
people
trying to get rid of them for fun
I think it's very important for the city
to come to an agreement with the police
department about consistency I think
that that is an issue but we can't in my
opinion you can't tell pedestrians when
you cross this street you can
protect yourself by hitting the Flasher
but when you cross this street you're on
your own
and we not only it's not only a
conditioning of the pedestrians it's
conditioning of the drivers so I I do
think there needs to be and if it
results in the flashers coming out of
the Newport behind the Hatchery fine but
but I I understand now that why they're
hesitant about that and it obviously
doesn't have to be every intersection
but at Major places like that where
we're encouraging people to cross the
street at other than an intersection
uh
it to me it seems to be an obvious need
for some kind of warning to both drivers
and the pedestrians that they're
Crossing at an area where there has not
been a Crossing before
um
the the the the the flood situation I I
understand I absolutely believe and I've
had conversations with members of the
rivers and stream board about this just
anecdotally about the the studies and so
on I absolutely understand the work
that's gone into that I have faith in
this
uh but the one thing that I got to be
really clear about is the observation
that was made earlier on by a number of
people that what we don't want what none
of us want is to have uh Como and Cairo
and King and Seattle Times out here
going brand new building in Issaquah and
the people can't get in or out
so uh access to even if it's I don't
know what one one per building or
multiple potential but some way to get
in and out of the building in the event
of a an overflow situation with the
Swale which I believe will address most
of the issues most of the time but we
don't we don't want Issaquah to get
tagged with that and then it comes into
how did that happen I think that's an
absolutely legitimate point and it may
be
that you've already addressed that I
haven't seen that and I think maybe the
questions that have come up so far have
been because it hasn't been made really
clear how in fact people can get out of
the building
uh if if there's water everywhere
and that's going to happen
uh lastly I I'll just
restate that this is really a matter of
faith for all of us I mean the citizens
of Issaquah have faith that the city
staff and the applicant are going to
come up with something that's going to
be a net addition to the city and it's
going to
not have a negative impact on their
lives whether it's traffic or
water movement or herbicides in the
creek or whatever so so far it seems to
me that this project is going is going
to be a net addition to the city and
it's a good way to start the CIP so
with that
um
we will now I I suggest and this is
again I get keep using this excuse
rather than reading the entire checklist
what I'd what I'd like to do is just
read the subject
of the checklist and the way this is
done for those of you who haven't done
it before with what they used to call
the Green Sheet you just
State your opinion whether when I say
the for example the first one is the
intent of the circulation development
chapter is to create a comprehensive
highly interconnected circulation
facility Network and then I'm not going
to read the rest of the stuff we've
already gone over this so if you agree
uh then you'll say acceptable
or not applicable and this is we'll just
do this as we do when we're voting on
emotion and say all in favor say aye or
you know all if you think it's
successful say yes and we'll mark that
down if you have a suggested condition
this is where we do it when we do
through this and when we're completing
when we have completed that this review
uh then we will decide on whether or not
we're going to make the Motions the two
motions that we're going to need to do
it's all right we're good okay all right
so the first one is uh 6.0 circulation
development uh the intent of the
circulation development chapter is to
create a comprehensive highly
interconnected circulation facility with
the three criteria there
are we do we believe that this is this
application is acceptable uh in that
degree
yes right commissioner commissioner okay
if you go ahead and check it I don't
know if we're going to collect these or
what or if this is just for our benefit
well I think what will the staff will
fill it out and that way we'll have one
to put in the file okay uh 12.0 is
circulation design the intent of the
circulation design chapter is to create
a comprehensive circulation facility
Network
have we've done that so the
I guess this is the place where the
issues raised and concerns I expressed
about the 7th Avenue Northwest and
ensuring I'll probably suggest a
condition here to something to the
effect that we'll assess
the need for the addition of traffic
calming or controls something to that
effect I'll I'll enter a condition when
we come back to the motion okay
okay
7.0 is community space development the
intent of the community space
development chapter is to establish
standards and requirements for the
provisions of community spaces that will
inspire an animated and connected Urban
space
it's acceptable acceptable to me too all
right
13.0 the intent of the community space
design chapter is to establish standards
for the provisions of community spaces
that will inspire and animated and
connect a connected urban community
where and building wait is this am I is
this a repeat that's kind of sound okay
oh ones to inspire
oh yeah all right to inspire an animated
and connected urban community
acceptable acceptable
commissioner right
9.0 the intent of the sign chapter is to
establish standards for the regulation
of design placement size renovation and
proper maintenance of all exterior signs
and science structures within the
central Issaquah area
I think you skipped a page I did uh
number eight and fifteen oh stuck
together I'm sorry uh 8.0 parking
development the intent of the parking
development chapter is to establish
standards for the design and
configuration of parking facilities
based on Urban rather than Suburban
densities and needs that encourage the
use of parking garages rather than
surface parking and support a pedestrian
friendly and attractive Urban Design
it's acceptable acceptable okay
parking design
the intent of the parking design
chapters to establish parking standards
based on Urban rather than Suburban
densities that supported pedestrian
friendly small-scale mixed-use Urban
environment and contribute to the public
realm acceptable acceptable okay now we
go to science
and I already read it so acceptable
acceptable
all right uh 10.0 landscape development
the intent of landscape development
chapter is to establish standards for
landscaping and trees with Central
Issaquah that draw nature into this
developing urban community and in green
elements to soften the urban form that
provides opportunities for transitions
from the natural edges into the built
environment and ensures a livable
verdant attractive public realm that
restores both nature and human activity
and contributes to the success of the
establishment of the green necklace it's
acceptable acceptable
landscape design the antenna of the
landscape design chapter is to establish
standards for the design of landscaping
and trees within Central Issaquah
it's acceptable
okay
11.0 site design the intent of the site
design chapter is to establish site
design standards that Orient development
so that it defines the public realm
reacts to and acknowledges the natural
environment and provides the production
and improves The Pedestrian experience
acceptable acceptable okay
uh 14.0 buildings the intent of the
building design chapter is to establish
building design standards that create a
vibrant pedestrian friendly built
environment through buildings designed
to frame and engage
the public Realm
um that's there was a staff recommended
additional condition on just to continue
to emphasize the need for attention to
the details of the building facades and
the modulation Etc just so and I think
it's crafted in a way that essentially
does that it continues to encourage work
there so
not suggesting that you're not on the
right track I think what we saw tonight
was a responsive to what we said last
time but I I'll suggest uh condition
during the motion right
and dare I say it last page yes uh 17.0
is lighting the intent of the lighting
design chapter is to establish a
hierarchy of lighting designs and
illumination levels that provide an
attractive visual element that supports
and enhances this developing Urban
environment while addressing the Safety
and Security of both pedestrian and
vehicular traffic Beyond daylight hours
we didn't get a lot of we didn't receive
a lot of information on lighting design
here so I don't know that I can really
comment
um
part of the permitting process yeah
they'll need to go through I I agree
with commissioner Brennan uh what is not
in here and I believe it came up in the
uh first meeting but uh there is an
impact to be avoided on the creek the
lighting cannot uh
flood or overflow in into the Creek area
again because of the migratory nature of
the Enviro the critters that live in the
creek this is the migrating salmon so
that I'm sure you're aware of that but
that's another thing it needs to be
taken into the design and the placement
of the lighting
without looking I'm
virtually certain that that is what the
standards say yeah okay okay so
um
so can I real quick Steph mentioned that
during the discussion you had in
response to the discussion generated
some additional suggested condition
language that you wanted us to think
about
so one option would be to put it up on
the document camera so that everyone
could see it yes yes
so there are three conditions or two new
conditions and an edit so I'm I'm just
going to read these in case my
handwriting isn't clear during
construction permit review the city and
applicant will work to identify elements
of a public education
plan plan
related to potential flooding the
education plan will include signs in the
garage and legal notice to ensure that
future owners of the property are aware
of the site characteristics
other possible components might include
information provided to Residents during
Leasing and residents
can I a quick question on that denoted a
legal notice
to ensure that future owners this is
least housing or
condominium you're talking about owning
owner of the property this would be the
property this would ride with the land
in the building okay okay that makes
sense I I thought this was targeting the
ownership so the note the noticing and
education is for residents and then the
the more legal notice would be ride with
the property okay that makes sense thank
you
this is fine with me but uh it seems to
me again I'm the guy that can't find the
on button on my home computer so I'm
absolutely but it seems to me that one
one way of addressing this would be to
have uh the email addresses of this
property and other properties that come
into the picture and eventually I
suppose everybody in Issaquah so that
but so that they could be specifically
notified that there are flood conditions
and you need to get out now and if
they're not there they don't read their
email or whatever whether it's a Twitter
alert or something some kind of
technology that is basically Cutting
Edge I don't know of any other city that
does that but I also don't know any
reason why it couldn't be done
especially with a new project like this
where it's a finite number of residents
uh in a in a hazard area so why not see
if we can develop a system to notify
people you know there's a flood coming
and you need to get out and and
so again I just took a shot at this but
the intent of the way I wrote it was to
include those options but not to specify
them because I don't I no no I'm not I'm
not hoping that this needs to be a
requirement for it in our information
I'm just saying that the city I think
the city has an opportunity using uh
this project to establish a Cutting Edge
alert system based on internet alerts to
specific addresses okay yeah
all right
um so the next new condition
is
um
during the construction of building C
its Courtyard
uh will be I left the word be out be
evaluated by staff and the applicant to
determine if a secondary minor walkway
is warranted if appropriate the walkway
will be low impact such as stepping
stones
that works yeah I think that doesn't
mean that gets it
and then what I did
um I sacrificed my memo and tore it up
to edit um condition
over a little bit
um condition eight
um
so the edits were um
in let's see
this one nope
um so the first sentence is unchanged
and then
um
so I think it's in the second sentence
if the city identifies that there
appears to be offside impacts due to low
on-site parking usage the city May
request that the property owner will
conduct a paid parking survey during a
peak period acceptable to the director
to ascertain and confirm that paid
parking is being rented at a reasonable
minimum rate based on resident car
ownership vacancy rates Etc if rental
rates of paid parking do not achieve a
reasonable
rate usage rate of the paid parking
stalls the property owner must adjust
the rental charged monthly until such
time as the reasonable use rate is
achieved the parking survey must be
submitted within two weeks Etc as it's
written so basically in all the the
intent on the Fly was
that in that first sentence that we
identify some of the factors that would
establish a reasonable uh use rate and
then it's just that becomes a term
that's referred to in the rest of the
condition
yeah
um yes
so I I guess my question identify
Yourself by name and your business
address okay Brad Reisinger Lennar
multi-family communities
1325 Fourth Avenue Suite 1700 Seattle 98
101.
um I just want to make sure on this one
because this everything else is as the
course of the project
and two certificate of occupancy this
one could be open-ended so as far as how
is that then recorded does it go on to
title
is a condition of the property
probably a condition of the building
permit
but for what's the duration of it so
this wouldn't happen until after
certificate of occupancy
so the building permit is complete the
building the the building the Project's
complete so does this go on for five
years 10 years 20 years
well it only is triggered if if there is
a perceived impact right
in perpetuity for the life of the
building right okay
that's what it says okay so what sorry
if you're going to speak we need to come
to the mic and identify yourself please
sorry to start extemporaneously speaking
from the audience my name my name is
Rich Hill and I'm counsel for the
applicant uh and so the way I read this
condition is that it would be it would
be a condition of the permit so that it
would be in the city's files it would be
enforceable by the city for the life of
the project if the city parking folks or
the city building department found that
a bunch of folks from the project
were parking and Safeway
that would give a motivation and a
requirement to do this paid parking
survey
and then the the following issues would
be addressed
um you know as a
as a an attorney for property owners
having the city to determine parking
rates is very Troublesome uh in in many
ways but I do understand the intent of
this particular permit and I would only
ask that if the commission feels that
this is the concept of this condition is
appropriate that the applicant have an
opportunity to work with staff to see if
there's a way to achieve that concept
that doesn't involve the city
determining parking rates
so I just to clarify
we're we're not at we're not asking to
set the parking rate
so there is a re so and
maybe there's some confusion in the
language so that's why we have these
conversations
um the reasonable rate is not the paid
rate it's the rate of usage of the
parking
so
you the the prop not you but unless
you're the property owner
um the property owner would get to
decide what they're charging for parking
as long as it does not create a negative
off-site parking impact
so the city is not interested in
establishing what that rental fee is
as long as it um results in effective
use of the parking
um the concern is that the way it's
drafted the city is determining the rate
because the city is requiring would
require the rate to be reduced the
parking rate to be reduced
if these conditions weren't met and what
I think might we might be able to work
out with staff or the commission if the
commission is interested is to say this
that the property owner would have an
obligation to find a mechanism to make
sure that there was an overflow parking
in Safeway in the Safeway parking lot
and it may involve reducing the rank
reducing the parking rate but it should
be something that the property owner
should be able to work out there's
probably other Alternatives such as you
know providing incentives to some of the
tenants so you know some for parking
encouraging you know mass transit you
know use of multimodal uh Vehicles
rather than encouraging people to park
in the garage because basically what
this is doing this condition is
encouraging tenants to park in the
garage rather than give up cars and so
there should be opportunities to work
out
opportunities for tenants to take the
bus and not own a car so that sort of
thing
so uh
completely concur with that I guess what
I would suggest
um then is that and I'll write it on
here if we think
if we think that this is uh
appropriate edit
because I don't have a pointer
um
where's your laser pointer when I need
it that the rental uh
the property owner must adjust the
rental charged
or other methods
okay
any concerns with the commission if I
make those edits
uh well I
speaking for myself I I'd like to get a
comprehensive review I I'm getting
frankly getting confused about where we
are in this thing and what we're talking
about so I was going to write it on and
then you could see where that change was
being proposed okay before you do though
okay let me see if I can
the objective here is very simple we
don't want residents of this project to
be parking other than
at the pro at the project that's it
right
so
so if we just if it is discovered
whether it's by Safeway Property
Management or somebody else that
residents are in fact using other
parking areas non-project non-atlas
parking areas then there needs to be a
mechanism to encourage them to stop
doing that if it's selling their car and
taking a bus fine or if it's whatever it
is so
I I I guess I would prefer frankly and
if the any Commissioners disagree with
me that's you know this time to bring it
up that that
the condition
recognize the objective
upon which I believe we all agree
and the method of
attaining that objective is not
specifically defined but it will be a a
TBD that will be acceptable to the city
and acceptable to the applicant now I
understand that we're talking about
again the first one out the door and we
don't we need to be aware of the
precedent aspect of this so if we if we
adjust the code for the for these
without an application for variance and
all that kind of stuff or we what do we
do with the next applicant that comes up
but I still think that the basic point
that we don't want the city to look like
it's setting parking fees is is
legitimate and I don't think we have to
to get to the objective okay I think
that's why Lucy was going to add that uh
one option is changing the rental charge
monthly or other appropriate mechanisms
until a reasonable rate of usage
achieved so it's it's it we're not we're
not we're not saying what you do we're
just saying right meeting you're in by
end objective right okay okay
so while we're waiting has anybody heard
what the Mariners score is
so I
go ahead Mike I'm just a little
concerned about writing this on the fly
but let's see how this goes see where
where we end up here so
um I I think I one one thing I would
like to add
uh is this is the land use condition we
can polish this language before it's put
on the building permit
so I mean I think we're trying to set a
framework but I don't think it has to be
this exact language
that goes on to the building permit what
would have to do is capture the intent
of this when it's put on the building
permit okay I I don't disagree with that
but that gets into the thing that I was
talking about earlier about
uh how do we
end up knowing that what what's done is
what you know I mean and there's no
collusion or anything like that that's
not the issue but
I'm not sure how we become aware of what
the answer here is that that
you know I'll tell you what let's go
ahead and read this and see if we have
any objections from anybody here and
then we'll
so the condition as it it stands right
now is from time to time as the property
owner conducts surveys of the parking
usage on site the property owner will
self-report the information to the city
if the city identifies that there
appears to be off-site impacts due to
low on-site parking usage the city May
request that the property owner conduct
will conduct a paid parking survey
during a peak use period acceptable to
the director to ascertain and confirm
that paid parking is being rented at a
reasonable rate based on resident car
ownership vacancy rates Etc
if rental rates of paid parking do not
achieve a reasonable
usage rate of the paid parking stalls
the property owner must adjust adjust
the rental charge or
other acceptable actions monthly until
such time as the reasonable use rate is
achieved the parking survey must be
submitted within two weeks of its
completion and monthly thereafter until
minimum usage rate is achieved
can I Mr chair can I suggest another
path this it's this is very specific
performance criteria and I'm just
the long term how this plays long term
and how this you know parking and
Etc
kind of evolves in this part of the city
over time gets a little concerning to me
I'm understanding I understand the
concern that Council has raised on this
one and I'm a little concerned about
writing something that is a condition of
a permit but that we're going to act on
here that is has legal standing and so
what here's another suggestion that
allows maybe a little bit more massaging
of language as you were suggesting
maybe we just do a simple condition that
says something to the effect that from
the this action that staff will work
with the applicant to establish a
process to ensure on-site parking
management mitigates the potential for
spillover parking from this project to
neighboring properties then it says okay
that's an issue we're concerned about
um and it just says to establish a
process to ensure on-site parking
management so it just it's a way to try
to hold the applicant and the long-term
property manager could you say that
again slowly and I'll write it on here
and put it up so everyone can look at
yeah and I would also say that the word
mitigate there is really relevant I
think commissioner Brennan used the
right word as opposed to prevent because
the issue is not absolute prevention the
issue is avoidance of a of an issue and
if it's uh so I I don't think we need to
say nobody parks and Safeway but we
don't what we don't want to get in we
want to mitigate rather than prevent
okay
um so the language was staff will work
with the applicant
to establish a process
to ensure hold on your your
I'm not as fast establish a process to
ensure on-site parking management
mitigates the potential
for spillover parking
oh this is the right word but he'll get
the point across
from this
project
to neighboring properties
essentially says it's not
legislating an out legislating the
process that will use it saying work
with the applicant to
find a way to address the concern
and I don't know
on behalf of the applicant commissioner
I think this accomplishes what the
applicant feels they can accomplish in
terms of working with the city in a very
practical way
and as you as as I'm sure the
commissioner knows parking management
plans or something
developers are used to working with yes
thank you
I I would I hate to do this but I'm
going to word Smith here uh because this
this is again setting a precedent okay
so uh
I I think staff and applicant will will
uh cooperate
to identify a process
to mitigate off-site parking
I need you to say that again okay
um hold on let me do it this way all
right
just
I'm just I'm typing on the screen
instead but I didn't think of that
all right uh oh I guess I can't do that
okay I guess you're right okay
staff they do parking was it staff in
the applicant will collaboratively well
staff and staff and applicant will
cooperate or collaborate uh
to identify
a process
now commissioner Brandon you said that
the the wording of the uh on-site
on-site parking management is is uh
technical language
uh well I mean is that parking
management plans are as was noted are
pretty common
piece of property management so that's
what they call them parking management
programs
okay well the objective that I had here
was just to say look the applicant and
the city staff will will identify a
process to prevent
uh
spillover parking
in neighboring properties
well
preventing it I'm sorry mitigating yeah
yeah mitigate there we go that goes back
to my own point
okay
um
so I'm sorry I didn't quite follow that
it's a staff and applicant will
collaborate to identif to identify a
process to mitigate spillover property
from this project to neighboring
properties
Medicaid spillover parking
yeah
on neighbor on neighboring property
right
parking this there spillover parking
from this project to neighboring
properties uh can we say the potential
for spillover parking because as of
today we don't know that there will be
any spillover parking
well
I think that I think potential is
implied okay
that's fine if it doesn't happen then
there's then this process isn't going to
be necessary
okay
five in a row I think they lost the
early oh
okay you didn't identify yourself
okay so so I I love how the words are
all dropping yeah okay so staff uh and
applicant will collaborate to identify a
process to mitigate uh
spillover parking from this project to
neighboring properties yes okay okay is
that acceptable that's fine with me all
right
so I'm um so you have a proposed motion
these three conditions would appear
between the two
in the sort of bulleted area
and then any other conditions the
commission wants to propose I I seem to
remember that commissioner Brennan had
to right one or two
so
um
how are we going to do this is a motion
we want to do a main motion and add the
conditions or boys just want to add the
conditions as well you can amend it from
I I Let's uh let's make the motion with
the following conditions and then that
would include uh
the ones that the city has already
identified and you your proposed
conditions and then we can
take some motion and discuss right so
you there are probably two ways to do it
one you could do two separate steps one
is add the conditions and then approve
the second is to make include the
revised conditions as part of the
overall motion either one's acceptable
so
um I want to add just so before we make
the motion because I'm just going to
going to make a motion that adds all of
the conditions right that we've
discussed and I'll try to identify what
they are but I also just want to note
that the other conditions that I want to
add so on in the staff report tonight's
staff report on page 4 of 19.
uh under item number one
there was a proposed new condition that
I want to include as well and that reads
the design of all three buildings shall
include treatments at the top of the
buildings such as changes in materials
color and or height to create a top to
the buildings so the the way the motion
is written right now the conditions in
the memo are added okay so you would
unless you want to edit or not accept
those conditions you don't need to take
any further action then that's what I
would propose we just go ahead and add
that condition
so that that allows us that is the the
warning that allows the permission to
add the vision
to add additional motions or I'm sorry
conditions to this motion
oh of course you have the ability to do
that I'm just saying that that if you're
if the purpose is just to accept the
conditions that are already right
acceptable in the memo you don't need to
to specifically call those out because
the motion already identifies that the
conditions in the memo
would be included
okay the the other condition that I want
to discuss here quickly that I'll add to
the motion if there's concurrence here
and that was related to the 7th Avenue
Northwest concerns
and the condition would read I'll read
it quickly and then we'll try to capture
it for the record assess the need
for the addition of traffic calming or
controls on 7th Avenue Northwest
to ensure Traffic Safety is maintained
in response to the increased use of this
street created by the project
so essentially just saying there's
additional traffic let's make sure that
we're not creating some condition for
the existing properties as a result of
the new trips that are going to create
safety concerns so it's essentially just
saying let's look hard at that let's
make sure that staff is taking a hard
look at that so that's what that okay
condition means so we'll give the
applicant a chance to respond I think
staff would just say that the streets
have been designed for the level
the the standard does it is intended for
the level of traffic that is proposed
for what that's worth okay
any
body reading again sure it says the the
question is it it is just
um again the purpose is the additional
traffic and concerns that were expressed
about conflict so it is the condition is
to assess the need for the addition of
traffic calming or Contours on 7th
Avenue North West to ensure Traffic
Safety is maintained in response to the
increased use of the street created by
this project
doesn't require it it just says let's
make sure we take a hard look at it if
the engineers agree that staff has just
suggested that we've already looked at
it and we're comfortable with it then
check the box but I just want to be
responsive to what we've heard and kind
of what we're seeing from this project
so
the applicant appears to be okay with
that
do we need any more for the record no I
was just gonna it I didn't know if you
wanted it up there to read
okay
I don't know I do better reading than
listening right crap okay
Mr chair I move that the development
commission approved the site development
permit and the shoreline substantial
development permit for the seventh at
Gilman or the atlas project
file numbers
sdp13005 and Sho
13-00014 as described and evaluated in
the staff report dated April 10 2014 and
project drawings received March 13 2014
briefing response memo dated May 2nd
2014 and subject to the conditions
therein
with the additional conditions as stated
there is a condition new condition as
described
dealing with construction permit review
the city and the applicant will work to
identify elements of a public education
plan
related to the potential loading or
potential flooding
the education plan will include signs in
the garage and legal notice to ensure
that future owners of the property are
aware of the site characteristics
other possible components might include
information
uh
I can't read the word
provided provided to Residents during
Leasing
and res and residents
with an additional new condition
um
that says during the construction of
building C
the
it's Courtyard its Courtyard will be
elevated but evaluated by staff and the
applicant to determine if a secondary
minor walkway is warranted
if appropriate the walkway will be of
low impact such as stepping stones
um
additionally modification to condition
eight as noted in the staff report to
read
staff and the applicant will collaborate
to identify a process to mitigate
spillover parking from this project to
neighboring properties
and then
the final additional condition
would be the addition of the condition
assess the need for the addition of
traffic calming or controls on 7th
Avenue Northwest to ensure Traffic
Safety is maintained in response to the
increased use of the street created by
the project
commissioner Brennan um
is it controls or Contours you've said
you've said it it would be controls okay
it would be traffic calming or controls
they have a second is there any further
discussion
could you read the lower
part of the motion as well or do you do
that as a separate motion we've got a
single yeah that is a separate motion
yeah it's gonna be separate so it has
been moved and seconded there is no
further discussion
all those in favor of the motion signify
by saying aye
aye
and there are no there's no opposition
we will therefore go to the SEC Mr chair
I move that the development commission
direct the develop the development
services department to prepare findings
of fact and conclusions for review and
approval by the development commission
chair affirming the development
commission's decision to approve the
seventh at Gilman project AKA Atlas
file number is sdp
13-00005 and Sho
13-00014 subject to the conditions
listed in the staff report dated April
10 2014 and project drawings received
March 13 2014 briefing response memo
dated May 2nd 2014 and subject to the
conditions therein and as were amended
this evening in the previous motion
exactly there is a second is there any
further discussion of the motion
all those in favor signify by saying aye
aye aye it is unanimous
therefore thank you
the meeting is adjourned I don't believe
there's and I don't believe I just said
there's adjourned but I don't believe
there's any further notice for other
projects or anything that we need to get
on the public record
Christopher no okay great we can go home
yep thank you
this also be the ones we'll use
good luck this is a
here's the condition perfect