Again, good evening and welcome to the August 5th meeting of the Issaquah Development Commission.
Tonight we will be looking at an application for site development permit. For the
Gateway Apartments, the project number is PRJ12-00043 and site development
permit 15-00002. The agenda for this evening will involve first
an approval of the minutes from preceding meeting. And after
the approval of the minutes, we will begin the agenda
item that will start with the City of Issaquah staff
presentation. after which there will be a presentation by the applicant. And after the
presentation by the applicant, there will be an opportunity for members of the public to
speak on this project. As Christopher pointed out, there is a sign-in sheet there. So
we ask that anybody from the members of the public that wants to speak, please
sign that in so we have your name and your address on record. We also
ask that anybody that wants to speak that comes up to the microphone These identify
yourself by your name and your address. And that is going to have to go
every time if you're coming back to the microphone later to address, to answer a
question or clarify something like that, you still have to for the record so that
people will know when they read the record who made the comment and question. So
every time you come up there, just remind the record of who you are. After
the public comment, there will be an opportunity for each member of
the Development Commission to seek clarification from the applicant or the staff
and to address any issues that the commissioners might have and to
make observations on the request for the site development permit. So with
that said, we will start with the staff presentation. I'm sorry, approval of the minutes.
Does anybody have any changes that they wish to make in the minutes from the
June 24, 2015 meeting? Any changes? We got a motion. Mr. Chair, I move we
approve the minutes of the June 24, 2015 Development Commission meeting. Is there a second?
There has been a first and second motion. Is there any discussion? In
that case, all those in favor of approval signify by saying
aye. Aye. The minutes are approved. We'll now go into the
staff presentation. Good evening. My name is Amy Tarrs and I
am the senior planner for the Development Services Department of the
City of Issaquah and the project manager for the Gateway Apartments
site development permit. So tonight, I am going to, this is
the first of two meetings, public, I should call it public hearing
for this project. And for tonight's public hearing, I would like to
use this as a time to basically introduce the project to the Development Commission
and to the public. Um, and, uh, primarily to get, uh, provide you an
opportunity to ask questions, clarifications, um, and also, uh, to solicit comments from both
you and the public. So we're not asking for any
decisions tonight and this is primarily a time to clarify
things and answer questions. So we determined that this proposal
is generally compliant with the site development permit requirements as
reflected in the staff report subject to several conditions. I'm
not gonna go through the conditions tonight. What I'd like to do is use
this time to really capture the essence of what this project is about and
how it is implementing the vision for Central Issaquah through the Central Issaquah Development
and Design Standards. And I'd like to use three themes in my presentation tonight.
That will be connectivity, quality, quality open spaces that includes environmental health and social
well being and also place making the chapters in the standards all are
meant to build up on these three themes. And I thought that this
will be a good way to do a short presentation and hopefully a
short one and still summarize what how this project complies with the
requirements. So under connectivity, I'm gonna touch on the green necklace, the
circulation facilities, and a little bit about the views. For the quality
open spaces, I'm gonna introduce the two types of public spaces I'm
sorry, the two types of open spaces or community spaces that are included
in this project, as well as how natural areas are integrated into the
development. And then for placemaking, I'm gonna again touch on the idea
of how the physical environment creates a sense of place, how it is
consistent with the Western Gateway vision, how the urban streetscape prioritizes pedestrians and
a little bit on the buildings themselves. One of
the things that we'd like to make sure is clear is
that there is an ongoing SEPA environmental review concurrent with this
project, and the draft mitigated determination of non-significance was published on
July 30th for public comment, and the public comment and appeal
period will end on August 20th. So the intent is that
we will have enough time to again to get to solicit comments for
the environmental review before we bring back the project to you for an
for a decision. The other the other concurrent study is a citywide
road and crosswalk safety study. This is very recent and it is
a response to public concerns about some of the crosswalks and roadways
in the city that are perceived to be unsafe. This is
a citywide study and it will involve several streets
including Newport Way and specifically certain intersections and crosswalks.
So given that this project is on Newport Way,
we wanted to make you aware that there is
this ongoing study. of this project is
basically in the western side of Issaquah. There are
two major natural areas near the development, Lake Sammamish
on the north and Cougar Mountains, which is a
hiking resource on the south side. It is part
of the Western Gateway District of Central Issaquah. The
Western Gateway, I got lost, sorry. Let me just read.
So the Western Gateway District's vision states that this area
is meant to create an attractive gateway to Issaquah that
maintains significant open space views from I-90 and hence Tibbets
Creek and buffers as key link of the green necklace.
So the proposed Gateway Apartments
is a multifamily development that
occupies currently six acres combined. I'm sorry, six parcels combined
with a total of 30 acres out of those out of those 30
acres, 21.74 acres is what's developable. The rest is going to be reserved
as conservation areas because of the sensitivity of the critical areas. This map
or the site plan shows a general idea of where the natural areas
are. There are two creeks that are part of this development, Schneider Creek
that's northwest of the property and Tibbets Creek which is southeast. There
is also a phase two, not part of this project, that is
being developed or eventually will come to you for also review and
approval. And that is also owned by the same applicant. Later on,
I'm going to mention this a little bit when I talk about
linkages. So this project proposes 400 units of residential space.
in two five-story buildings and 16 three-story buildings. There
will be 29,250 square feet of outdoor private community
space. So they are required to provide 19,200 square
feet, so they are over by 10,000 square feet.
So I wanted to talk a little bit about the project
site. This is a view of the top left photos of
you of the frontage of the property. Basically, it has a
undefined driveway entrance. It has an existing farmhouse building and On the
bottom is a view of what this current conditions of Newport Way
is. Basically, it's a two-way, it's a one-way, two-lane road with a
bike lane on the shoulder of the road and an undefined walking
area that's also on the shoulder of the road.
On the I-90 side, this is a view of the property,
basically relatively flat, rolling, with a great view of Cougar Mountain
in the background. So staff analysis, and this is reflected in
the staff report, determined that this project complies with the zoning
district standards. The floor area ratio is 0.78, the minimum required
for the Village Residential Zone is 0.75. So they're barely
making the minimum FAR. The height is a maximum of
54 feet when you have garage parking under the building.
And they are proposing two five-story buildings that will be
54 feet. Currently, their buildings show that the pitch of
the roofs or the roof height is actually exceeding the 54
feet. We are, the staff is planning to propose an amendment
to the IMC's definition of maximum height, given that we've had
several situations where this has been a challenge to implement.
So, um, the hope is that the amendment will be approved by city
council in the fall. If the amendment is not approved, the applicant will,
uh, revise their building elevations to provide flat roofs for the five story
buildings. So obviously the three story buildings are below that maximum height.
Setbacks required is zero and it varies for the different buildings. The build
to line is between zero to 15 feet. That's what's required and they
are proposing in the range of five to 15 feet with conditions for
the community center which is not quite at the 15 feet line.
For impervious area, the maximum allowed is 90% and they
are providing 65%. So what's out there today in terms
of existing development? I failed to mention earlier that the
site is in a VR, Village Residential Zone, and around
it, what's It's surrounded by predominantly residential development. Most of
them are multifamily with also an equal, or I shouldn't
say equal, but with single family subdivision type developments. On
the east boundary of the project is the Rowley properties
and the building closest to it is the arena sports
gym. On the south is the Sammamish Point condominiums and Newport Way.
And again on the north is I-90, which is the northern
boundary of the property. So one of the comments that we
received from the public is a concern about the density of this development. So
what we did was we looked at the existing developments out there to see
how it compares. So this chart basically shows that existing development ranges from five
dwelling units per acre to 15 dwelling units per acre. and the Gateway
Apartments is at 13.33. And the 1840 is based on the
developable area, which is a smaller area. But if we're comparing
apples to apples, it would be 13.33 acres, dwelling units per
acre. So now I'd like to talk about
the elements that I mentioned earlier that contributes to the quality
of the open spaces and how it achieves the vision of
Central Issaquah or of the Central Issaquah Plan. So the first
one is the circulation facilities. The development basically uses several typologies
of both vehicular and pedestrian circulation facilities based on the Central Issaquah
standards. So we have a parkway standard for the Newport Way. Neighborhood
streets basically are the primary vehicular access to this property. And then
we have also the through block passages, which are the primary ones
are the green lines that you see on the screen. screen and the
secondary ones are the brown ones. So the only difference between those two is
the width of the sidewalk. The through block passages are limited to
pedestrian circulation. So what you see here is a
system of gridded streets and sidewalks that make the
blocks a lot smaller to walk around and also
helps with wayfinding and access to the different points
in the development. The other thing The other thing that this
development is providing is a shared use route. That's the gray line that's on the
left side of the screen, which is actually the south. The site plan is flipped
so that the north is actually on the right side of the screen and the
south side is on the left. So you see a gray line and that's a
shared use route. And I'm going to talk a little bit more about that in
a few minutes. So how does the proposal
fit into the regional network of transportation? I use
this map because it's a non-motorized routes and parks.
It's an extra layer of facilities that show how
our bike facilities and are actually connected to our system of roadways in
the city. So again, the arrows show you where the site is, where Newport Way
is. And if you look at Newport Way a little closer, it may be hard
for the people who are watching online, but there's actually two lines. One is a
green line and the other one is a purple line and both of them are
dashes. I'm sorry, one is a solid green line which is the existing shared use
route and then the dash purple line is for a proposed bike lane. So this
project is going to provide both of those in the Newport Way frontage improvements.
So now I'd like to talk about the two types of
community spaces. In the Central Osoquois Standards, we differentiate between required
public community spaces, which is called significant community spaces, and then
there's the required community spaces for specific development, especially residential developments.
So for significant community spaces, we have two two required. One
is a new neighborhood park and that showed in the red circle
again, this is a map from the plan. It's the conceptual green
necklace. So it shows how the site is supposed to provide not
only a park but also a shared use route. It also shows
a dash gridded line which is representing a a gridded street, which is, as
I've shown earlier in the site plan, is how they developed the project. So the
idea is that the green necklace is not just about open spaces or community open
spaces. It's also about streets that create that green necklace and connectivity to the rest
of the city. So one of the things that the standards
also provide is where a project is required to provide two different types
of significant community spaces, the director is allowed to make a decision, I'm
sorry, the director can choose which one will be required of the project.
In this project, basically the applicant has, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. So for this
project, the director has selected the shared use route as the more beneficial facility
or community space for the city. In addition to that, the applicant has volunteered
to provide an area for a neighborhood park.
So the shared use route is actually two shared use routes. As you
have seen, one map that I showed showed a shared use route on
Newport Way and then one that goes inside the property. So the red
arrow show the current alignment as proposed and shows that basically the Newport
Way shared use route connects the property to Cougar Mountain and
to the Mountains of Sound Greenway bike lane. The other shared
use route that's internal to the site, which will eventually be
dedicated to the city, will connect basically the Mountains of Sound
Greenway and the rest of the city to a section of
the Rowley property and over the wetlands of Tibbets Creek.
So in addition to that, the map, the Central
Issaquah Plan also shows a connection over I-90 for
some sort of multi-use trail. Currently, we know conceptually
that this connection is required. However, since we don't know the
exact location of where that connection will be over I-90, we
have asked the applicant to provide a relocatable easement for a
future connection and shared use route. Okay, this one. So
the neighborhood park, which I mentioned earlier, actually consists
of some parts, some areas on the southern end
of the site, including the frontage of the property
along Newport Way. So it's an irregularly shaped area.
And the applicant has proposed to provide improvements that
is labeled as the phase one plan in the staff report.
And what that means is they will be providing the grading
to create areas areas that are usable, but they will not be
providing the programming for the spaces. Um, our city parks and recreation
department will be taking this to the public for more input in
order to determine what are the appropriate uses and programming for the
space. So now I'd like to talk
about the second type of community space, which are private and but
but still required by the by the standards. It basically consists of
the central green space and the community center and also the through
block passages which create which provide more like a linear park feeling
that basically goes north, south and east, west of the project.
So here are some views of the bottom view shows you
what the community center looks like. It's that red, very yeah,
red pitched roof building on the left. And the upper portion
shows just a feel for what the streets look like.
In addition to the two required community spaces, one of the things
that the standards talk about is a requirement of integrating open spaces
and green spaces into the development. In this particular project, they have
also the the I-90 green edge for the property. So if
you recall earlier, there was some mention of the vision for
the Western Gateway about the green edge for I-90. And so
in this particular project, they will be providing they will be
revegetating the area that is, as you have seen in the existing photos,
there's really nothing there. So it will be provided with more trees. And
the photo below gives you an idea of what it looks like when
you're driving going west on I-90. So
the other aspect of the project, again, still on the green theme,
is the natural edges east and west of the project. As I
mentioned earlier, they have two creeks going through this project. So the
western creek, Schneider Creek, which is on top of the screen, will
involve enhancement of the buffer, and they will also provide a soft surface
trail. So in the outer buffer, outer 50 feet buffer for the
enjoyment of not only their residents, but basically for people who are
using the neighborhood park. The bottom The bottom green that you see
is actually the extent of the Tibbets Creek wetland. At the bottom end, they
will be providing a connection of the shared use route. So it will be
a 10 foot wide multi-use trail that will connect again the property and Newport
Way all the way across Tibbets Creek to the other, to the Rowley property.
Due to their installation of that connection, they will be
required to provide enhancement for portions of the wetlands of
Tibbets Creek. So as you can see, not only if you
take the whole, I don't have a site plan of everything all together, but basically
you're gonna see that all the edges of the property have some natural areas or
green spaces that are interconnected, not only to the site, but to the rest of
the city. So putting it all together, circulation and open spaces, the whole idea here
is When you really think about attractive open spaces, if you can't
really get to them, then what's the point? And then again, on the
other hand, what's the point of having all these circulation facilities if there's
really nowhere to go? So as I mentioned earlier, we have these green
spaces, the community spaces in the project. that are connected not
only by streets but more so by pedestrian connections and we
have a shared use route which is a bike and pedestrian
facility that connects not only this property, not only the new
neighborhood park but also connects it to existing bike lanes in
the outside of the property along Newport Way and that's the
Mountains to Sound Greenway Bike Trail and also southwards it connects
it to a natural area, the Tibbets Creek area or the
Tibbets Creek Wetland. And in the future there will be a
connection over I-90 to Lake Sammamish and With the development
of the Phase 2 project that I mentioned earlier, Phase 2
will actually provide a 10-foot wide bike and pedestrian connection over
Schneider Creek to this development. So not only are linkages physical,
but they're also visual. So this is just a quick, again,
this is in your packet, a video link. an illustration of
how when you're inside the property, you will have access to
the views of the natural areas around it. And so through
the experience of not only the physical linkage to the community
or natural open spaces, residents can also appreciate the the visual connection
to what makes Issaquah great, which is the Lake Sammamish
view, the view of the Cascade Mountains and also of
Cougar Mountain. So now I'd like to talk
about the urban streetscape and how there are several elements in this
project and also required by the Central Issaquah Development Standards that build
on what makes for a pedestrian friendly design or a community. So
the first element is the street wall. So these two diagrams show
on the left, basically a combination. I'm sorry. So on the left
is a diagram that shows the green as the through block
passages. So these are the pedestrian circulation and how the buildings
frame those pedestrian areas. On the right is an illustration of
a street, which is again the green, and the blues are the
buildings lined up along the street that create a continuous street wall
for the streets. So there is one street wall section that has
not been resolved, and that is the frontage of Newport Way. So
the diagram or the plan on the left shows a detail of what
was shown on the phase one park concept. And this is what they
proposed to provide as part of their development. As you can see, it's
basically an open lawn with street trees. What we have conditioned
in the project is that they need to meet the
build to line requirements and several of the related standards,
including one that talks about enclosure and a safe area
for children to play. So recognizing that Newport Way is
a vehicular and And currently at 40 miles an hour, it's
a road that definitely has to be factored in in the
design of this area. So the photos that we have here
are just examples of what we mean by an architectural element
that's acceptable to to meet the build to line. In other words, just
putting shrubs or putting a fence is not something that we would consider
as meeting the standard. The other element that contributes to the urban streetscape
is the ground floor treatment of the buildings. So the floor
plan detail on top of the screen captures basically two
different types of buildings. On the left are two smaller
buildings, the three-story buildings, and a portion of the five-story
building shows how it's being treated currently. So For the
three-story buildings, again, you could look at the elevation.
They are providing not only patios that extend out
to the public realm, but also several detailing of
trims and colors on the elevation, again, to engage
the pedestrian. Again, we have conditioned the entryways to require
them to revise them and make them more inviting. I'm not
gonna go through all the details of that. And then for
the five-story buildings, they are providing an entry plaza and the
treatment of the entry, as you can see here, shows a
three-story building definitely more prominent facade feature. And also the main
entry of the building looks more like a 14 foot
high, what we consider retail entry, which creates a more
inviting and more open space. The five story buildings also
include patio spaces and trellises again to create a more
interesting street or ground floor treatment. Again, we
conditioned the berm to create a more urban
edge instead of something that looks a lot
more suburban. So, oops, uh-oh, what happened to
that? Okay, so... Now I'd like to talk about a
third element, which is pedestrian comfort and safety. And it has to
do with how the streets where vehicular circulation are designed. So there
are several elements that help create this comfortable and safe environment for
pedestrians. So first you have parallel parking that provides a
buffer between the pedestrians and the vehicular traffic. We also
have street trees that add another layer and you have
continuous sidewalks that also provide multiple ways for people to
walk around the development. And so the other method
that we create a positive urban streetscape is how we deal
with the surface parking. So this diagram shows basically again a
detail of the area around two surface parking area for the
three story buildings. Basically the treatment for all the buildings are
the same. five-story buildings. And so I'm just using this as a
way to explain the concepts. So the green is the roadway. And
So first of all, the buildings line up on and line up the
streets. And so the parking areas are behind the buildings. And in addition
to that, where you have the short end of the surface parking abutting
the streets, they are providing a very generous planter area that will
be provided with hedges. And we also conditioned the project for
them to provide architectural screens for these areas. So ultimately, you
only have 20 feet of driveway that will be visible when
you're walking or driving on the streets. The other
item that creates a pedestrian friendly environment are the pedestrian scale buildings. And this
is through modulation and articulation. So this floor plan just shows a typical three
story building on the left and a five story building on the right. And
the ins and outs that you see show a general idea of how modulated
both buildings are. On the street, when you're looking at
them, there's also another layer of detail, which is the articulation of the
building materials. So using different types of materials, different colors. So these are
some of the early images that they sent us. So it still doesn't
show all the colors. the colors that you see in your elevations. But I use
these because it shows very clearly the combination of modulation and articulation for the buildings.
So for the image on the right, which is the five-story buildings, you see the
treatment of the base, which is the garage. And then you have trellises, and you
have almost like full floor windows and and the pitch roof. And on
the left, it just shows a side of one of the
three story buildings that has the balconies and the patios along
a walkway. So next steps, we are we are expecting the
SEPA determination to be concluded on August 20th, 2015. This is when
the comment and appeal period closes. And we have tentatively scheduled the
next development commission meeting or public hearing for a decision on August
26, 2015. Now that is dependent on what happens tonight and whether
or not it's it's realistic to have our next meeting at the end
of the month. I do wanted to mention that there are two corrections
in the report. One is in condition number six, and we'd like to
insert the phrase, "If a signal is to be provided." in that condition.
And then in page 55, there's a reference to Seventh and Gilman in
the second paragraph. And actually, I intentionally slipped that in there just to
check if you guys are reading. So, Before I conclude my presentation,
I also wanted to mention that we received three more comments
from the public after the packet went out. So I have
distributed attachment 9, 10, and 11. And these are comments from
three citizens. And I just wanted to make sure that these
are submitted for the record. Thank you. That concludes my presentation. So
I just wanted to add two things. One, the clipboard on the table up
here is for public sign-ups. So if you're interested in speaking this evening, please add
your name to the clipboard. And the other piece I wanted to add is I've
seen that some of you are taking pictures, which you're of course welcome to do.
This is being videotaped and a videotape will be available on the city's website in
a couple of days up to a week. So all the information and discussion will
be publicly available. Well, in following up on Lucy's comment
about those of you who wish to speak, excuse me, could I just get an
informal show of hands? And you're not-- of the number of people that would think
they, at this point, members of the public that would like to make a comment
on the record. One, two. Is that it? OK. Three. All right. Three. All right.
The point is, you're welcome when the public comment period starts. You're welcome if you
haven't indicated now. You're welcome to come up and just sign it and do that.
But in the interest of giving everybody an opportunity to speak that would like that,
we do ask that you hold your comments to five minutes in order for everybody
to get a shot at it. OK? All right. Thank you.
Is there anything further from the staff at this point? Not yet.
I'm done. So at this point, we will go to the applicant
if the applicant cares to make a presentation, which I anticipate they
will. Good evening. First of all, thank you for allowing us the
opportunity to present our project to you tonight. We're excited about it.
I am Greg Van Patten. I'm with the Wolf Company. We are
the developer of the project. And the Wolf Company, a little bit
about us, we are a third generation family company founded in Spokane in 1949. So
been around for quite a while, like I said, third generation family company with deep
roots in Spokane. We have been very active in development in the Seattle area over
the last about four years. I oversee all of our development activity here in the
region. And we have, this would be our 10th development actually in the region stretching
from Bothell to Columbia City and out here to Issaquah in various stages of development
and construction. And I can say that as a developer, we really pride ourselves on
being a thoughtful, high-quality developer, and I think that's a consistent theme that you'll see
in all of our projects that we do, including this one. So we're excited to
be a part of Issaquah, and with that, I'll turn it over to Matt Roey
with Viya Architects.
Thank you, Greg, and thank you, Development Commission, for your time tonight.
I'll just get our PowerPoint up and we'll get going. Oh, sure.
Full screen mode, always better. My name is Matt Rowey. I'm an
architect and the head of development planning for Viya Architecture. I've been
working with the Wolf Company for about a year on this project.
And before I go further, I'd just like to introduce that there's
more to our team. Everyone who's on our design team is here.
Please raise your hand. there's a lot of us because it's a big site
and there's a lot of issues so we have a lot of specialty consultants in
the interest of time i won't introduce all of them but another part of our
team is really amy and and the city and working with the staff here because
this has been a project that's really tested the new central issaquah plan and um
It's a large site and these central principles are the kind of the key to
what we're doing on the project building community, creating more connectivity, enhancing the environment and
providing appropriate growth here in a village livable walkable manner. We like to call it
village scale density because we don't have any real mixed use here. It's just residential.
And so we're utilizing all these great goals to create a real neighborhood that's family
friendly. It's a place for empty nesters and there's much needed housing in this, apparently
in this community that's rental housing. And so we can provide it to a diversity
of different users. And Amy did such a great job of kind of going through
a lot of this. I'll try not to be redundant, but it is the western
end of the Central Issaquah plan. I think we're all familiar with the site. great
assets in place that are actually opportunities as well as sometimes barriers. Like I-90 is
a very big barrier for any development to be next to. It's clearly noisy, it
generates vibration, it's not exactly attractive to look at or be right next to, but
we found some ways to kind of work with that and find a way to
buffer it in our development. But it also is a it is a gateway. It
is a great exposure for this project and it does kind of represent connectivity and
it's the lifeline to the rest of the region. So in that way it is
an asset. And then we're bounded on both sides by two creeks and wetlands. The
Tibbetts Creek is a large drainage area, as you can see here, much more significant
creek that runs between us and Rowley. But Snyder Creek is a smaller drainage, comes
down the hill and finds its way under the highway to Lake Sammamish. So we've
got both those next to us. And as the site stands right now, it's a
farm. And it's been a farm for many generations. And you can see the creek
is right here. uh, Snyder Creek and that it's been farmed for a long time
and I think they've been tilling it right over the creek because in the summertime
it almost goes away. But it's significant during the winter time because it fills the
drainage area fills up again. So we're taking it back to what it shouldn't really
be as a prominent wetland and I'll show you more on that in just a
minute. So as Amy went over, we're next to Arena Sports. There's a big wetland
that's already there that was part of the mitigation for I-90 back when it was
built. So this is a piece of wetland that we can't touch. It's got a
fence around it. We're going to keep all those trees as part of it. There
is also a future development site that the Wolf Company has also acquired. It's not
part of this application, but they're looking at another development there as well, and we're
going to connect to that in our proposal. The Sammamish Point condos are just over
here next to us, but we're leaving as much space and buffer towards them as
possible. We're leaving a lot of the significant trees there, and that's where we're placing
the park and that joint-use trail you just saw. And next to Arena Sports is
another kind of wet drainage area. And we're going to leave that as
pristine as possible and enhance it as well. So here's an overlay of
our proposed site plan. As you can see, the park in this condition.
We're preserving this wetland here, creating a boardwalk to connect to rallies and
replanting and reworking those wetland areas so they become more habitat friendly.
So I've turned the whole site plan 90 degrees for the rest of the presentation
because it fits better on the screen and on the page. So north is to
the right. So try not to confuse you too much with that. So as Amy
pointed out, our organization of the site was around creating this great loop through the
developable area. And the development area is only about half of the entire site. It's
a very small part because of the wetlands that bound us on all four sides.
And so there's some constraints. So we're very compact within the site, leaving as much
of the natural environment as we can. So that organizing loop is that is that
primary neighborhood street that we organize everything around and that's the one that has all
the front doors and that's the one that um uh creates the sense of community.
And so when you look at it from an arrow perspective and some of these
are new images apologize tonight we kept working on it after we gave everybody the
package that this will all be available to as we proceed. But the premise in
organizing the way we put the buildings on the site was to create more of
a buffer along I-90 with the taller four and a half, five story buildings here
that create a sound wall and also a visible wall that kind of protects the
rest of the development as well as everybody up the hill. So that was the
starting point. Of course, that's also the lowest part of the property. So those taller
buildings are in the lowest grade on the property as well. And they're on the
north side where they only cast shadows kind of against the edge of I-90. So
they don't cast shadows into the more residential areas. And from here you
can see our central greenway, this organizing spine, the central clubhouse. We've got an area
here we're calling the Village Green that's kind of at the end of this destination.
And here's Arena Sports, pretty good-sized building by itself, but we have a good green
buffer against that as well. And then some Amish Point Parkways over here where we're
placing the park and the joint or the shared use trail.
So there's a lot of significant community benefit in this project. The open space shown
in green is it's not only just the park dedication and the trail that we're
creating, but it's the establishment and the preservation of wetland areas here and on Snyder
Creek and enhancing these areas around I-90 and against the arena sports. and
internally creating these connections east-west in the middle of our block. So it's
like a series of great open spaces that are public and then semi-public
within the development. And as Amy pointed out, we have a significant amount
of wetland mitigation work we're doing here to enhance these areas. Snyder Creek
here, Tibbets Creek there, And it's more than just enhancement. It's like it's creating habitat
that isn't there right now and kind of restoring it back to where it should
have been or should be as a natural drainage. And here's a cross section through
what we're doing along the creek. It's kind of a berm that we're creating that
helps create a very specific channel, a naturalized channel for the creek. Right now it's
kind of an undefined line, but this will help establish that as more habitat friendly
and This cross section here is an exaggeration vertically of about four to one, but
it does show you how it slopes from here down to I-90 and how there'll
be new plantings, native species. We're taking out the canary reed grass, which is invasive
species in this area and putting in plantings that are appropriate and more applicable. And
we've met with the Rivers and Streams Board and they've seen this project as well.
So the other part of the trail system is this boardwalk that will be connecting
Rowley to our development. And here's a similar project at the Nisqually Delta. If you're
familiar with that, it's down by Olympia, where this is a tidal wetland. We're more
of a riparian wetland where there'd be grasses and it floods occasionally. But this is
the same idea. This is a low impact type of construction that they can come
in and do very easily during the dry season. And it's a nice strong structure
that you can have bike trails on and pedestrians and it'll last a good long
time. So that's down here, and it's about 300 feet long. It's elevated
where the land depresses down as the wetland. And it pretty much lands-- it's flat,
and it lands at the two ends where the grade is more elevated. So you're
also seeing on here is a neighborhood park that Amy introduced as well. That is
a dedication of land by the Wolf Company. And the programming and design will be
done by the city. But we're hinting at it here that there's multiple different spaces
possible for different generations to use. Maybe the seniors and adults could be using this
as more of a neighborhood gathering spot. And then there's more children friendly areas where
you could toss a frisbee or a tot lot or places to climb on for
older kids. And then the whole thing is really a trail system, a park that
goes from here to there. And there just happens to be nodes for activities for
perhaps some natural signage about the, the wetlands so you can learn about the wetlands
and places to sit and that kind of thing. There's a more detailed plan and
I'll zoom in a little further so you can see it. There's the different types
of activities, the flat play area here, tot lot, older kids can climb and have
free climbing areas here. But that's all programmed that the city will go through with
stakeholders and develop more specific, but the opportunities are there. So also in
our project is significant amount of interior community space. It's kind of more targeted towards
the tenants. First of all, we'll look at the community club, the clubhouse. And that's
this red building in the forefront. As you see as you drive into the project,
it's kind of the place you'll, if you're new and you want to rent an
apartment, that's where the leasing center will be. It's also the heart of the community
because everyone will come here to get their mail every day. We don't have separate
mailboxes. It all happens in one spot. So it's kind of a forced socialization so
everybody gets to know everybody and there's a reason to come to this on a
daily basis. But in the foreground is kind of an amphitheater that steps down into
a green space and then we have our pool terrace with outdoor barbecue and seating
areas. And this is a more detailed site plan of what that looks like. Here's
the L-shaped building. It has like a party room, a big hall that you can
rent or use on a daily basis for activities. The pool is here, surrounded by
a terrace, barbecue areas, outdoor seating. This is kind of a natural retaining wall that's
meant for seating and gathering. And then there's less formal ones over on this side
which face the sunset. and the lobby and central spine is here, the mail room,
and there'll be another entrance so everyone from the community can come up here and
come in this door or they come in that door. So there's a lot of
things going on. It's a two-story building, has an elevator. Upstairs will be activity rooms
and workout rooms and exercise equipment. And another part of the
design was establishing parking courts so that we would very cleverly hide most of
the parking. Because previous developments and developers that have looked at working on this
site, It's challenging because you can't go below grade. It's wet soil. So you have
to have surface parking or put it in some surface level structure. And here we
tried to minimize the impact of that by not having surface lots kind of off
in the distance, which we'd seen in earlier plans. So we're creating parking courts that
really minimize that impact to that neighborhood street that Amy was talking about. So that's
what the parking court starts to look like. There's one curb cut. This will serve
20 to 60 units. Excuse me, 20 to 40 units. That would be almost 40
to 60 cars using one curb cut. And we felt that even though we're landscaping
the interior of this and providing trellises and screening it with landscaping on the outside,
we wanted to take it a step further and enhance it even further by creating
low fences and trellises with vines growing on it to screen that even more. So
the impact of that to the streetscape is greatly enhanced by enclosing that with like
a cedar material that's naturally stained that's a a good way to kind of
hide this and when amy mentioned that we only have 64 64 impervious surface
A big reason for that is when we made these parking courts very efficient and
they have very little paving area because we have parking inside these garages and a
tandem spot behind them that would be used by two and three bedroom apartment tenants
that have keys to both cars. So that's a very easy way to get plenty
of parking and reduce the amount of paving in the project. And
so our central spine here that leads from the community clubhouse to the Village Green
has a wonderful way finding passageway between the buildings. But the Village Green is kind
of a nice spot in itself. I don't think you've seen this rendering yet. We
just did it. actually finished it today. So we call it the Village Green. It's
a nice open space, real family friendly. If you're renting those apartments, your kids can
play out there. It's real easy to keep it safe and keep your eye on
everybody. At the end of that destination is a place for maybe an outdoor barbecue
or a fireplace or gathering area. So kids can play in that area and it's
defined by hedges and a walkway around the edge. And there's entrances to all these
apartments at ground level that come out onto this. So it's a really nice amenity
inside the project. And this is that same Village Green looking back at the community
clubhouse. So there's a vista at the end of that walkway highlighted by that big
red barn kind of look which will be the community clubhouse. And you can see
the play field in the foreground. So I'll talk about
architecture and the character of the project. We were inspired by--
Some of the history around Issaquah, the idea that there was a lot of mining
camps here in the early days and that they used these simple roof forms that
were fairly steep pitched and board and batten siding. And there wasn't big overhangs on
these things. They're pretty short little overhangs, more like a salt box look. So we
wanted to differentiate this project from maybe the more craftsman style that you might see
more prevalently in the neighborhood. is to follow this kind of character and use board
and batten siding and standing seam metal roofs and pick up on some of the
agricultural themes that were part of the history of the place and keep it fairly
clean and crisp and not doll it up too much. And then our community building,
the big red barn idea is the jewel box in the project because this is
where everyone gathers. There will be a pool and we can use heavy timber with
that project and have a more expressive and a higher level of finish on that
building. And this is a project the Wolf Company did up in Bothell a few
years ago. And this is another project that our lead designer has done and
our landscape architect near Puyallup, where the use of timber and standing seam metal
roof is the character we're trying to develop. So another inspiration was in Scandinavian
countries, there's this village character that they developed there where they've used color to
really accent their cities and just in a more restrained manner. And because of
the similar conditions with light, being a northern country with dark winters and a lot
of hills and trees and forest, we felt this was kind of a nice inspiration
for our project to kind of pick up on that character and use it within
our development because we have 18 buildings of which there are five different typologies and
we didn't want it to feel monotonous. So the idea of bringing some color into
the project to differentiate different buildings but in a restrained manner was what we were
trying to develop. So when you see this picture, you get the big red barn
for the community club, but then you get some spots of color and character and
other areas that have neutral colors on them as well. So the idea in here
is that you just, in certain areas, use the color to identify buildings. You never
see the same color too often, and it's kind of just cleverly designed placed in
recesses or on base so it works with the architecture to create very nice vocabulary.
So here's our five different building types. This is our four and a half story
elevator building, our 20 unit building, and these are two 10 unit buildings with different
arrangements of plans and our clubhouse. So you can see the restraint in the color
and the usage and how it differentiates different buildings this way.
So kind of going through the site, everyone knows where the clubhouse is, but the
10-unit buildings are kind of clustered in the middle and turned at different orientations. And
they'll have different colors on them, something like this. And then the 20-unit buildings, the
longer ones, are kind of ranged around that village green and down kind of on
the south end of the site where the main entrances are here and here.
And then the elevator building, which has about 79 units in it, has this berm
in front of it because what we're doing is because we have above grade parking
in structure, we're putting that parking slightly below grade and berming up against it so
you don't see a parking garage. And then we're bringing the entry in at a
half level above the parking garage so it's at this point. So the intent there
is that the berm helps conceal the parking garage and give it a nice green
look. And so we have a color board here. The colors aren't really great on
the screen, but we have the actual colors right here. I'd like to take a
closer look. And then as Amy pointed out, there is this issue with
the height limit. We do want to do pitched roofs. They're fairly steep, 8 and
12 to 12 and 12. That with the height limit measured from more of a
finished grade or a new sidewalk condition, we'll easily accomplish that. But if we have
to measure it from current grade, which is down here, then we'll have to go
to a flat roof. So we hope we can get your support for this change
in the way this is kind of written. Since we have such a big site
plan, we're raising the grade on the taller buildings. It's just for the two taller
buildings along I-90. The grade is coming up about three or four feet, and we'd
like to measure that from the final grading. So it's really a four and a
half story building from that point because the garage is behind it. And then we
have this innovative stormwater collection system to mitigate the runoff in the project. But that's
all underneath the garage where you won't see it. So this is an example of
what the five-story building looks like with a pitched roof on it up here or
a flat roof. And we think this is just more in keeping with the spirit
of Issaquah, the surrounding mountains, and having pitched roofs as more of a residential character.
So and looking at it from I-90, you've seen these pictures. That's the screen you'll
see from the landscaping we'll be adding. But the hills are still prevalent behind. And
we've also studied the views in cross section because I know there's interest in knowing
where this sits. So this red line represents a cross section from I-90 through our
clubhouse and our buildings up the hillside. So you can see I-90 here. This is
our development site down in the lowest part. And then the grades take off up
to the hills. So the red lines kind of represent viewpoints from various different residential
dwellings that are on the other side of Newport Way. So we're all down much
lower. And then we've done view studies that show how we would impact. This is
taken up at Newport Way up here at this location. And when you insert our
building into it, it's just this area down right there. So I'll just go back
one more. Whoops. So you have without our building and with it. so the
grade change is significant from there it's all down in the valley up against i-90
and then from oakridge drive the vegetation is so thick we couldn't do a photo
montage because it's so much lower where our project is from that point of view
which is up on the hill here and then from i-90 It's certainly more of
an elevational change, but that's the idea of a gateway is that it announces
you've arrived to an urban village and this is the presence it'll have from
down there. And again, we're showing landscaping, kind of young trees there, but those
will all grow up and be more significant with time. And looking the other
way back towards Seattle, that's our development before and after. So a lot of the
hills are still very visible and from that side of the freeway it doesn't appear
very tall at all. And then we've looked at within some Amish Point condos but
there's a lot of vegetation in there. We're keeping as many trees as we can
and we're planting new ones that there would only be little visible spots between these
trees. So we didn't bother with a photo montage there or there. But there's quite
a buffer of green vegetation between us and them. And then up the hill from
Pacific Elm Drive, this is where our entrance would be. And all these trees remain
because that's part of that WSDOT wetland. These trees are part of the development on
this side of the road. And so our clubhouse will appear about right there, just
that little spot where that tree would be removed. So that's our presentation. Just
to reiterate, it's been great working with the city planners to have their participation and
interest in our project and help guide us through the variable design guidelines that come
with the Central Issaquah plan and find the right fit for this location, creating better
community, better connectivity, enhancing the environment and accommodating growth in a reasonable manner. So I'll
turn it back to the planners and the and the Development Board for
your questions. OK. Thank you. Does that conclude the applicant
presentation? All right. In that case, we will go from--
the applicant presentation to public comment as we defined
in the agenda. So if you would like to
speak, we invite you again to come up, sign
in, and go over to the microphone. And we
do ask that everybody that speaks make room for
the people to come after you by speaking for
five minutes or less. Thank you. Sir, when you're
finished with that too, would you hand it back
there so they can be passed around so other
folks that want to sign in can do so?
Thank you. Sir? Do you want to speak? Go
ahead. Good evening. My name is Hart Sugarman, resident of Issaquah
for 19 years. I live at 2550 Northwest Oak Crest Drive.
My only concern with this project is the traffic that it's
going to create, specifically on Newport Way. I did a quick
math calculation of the section of Newport Way from Oak Crest
Drive on the east side to Southeast 54th on the west side.
So that's a stretch of road there. I added up all the
dwellings that exist today, which include all of the homes in Summerhill,
the condominiums at Sammamish Point, the condominiums at Spyglass Hill, the homes
at Bentley House, the homes throughout the Pinecone neighborhood. If you add
up all those dwellings, This project outnumbers all those dwellings. So today's
traffic volume on Newport Way with the current speed limit of 40 miles
an hour and the curves in the road, the sight lines, and the
elevation of the road puts a lot of stress on an existing roadway
So to put in this dwelling, this project, 400 units with cars coming
and going throughout the day, the whole modification of Newport Way has to
be considered. or to consider perhaps moving the whole dynamics of this project
and putting the traffic on the frontage road parallel to I-90 because most of the
people want to get to Gilman Boulevard, State Road 900, and most likely the I-90.
So I really want to draw the attention to the traffic congestion that's going to
exist. and to make sure that no cars are allowed to park on Newport Way
at any time because we see now along Newport Way some sections where we have
cars now parked on the shoulder of the road further down west from there. So
those are my concerns. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Anyone else? Yes, sir.
Hi, my name is Qadir Maghraie and I live at 124 Oakwood Place,
Northwest Issaquah. And actually, I'm going to pretty much reiterate what Mr. Hart
says, but in different ways. We all talked about the inside the development
But we didn't talk about a couple of things that I would like to actually
make the council think about it and the city planners and also developers please. One
of them is actually the access. I think for this kind of development that we
have so big, one access which is right now as existing roadway and Newport way
is only two way, one lane each direction. For having this kind of a development,
I think I will actually second Mr. Hart, have another access in the frontageway. That
would relief for emergency and also people going in and out of the, even if
you put a signal at the intersection, it still would be need that. And the
second one is actually the, I wanna know the, if we have rental and single
family in this area, development have been considered the number of parking.
Actually not just the owners and the people coming, trip generations for
the people going in and out of the development during different time
of the day. That would be also the second one is actually
another thing that I like to be considered is the parking area.
The parking for excess of this for even though we have a community centers
and all these uh perfect things, it's going to be on a new port
way. If you drive right now at the new port where you would see
Bellevue side of it, they built the several complex and they all park along
this side of the street and that will bring the street less. So uh
Another thing is what facility the park, because each time developer
comes in, they put these kind of parks in different areas
between the two developers. Normally what I have seen, there are
extra land that are not usable. And what facility as a
park Would be in this park that will be accessed or usable for other
community people they can use it Because this is a city's program So what kind
of a facility is that going to be a child proof or is that going
to be or is going to be a land? Would be turning to develop or
the homeowner association or the city so they're going to be encounter it So these
are actually the basic concert I have and then also traffic volume if we don't
have a two axis on that. So these are my comments. I would appreciate
if it could be considered. Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. Thank you.
I would just ask that everybody, if you haven't put your name on the
sign up sheet to please write it down to ensure that the recording secretary
gets everyone's name spelled correctly. Thank you. As well as introducing yourself. Thank you.
I'm Laura Milliken and I live over on Front Street. So I drive down Newport
Way all the time as I work in Bellevue. So yeah, traffic is definitely an
issue. But as far as building a new apartment complex, I'm concerned or at least
curious about How much of that would be accessible for affordable housing? Would low-income residents
be able to afford this? Or is this going to be completely out of their
price range? For me personally, I've been on the wait list with King County trying
to get into low-income housing for six years. There's a dire, desperate need for low-income
housing. So if at least a portion of this complex could be considered for that,
that would be fabulous. King County opened up their Section 8 wait list and they
got 25,000 applications from King County. They're only allowing 10% of that to even go
on the wait list, let alone get an apartment. So there's a dire need for
it. Secondly, as far as the parking and transportation and all that, let's really try
and encourage Metro to increase buses along there because that's a lot of people. And
if we can get them using mass transit, that'll ease up traffic a lot. So
try to encourage them. And they need a lot of encouragement, because they don't always
think about that. The village green-- this is a comment for the developers. Honestly, I'm
a single parent. I have a young child. Shade-- we need shade out there. I'm
not going to want my son playing out there for hours. He'll get sunburned after
about an hour. So shade trees in that village green would be fabulous. Also having
the playground visible from the apartment. from some of the units at least so the
parents can look out the windows and at least see their kids or have their
older child watching the younger kid but still be able to check in on them
would be great. And again, I'll go back to the low income thing. Native plants
that are edible, that produce some sort of an edible fruit. I know along Gilman
there's a lot of apple trees. I think that's fabulous. Salal berries have been around
this area for centuries. Puggle berries, apples, cherries, plums, the vines that you wanted to
plant on those arbors, grape vines. So let's try to make that a little bit
more usable that way. And that's everything I had. Thank you.
Thank you. Anyone else? Next person.
Hey, I'm Connie Marsh. I'm at
1175 Northwest Gilman Boulevard, Suite B11,
and also live in Issaquah. And
I sent you an email so you have some of this, so I'm going to
go fast. No mixed use, so that means pretty much everybody in all of these
is going to have to get in their cars and drive to do anything except
for maybe walk on a trail, 'cause there's no support. And that does not adhere
to our central Issaquah plan vision. I don't think
you should pass this forward without the road improvements out on Newport
reviewed and perused by the public, and I think that that is
what they're intending to do. Within the development, as I was reading
the road standards, I was seeing that they were actually removing sidewalks on one
side of the road. When the Central Iskwa Plan standards were written, there was
a priority structure created so that we wouldn't just be dropping sidewalks off on
one side of the road 'cause that has been an issue. And so if you
look at the priority order, it does not say you can ever just drop a
sidewalk off. Now there may be a different pathway that they could do that with,
but I don't think it is allowed within the plan in the pathway that they're
currently using. The wash dot mitigation area that's in the middle
is basically fenced by, on several sides, by posts and wire, which is ugly. And
so I would suggest if you want a more attractive interface with the wash dot
area that they should change out that fencing. It is allowed within the conservation easement,
'cause I read the conservation easement just the other day.
I also did not see the condition that I thought I heard at the River
and Streams board for the boardwalk where it was supposed to allow wildlife access underneath
the boardwalk. Right now their picture is showing the crossbars which would effectively make it
difficult to get under the boardwalk. River and Streams Board talked about it, but it
doesn't seem that the River and Streams Board minutes are available, and I think they
need to be available as a part of the record for this hearing, so maybe
you could get that by next week. Also, the Central Issaquah Plan prioritized two different
styles of trees, one of which was evergreen trees, yet the only evergreen trees are
on the I-90 corridor. So I think I wrote in my comments that in the
wintertime it's going to look a lot like Indiana in the winter as compared to
the Pacific Northwest, 'cause it is awfully nice to have some shades of green all
year round here. And so now I know the descriptive language was awesome that the
gentleman used for the architecture, and I would say that the clubhouse actually looks like
something interesting. But from the pictures, The apartments look like all
the other apartments I've seen being built in the last five years, and they
don't evoke a sense of, this is our Issaquah Gateway off of I-90. This
is a place that has character that we're determined to maintain forever instead of,
look, there's another set of apartments that looks like, I don't know, Renton. Okay,
that's it. Thank you very much. Thank you. Is
there anyone else that cares to speak
at this time? All right, sir. JIM
LIPPENCOTT: I'm Jim Lippencott, 2258 Newport Way.
I'm a Sammamish Point resident, also very
close to Newport, very close to the
west entrance or egress of Sammamish Point
is right where the interchange will be
also for going into this complex.
I'm very concerned of whether we'll be able to use that egress anymore
once the development of that interchange between Newport and the Gateway is considered.
I know there's some talk of maybe even there being a traffic circle
or even traffic circle and lighting there with the backup of cars coming
in and out. I don't-- you know, I-- I want Sammamish
Point to be protected from the development and that's current situation to
not have modification to our unusability of our entrance and exits. I
want that to be a priority. All right. Thank you, sir. And
if you haven't signed up already, I've put the clipboard back out.
So please make sure you add your names if you'd like to
speak. Thank you.
Good evening everyone. My name is Tina Conforti. I also have a lot
of concern on traffic going through the corridor of New Parkway. We already
having a lot of problems. This is one of my bigger concern by
having this big project right close by New Parkway. That's the only way
they're going to get down to Hisakwa area. So how are we going
to avoid the whole of the traffic and what are you going to do about
it? Is the speed limit going to be low? How are we going to protect
the safety of the cyclists or the children in the area? So there is a
concern about the safety of the area already and we're going to have more concern
with the bigger development in the area. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am.
Hi, I'm John Sheridan and address is written down 675 Jasmine Place,
Northwest, Inisikwa. Good evening. Just to be fair-minded, I didn't have anything
particularly planned to say except some general thoughts. Try to be fair-minded
as I said. So in one regard, I'm glad they're thinking about
preserving the space with some greenery and trees, buffer zones. That part
is good. and we can partially conceptualize everything. I do wonder, other
than traffic too, what are the ramifications for existing residents? Now, just to backtrack
for a moment, let's look at the development that is here for Issaquah doing
its share. We have a humongous project with a lot of benefits too. I
think it turned out a little better than we thought it would maybe at
Highlands, depending on your perspective with the amenities, and that's good. TALIS is very
huge. I think Issaquah has done its part to meet growth quite well. Quite well.
We've been really good sports and should be, you know, thanked, I guess, in that
regard for reaching the outer rungs of King County growth line. So we're going through
a lot of growing pains very fast. We all acknowledge that. And we should catch
our breath at some point. Look what's going up right with the former Lombardis. Does
anyone else think that's a big enhancement? It seems a little bit in our face,
a little bit, to be honest. I hope it turns out better than what it
looks right now. It does block a good part of the mountain if you're on
Gilman. Already the turn lanes on Gilman, just speaking about development right now, everyone will
acknowledge if you drive there, it's pretty tricky. And there's been a lot of accidents
and just crossing over. So I'm wondering how much of Gilman we're going to lose
and what are they going to do about Newport Way in the same regard. And
so I just think we should catch our breath. I think some thought has been
put into this development with the community, sensor community, that part's good. We just have
to wonder with our terrain, how much can we handle? And the other part of
the equation is then with growth and the multiplication of cars that exist and gas,
what is the ramification of increased police force now needed? Most people we trust will
move here will be good people. Sorry, there will be crime and friends of friends
that come along. that are going to bring crime. We're going to have to
increase the police force. We know it and you know it. And who's going to
pay for that? We have to be ready. I'm not sure the exact percentage that
developers are handling for that. Increase school space. Are we handling that already? We just
want to know how much extra will our property taxes go up. We should know
that. rather than winging it, you know what I mean? So there's a few things.
Again, extra police, extra firemen and firewomen, extra teachers, school space. Are we going to
be put into portables or suddenly a new school's going to have to be built,
a new elementary, this and that? Oh, surprise, you know, another bond. So let's just
be ready. Should we, therefore, really see the full impact of Highlands Highland? Fully built
out is Talos complete. I'm not sure maybe close the new apartment complex on Gilman
among some others So let's just kind of catch our breath. I think is there
really a rush and why is there a rush? We want residents. Why know what
is the rush? This is supposed to be a 20 to slash 50 year plan
and it seems like we're packing it in to what five years Who's making us
do that? Who's putting the pressure on? What is the benefit to anyone? The City
Council, Development Commission and the residents. So you have to weigh out while keeping together
the treasures that make up. Remember the list that had the 10 treasures of Issaquah.
So can we keep our charm, grow at a nice pace or are we just
going to be off to the races on accelerated steroids and, you know, super duper
dark caffeinated coffee here. Let's just catch our breath and really think this through and
I hope it's not going in a year or two. That's pretty quick. But again,
to the benefit, I do think there's pride. I'll give that. I think there's genuine
pride and wanting it to be a good development. Going back to the history of
Issaquah and looking at the former buildings. So that part I tip my hat to
them for, you know, and so let's just make sure there's enough public comment and
thinking this through all together, everyone in the community. Thank you. Thank you, sir.
So I'm asking your question. Oh, I said thank you. OK. Is
there anyone else that would care to speak? All right. If not,
we will move-- we'll close the public comment section, and we will
move to-- I have a hand. I'm sorry? I have a hand.
Oh, yeah. One more? Sorry. Did you sign in, ma'am? Yes, I
did. OK. Thank you. Hello. My name is Carol Lopez. I live
at Sammamish Point Condominiums. Address is 2262 Newport Way Northwest.
I've lived at Sammamish Point Condominiums now for 17 years. I bought when it had
been on the market for one year. I bought a one bedroom. It was my
first purchase of real estate ever. And I was very proud to do that, working
at the time at Washington Mutual, a now famous former bank. After seven years there,
I sold and upgraded to a three bedroom townhouse, which I was also very proud
of, to be a homeowner. I'm going to try and keep this as short as
possible. Just trying to really, as I listen to the comments of you fine individuals,
professionals, I can see the care you've put into the plans you've put together. I
understand the growth that's taking place in Issaquah, the growth that's taking place in Seattle.
I've seen articles recently stating that Seattle is one of the fastest growing cities in
the country right now. And that's a good news, bad news story.
It means we need to really manage the growth. So many people want
to live in Issaquah, want to live in Bellevue, want to live in
Seattle, and there's a need for housing. But what about existing homeowners? I
implore you to please take into account, as you make your plans and
appeal to our city, the existing homeowners in Issaquah who pay taxes,
we have concerns about crime. We have concerns about the future. We have concerns about
traffic. And in the 17 years I've lived at Sammamish Point Condominiums, I watched
exit 13 get created. It didn't even exist to be when I first moved in.
So it wasn't even an exit off the freeway. We've watched the traffic increase. Now
Newport Way between Sammamish Point, Conminium, so I would back it up and even go
back to exit 13. The traffic between Newport Way on exit 13 from that point
on all the way through Target, all the way to Front Street is a crawl
during commuter hours. It's a crawl. So where are all these individuals who are going
to be renters, not property taxpayers by the way, Where are they going to
be driving? So we do need infrastructure. One of my big concerns, and
I'm trying not to be entirely selfish about this, but my front door
literally faces the front entrance to your proposed complex. Please take into account
existing homeowners. We have backyards that face Newport Way. The noise level on
Newport Way has increased radically. over the recent years and the
main reason is Newport Way is an alternate route to I-90 between
exits 13, exits 15, exits 17. These are all major on roads
and off roads to I-90. I'm not seeing any proposals for an additional on-ramp
to I-90 that would divert much of the traffic from this community to other
routes. Many of these residents are going to want to get directly onto I-90.
They're going to be working in Seattle, Bellevue, Redmond, you name it. They're going
to be going south. They mainly just want to get onto I-90. They want to
go into downtown Issaquah and do their shopping. But they're all going to be ending
up on Newport Way. So I just want to encourage you. I understand the importance
of growth. I have many colleagues who are architects. I understand the priorities here. However,
there are existing residents who are homeowners who have worked hard, very hard through the
years, to be able to own a home in Issaquah. please take into
account the existing homeowners. Thank you. Thank you very much. Is there
anyone else who would like to speak? All right. If not, then
we will close the public discussion section of tonight's meeting. And we
will go to the portion of the meeting that presents the commissioners
individually with the opportunity to make observations, to ask questions, and to
go from there. So we'll start with Commissioner Brennan.
I should have known better to sit down. So I want to start with
probably the topic that is on most people's mind here so that I get
a better understanding of what the city's thinking and so this is more of a
staff conversation about Newport Way. So obviously this project has an obligation to do their
frontage improvements aligned with the plans for Newport Way but I'm curious about kind of
the, this is a street in the city that's getting a lot of attention right
now and just where is the thinking or the conversations or the planning with regard
to the improvements along Newport Way outside of the scope of this project just
so we get some sense for where that is on the radar for the
city? So there are three to five projects that are proposed that are in
various stages of discussion with the city between SR 900 and sort of where
Newport touches back to I-90 just west of this project. As a
result, the city staff have been looking at that corridor, both in
terms of implementing the Central Issaquah standards and how to make that
whole section of roadway work. As Amy mentioned, there is
a safe crossing study that's underway due to the
tragedy that happened on Newport. That is a citywide
study, but where there are a number of crossings,
several crossings, whole corridors are being looked at, and
Newport Way is one of those. Central Issaquah road
section and how that is being applied to the corridor has been given
to the consultant that is doing this safe crossing study to look at
how that whole roadway is working. So there's a great deal of attention
being paid to it right now. Is there In the city's capital facilities
plan, is there any capacity improvement project funded along Newport Way at this point, or
are we going to stay with, at least in the foreseeable future, the current prison
that's there? So, because there are so many projects, a significant
amount of that roadway with the frontage improvements associated with those
projects, significant portion of the corridor would be improved, and we
have very early in that process began talking with public works
engineering about whether a capital project to complete the sections of the
roadway that would not be modified from those projects is underway as
well. But at this point, we're really waiting to understand what comes
out of that study that is looking at it at the entire
corridor. So we are looking at the frontage of this roadway. There
is a center turn lane that is proposed as part of this,
which would significantly help and change the traffic along the roadway
so that the two lanes would function better. And we're hoping
they prioritize the Newport corridor as part of that study and
we're hoping to hear something back quite soon. Thank you. Another kind
of more specific to the project. So, and it was the modified condition, Amy, that
you put up earlier said that should a signal be provided at this intersection. And
somewhere along the way I was reading my assumption that there was a signal being
added at this intersection. So it's not clear if that decision hasn't been made yet
whether a signal, this is going to be a signalized intersection at the entrance. So
a lot has transpired since the project or the applicant submitted
their project. And again, originally the idea was that a traffic
signal will be sufficient and appropriate. But given that we have
additional concerns about Newport Way, we are looking at several other
options. So it kind of like pushed them back a little bit because of
some of the other things that we're doing in the city. Go ahead. I'm going
to keep going? Okay. I think what I'll do is my comments related to Newport
maybe and then I'll pass the baton here. Others will probably catch some of the
others. Mr. Brennan, if I may, let me see if we can do something a
little different. Each one of us has a comment or question about traffic.
Let's see if we can do that first. So Commissioner Brennan has opened that subject.
It's obviously of significant interest to many members of the public here. So let's, when
Commissioner Brennan finishes his questions and clarifications on traffic, if there's anybody else that has
something that has not been addressed, let's let's do it that way and then we'll
go around with Commissioner Hicks and so on and we'll try to do it by
still in the same order but we'll stay focused on one topic at a time
as we go around. Is that does that sound all right? Okay let's go. So
and then there was just one comment from that I grabbed out of one of
the written comments from the public and that was regarding School bus access and I
don't know if any conversations have been had with the school district about how the
school district will be providing bus service the pickup location safety of the students accessing
bus service etc. Has that been discussed. So staff has already reached out
to the Issaquah School District and their transportation division that plans all of
these. And they are aware of all the new developments that's coming in
on Newport. And so they are looking at some options for locations for
the bus stop or the school bus stop. It's somewhere between further because
of all the other new developments further east. So it's kind of like in between
this project and then some of the other projects further down. I guess that just
raises one more concern about, you know, got more pedestrian traffic, safety features along that
frontage, et cetera. So that'll be -- and I know there's limited scope here what
the Commission can address within the boundaries of this project, but I just want to
raise those concerns so that staff, obviously hearing it from the public, but the Commission
can obviously share those concerns. So I'll end my comments with that related to transportation.
Commissioner Hicks, traffic. Yes. I'm concerned about the access for fire trucks.
I noticed in our packet that there was a conversation about
fire turnaround. And I'd like to know if any other conversations
have transpired since then or what you have to add about
what's being done to fix that. So basically
for fire truck access, there is another connection. And again,
this is just limited to basically emergency vehicles. And I
don't know if my cursor is showing it. So this
is the arena sports. part of the Raleigh property. So they actually have
an access easement for fire trucks to come in here. All the roads
and even all the way into the parking areas of the buildings have
been evaluated by staff with all the turning radii. There is a model that you
can use to do that. And so we wouldn't even bring this in front of
you if we didn't go through that process. Okay, so the issue with
the fire truck turnaround is you've looked through all, because it seems to me that
it might be a little hard for the trucks to get back to where the
area is for the children, where the park is. So that's my main concern is
making sure that the fire trucks can get in and out easily. Through, you mean
through this roadway? Yes. Yes. They, they, And get to
all of the buildings. Yes. We have that basically
modeled and analyzed. Okay. Well, obviously everybody's concerned about
the traffic and I think that the it
really would serve as well to take a hard look at Newport and make sure
that we aren't creating huge liability for ourself. I think that the, so I think
everybody's gonna say the same thing. That's a lot of people to put on an
already kind of crowded road at a fairly high speed. - The question I have
is with regard to traffic and as Commissioner Brennan mentioned, I'd like to
clarify what the limitations of what we can do are with regard
to offsite traffic. Definitely hearing a concern about the volume of traffic
on Newport Way. But as I understand, that doesn't impact our decision
one way or another. It's presumed to be adequate in terms of
this project, right? Right. I mean, the traffic study is
looking closely at not only -- so you brought up a
number of great topics, Mel, of course. So one is the
access to the project and is it designed -- you know,
what is the intersection control method and the traffic study is
looking at that and also we're waiting for information from the crossing
study that's taking place. That ingress/egress access is part of our purview
as part of this project to say whether we think that's appropriate
or not. Well, actually that's a pretty technical review. We know that
some kind of intersection control is likely necessary whether it was
one kind or another is really a technical decision.
Now, we're interested in your thoughts and your preferences,
but it probably will be an engineering decision on
the specific type of control that goes in. As
to Newport Way, the comment, you know, because this traffic,
this, not traffic study, the corridor study is underway, you know, we're anticipating that there
will be comments that are more appropriate in that venue and we would gather those
and provide those to the study as well because -- But if we felt, in
other words, if we felt like there is too much traffic on Newport Way, it
wouldn't impact our ability to make a decision with regard to this project. At
this point, we're not seeing from the traffic study that Newport is not capable of
handling the traffic that's associated with this project as well as other projects that are
coming along the way in terms of the level of service standards that the council
has established. That's part of what I want to clarify, I guess, for the public's
sake is that the decision that we make with regard to the project does not
cover volume of traffic on Newport Way as a deciding factor.
Unless the traffic study did not support that Newport could handle
the traffic that's projected. Right. So the other thing, you probably have heard
about this already, but more of just a clarification and reminder. When the
city conducted the concurrency study a year ago, they modeled Newport Way to
be able to accommodate and handle the type of traffic based on the
new Central Issaquah plan. So it's already based on the higher densities that
we were anticipating. And if you if you think about the FAR
for this project, they're on the lower end too. So if that
makes you feel better. In other words, the impacts of this development
in so many ways was already accounted for through the concurrency study.
- Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yeah, and I just
want to dovetail into what Commissioner Morgan had mentioned, is that the traffic, I
think we're all hearing tonight that traffic is an issue here in the city
of Issaquah. And for Development Commission to make a decision based on that, I'm
not sure or hold the project up because of that. I think it's a
little bit unfair to the applicant. Cost goes up and that's why they're
here to move along with the project. But that's something that I think the
city ought to look at it, which they are looking at this Newport traffic
issue. But at the same time, on the other side of the coin,
I would like to suggest the issue about the school bus. Since we are
having so much problem or a lot of traffic going on Newport Way, is
the applicant open to the bus stop going into that development so that it's
not bolting traffic as it's moving along in the peak hours. So it
gets out of the Newport traffic way, goes into the development so you can
provide a bus stop there where the kids can gather and then get on
the bus, and then the bus stop comes back out. So that would help
in alleviating any major traffic. So that's something that I'll just throw out in
reference to traffic. So one thing I would add is that we've been working
closely with the school district and they have very specific preferences about how they like
to operate relative to which projects they enter and where they stop, whether it's in
traffic or not in traffic. And so we're coordinating with them based on that.
The other piece I want to add that although we are providing answers tonight for
some of the public that may not have attended development commission meetings before, all of
the questions, concerns, and issues that are being raised tonight will be consolidated into a
series of topics. Traffic is obviously one big one. And we are writing -- we
write a briefing response memo that addresses each of the topics that has come up
tonight. If we have your e-mail on the list, you will get a copy of
that briefing response memo which will come out in about two weeks. And so even
though we are providing responses to some of the questions tonight, we will also provide
written responses to all the topics that have come up. And I would just like
to add, excuse me, if you haven't already, you might want to check the city
website. And I say this as someone who doesn't own a smartphone. Seriously, there
is a great deal of information on the website about what's going on now, what's
planned to go on in the future, and what has gone on in the past.
So those of you who are property owners now or residents of Issaquah can get
an idea of what happened when the area that you now live in was proposed.
and what the people who lived here before you did said and how the city
handled it. And there is a process that's changing. And it's all on the website.
So if you have questions like this, you can keep up with what's going on
just by looking at the website. OK? Commissioner Long? Is there anything else? COMMISSIONER LONG:
I'm done, sir. COMMISSIONER CLARE DUDA: OK. COMMISSIONER CLARE DUDA: I won't beat a dead
horse in regards to Newport Way, but has the preliminary traffic study determined a number
of peak hour trips this is going to generate? How does it affect
concurrency? Do we know that? So I think that's what
Amy was speaking about, that concurrency is different now. There's
simplified concurrency, which probably won't sound simplified once I start
talking about it. The method the city is using now
is that traffic impact fees are paid by the developer. So they
have to build the improvements associated with their project. - Based on the
bank of-- - But the regional or city-wide traffic impact. - Do we
know how many trips this is gonna generate? 'Cause the neighbors might like
to know how many peak trips are gonna be generated. in regards
to coming in and out of the development. I guess it
affects transportation, but one of the conditions talked about half neighborhood
street design. I didn't quite understand what a half neighborhood street
design was, but if it's found to be substandard by the
fire marshal, which means to me it's questionable to start with,
then what happens? Your whole design goes south? You lose parking spots? I'll ask
that question of the developer. If the fire marshal says your half street design
doesn't work, then what happens? So the fire marshal has been involved since the
very beginning with this project and has been reviewing it at both preliminary and
this stage. I'm reading the condition. so the adjustments really made to
the site plan if the half neighborhood street design is found to be substandard by
the fire marshal okay means it's still a question so so we usually have what
we call the catch-all condition because we are reviewing a site plan based on the
information they have today and as they go into construction phase if for whatever reason
the there are some shifts in the design of the streets, the building locations. We
wanna have the prerogative to say you can't do certain things because it doesn't
meet the fire marshal standards. So it's the same thing that we do for
every project. - Okay, but that'll-- - And I have to, I'm culpable for
using that term half neighborhood street because now I understand it could be confusing,
but it sounds like you only have half of a lane. And so
we use that term only to refer to, for instance, this, my cursor
show it. So this street in front of building 17, it does have
the full 20 foot wide but because it only has sidewalks
and parallel parking based on the Central Issaquah standards of what
a neighborhood street is, we called it the half neighborhood street.
- Okay, well. - I apologize, I will never use that
term again. - I just wanna follow up on Commissioner Swidberg's
comment. I was under the impression When going through 321
pages of this, Amy, what exactly is the concurrency of the security
and the fire approval of the plan? I was under the impression
from reading this that the fire marshal and the police department have
already looked at this and basically said it's okay. So they
have, yes. And in fact, the fire marshal has looked at every
iteration of the site plan. - Is up in the upper right
corner, is that the fire truck hammerhead? - Yes. - There's only
one for the development? - So this one, obviously this one is
serving this, but down here there's, basically it depends on where the
fire trucks are going. So where they were there were there required, then
that's what they're providing. We discourage them only because they add so much more
impervious area and their single use. So in fact, what we have conditioned in
the project is that all this area back here and back here are going
to be designed like plazas. even though they're for parking to make it at
least a little bit more appealing. Okay. Well, and again, the fire department. Yes.
Let's talk to the Pope and it's okay. Yes. And I think the thing that
I would say is our goal with Central Issaquah is to ensure that, well, with
anything, that it works for the fire trucks getting to all the places they need
to. Our goal with Central Issaquah is to embed those in other things as opposed
to making them single use. So the fact that you only see one, Carl, means
that we've hidden all the rest. They're all there. We have just not tried
to make them only for the purpose of the turnaround. So I would also
like to add that those buildings are sprinklered. So in addition to having the
truck access. Okay. The other question I had was regards to pedestrian traffic. I
guess it falls under the same thing. You talk about one of the conditions
that all the crossings shall be of distinctive material compared to the asphalt, concrete,
be dividing, be able to see where the pedestrian traffic is.
Then there's a comment in another set of an attachment three.
It says, "Markings for crosswalks shall not be allowed
And I'm curious as to what that means and why it's there.
Are you talking about you don't have crosshatch painting? - So actually
we had some, and I'm glad you brought it up because that
was the other revision that we will do for the next, for
the briefing memo. In some cases where we have, actual striping
with the reflectorized paint is the only option, then we will
continue to allow those. But the idea is again to make
this development and basically all developments in the central Issaquah area
more pedestrian friendly is to also require something more special than
just mark, you know, like your usual striping.
TODD BANDUCCI: OK. I don't agree, but OK.
Just to try to clarify, Amy and Lucy,
could you give us as definitively as possible
what the status of Newport Drive will be
at build out, simultaneous with build out, people
moving their mattresses into Gateway? what will Newport Way
look like at this point in the planning process? - We don't know.
- So-- - I mean, I know it says there's a lot of
things in the packet that said a phrase that was in there several
times to be determined at construction or And I think that's what's got people
a little bit concerned. And I understand, we all understand that there are studies going
on and there are proposals and there's funding to go in and it goes to
the whole thing. But there's got to be, I would think, at least a conceptual
idea of what Newport Way is going to look like to accommodate 400 new units.
And I'm not, I don't expect anything to be nailed down, but just if we
can give give the public and frankly us too, just what we think it would
look like now. And I know it's in here, but let's just get it out
there. - Well, let's start with what's required by the Central Issaquah Development Standards. So
what's required is a 10 foot wide shared use route So we will be
seeing that. It requires a commuter bike lane that's five feet. It will
be provided. It will have street trees and planter strip. And then the
rest of it will be part. It will be part of that green
area. How much of that will... be dedicated for the future Newport way improvements
if for whatever reason that's needed as part of safety, we don't know. But generally
speaking, that's what you're gonna see. - But you also, I believe we had in
the packet, they're talking about turn lanes at the entrance, at the entrance and egress
from Gateway, is that correct, addition of turn lanes? - Addition of turn lanes. -
So if you're on Newport and you're gonna turn into coming either way on Newport,
coming into Gateway. - Yeah, the median, yes. - There's a median and then at
intersections, there is a turn lane. - Will be. - There will be a turn
lane. - That's what I'm looking for. So the frontage of this property along
Newport will have all the improvements, and then they will transition across the
adjacent properties. CHRIS RODGERS: That's what I was looking for. Another traffic question.
We had the really good consultant study that was presented to the public
a couple of months ago and was very heavily attended. What is
on the red, green, yellow listing of intersections? Do we
know what Newport and State Road 900 are now? Are
they red, yellow, or green? CHRISTIE WOOD: Doug, do you
know that? CHRISTIE WOOD: Do you know, Doug? CHRISTIE WOOD:
Do you know the color? OK, then we'll include-- We'll just get back to
you on that. Yeah, because for those of you who don't know, I haven't seen
the study. It's conducted by the city with a consultant. And it just was promulgated
this year, wasn't it? Earlier this year? the public hearings on it. And it goes
through every intersection in the city and grades them, red, yellow, green, to give folks
an idea of what the priorities are for the improvements and try to do it
systematically. So I just don't remember what-- I attended the meeting, but I don't remember
what it was. CHRISTIE WOOD: And the reason you don't remember, because I'm having a
Vulcan mind melt here, is that it's-- SR 900 is a WSDOT facility. And
so they are not graded in the same way as the rest of
the intersections in the city. We will double check that and provide whatever
information we have, but that is different kind of intersection than intersections that
are on at City Road to City Road. Okay. That's it for traffic
for me. Why don't we just continue this? Commissioner Brennan, did you have questions
or clarifications about any other topic? And we'll just-- - Did you get to pick?
- Yes, sir. - Excellent. So some comments or questions about kind of the architectural
elements of the project. Most specifically around the five-story buildings that are down adjacent to
I-90 and heard some public comment and read some public comment and just looking at
the design, this is an important, this will be an important feature for the city,
particularly as you're coming eastbound on I-90 and down the hill, you'll be looking right
at this. This is the gateway coming into Bellevue, or excuse me, into Issaquah. Sorry,
Bellevue's the other direction. Coming into Issaquah and I think it's going to be an
important statement to make. I don't have huge issues with the architecture inbound buildings, the
two, the three story buildings, but I'm hoping we get something that's a little bit
more striking, I think, as a gateway element to the project. Putting flat roofs on
this building is not, in my mind, an acceptable outcome. That would just not be
the sorts of element we would want to see. So I know there's work going
on about code amendment. But even with a pitched roof, they're interesting buildings, but they're
not pulling out features that are really kind of reflective of the Issaquah character,
the more heavy timber element or something more interesting at the roof line that makes
it a bit more of a statement would be something I would like to see
explored a little bit. These are not, again, I think the architecture is nice, but
it's not especially unique for the community. And so being where these are located and
the size of these buildings, I think some thought In that design, some
additional work could be useful. Can I get a clarification about
that? Sure. Could you give examples of buildings in the CQAD
that would be representative of an architecture with a striking roof?
Striking roof. or a striking design? I think, I guess what I'm visualizing
is something that is more of a northwestern kind of like a, even like a
heavy timbered sort of elements that would be up at the roofline. There's some things
that are larger that I've seen that have done that are like, well, that's probably
not a good example. It's the Overlake or at the group health facility in Bellevue,
it's a large hospital facility, but the roofline's got some interesting elements that were added
that are not structural, they're just visual and they really make the building character
change in an interesting way. And so something that is, that's more massive obviously,
but something that's more of a unique character to the building that is more
reflective of kind of the gateway into the Cascades and of Northwest architectural elements.
You showed some examples of elements that for the park facility, you know,
that would be kind of character, character pieces. It seems to me that this is
where we need to create some character as we're coming into the city. And I
just, maybe I'm the only one, and everybody else is fine, but it seems like
we need something that's got a little bit more Issaquah character to it.
Commissioner Hulme. Okay. I agree with the pitched roof. I'd prefer to see a pitched
roof rather than a flat roof. I think that is more in line with the
character in Issaquah. I have a few things I have heard seen
in the packet mentioned that there's wetland I'd like to see it
for available for public comment for public and for us what that
categorization is possibly when we get the review back from ecology or
the SEPA review and also it was brought up in public comment
about the On page 17, figure 6, the multi-use 10-foot trail in lieu
of two sidewalks. And I do see on topic A that it's due to critical
mitigating for critical areas. But because it was brought up in public comment, I'd like
to maybe talk about that a little bit more, maybe review that in the future.
And then also I'd like for the developer to reconsider number 22
on page 23 and replace annuals with low water native plants that's more
in line with what we're used to seeing around here in Issaquah and based
on public comment, I think it's a good idea to integrate maybe some edibles
and definitely some more shade as we're seeing hotter summers. Parents would want to
congregate in that green around some shade. As far as the pedestrian area striping,
I agree with Commissioner Swenberg. Striping is what drivers are used to seeing. And I
understand that you want to see something prettier or new or different, but we've had
a tragic accident right around here. This community is reeling from it, and we need
to stay consistent with what drivers are used to seeing, and that's striping. So I'd
like for that to be put in there. To me, that's very important.
And also, the last thing I'd like to say is that I think the August
26 decision is pretty soon for me as a commissioner. I think that we need
more time. for the public to give more comment. There's a lot of, there's a
lot here. And people need to be able to really go online and read it.
A lot of people are on vacation. I believe it was Mary Lynch who mentioned
that in particular, that it's kind of, things are happening a bit quick for the
community and especially with the accident that's happened, people really want to talk more about
this, learn more about this. I'd like for the community to know exactly what the
development commission does in regards to this particular project so that they know the
proper channels in which commissions they should be talking to, what they should be addressing
us with, and what they should be addressing city council with and other commissions. And
Also, the fact that we get the SEPA review back by August 20th, I think
that six days is a little too soon for us to be making a decision
without reading that and having that available to the public as well. And that is
all. Thank you. Commissioner Schell? I got hung up on the dwelling unit per acre
chart and the I just want to understand what the role of the commission is
in-- it seems like if there's a proposed development and if they enact that proposed
development that I thought I read somewhere that was going to start in the next
couple of years, that it was going to exceed the dwelling unit per acre of
any other place. It seemed like it was kind of not addressing a potential issue
that we know is coming. So this project is
within the-- is less than the allowed density? Right,
but when you go to the future-- future multifamily density
exceeded what the maximum was, I thought. I can't, I've lost my page number. No,
it's just barely over the minimum required. Oh, got the wrong table. So I, we
will try and clarify that in our response to make sure it's clear. I just
might have made a more than willing to. Yeah, this is, this is the required
minimum of .75 and there, barely making the 0.75. Is this
the senior, the proposed senior development? This one? The dwelling
unit per acre chart was the one that I thought
we exceeded, not the floor area ratio. Oh, that's actually
what this shows is that it's even less than the Bentley House
and the Sammamish Point condos. I understand that, but if you look
at the 18.4, which is consistent with the proposed development in the
future, it's the highest by far. I'm sorry, those two
numbers are both the same density. It's not a range. So the
first number, the 13.33, is based on the 400 dwelling units divided
by 30 acres because the whole site is 30 acres. And that's
also how I calculated the density for the Sammamish Point condos
in Spyglass Hill and Bentley House. So if you're comparing apples
to apples, 13.33 is, based on the same calculation method
that I use for the three other existing development. How did
you determine the 18.4? So 18.4 is based on, in so
many cases in the Issaquah development standards or the central Issaquah
development standards, we base it by taking out all the
critical areas because you can't really build on them.
All right, I got it. Sorry. Yeah. Thank you.
Yeah. Thanks for clarifying, though. A few questions. Amy,
on page 37 of the report, it mentions-- What
page 37? Oh, right. Two pages. Sorry. 37 out
of how many pages? That'll tell us which one
you-- 37 out of 83. I believe if
I get there. It's with regard to the number of parking units. So
it states there are more on the on-street parking credit. It says there
are more than 400 parking spaces provided in the garages. And I believe
there are 291 spaces provided in the garages, which is stated on the
prior page. So again, that might be
an error on my part. The way I calculated it is basically
looking at what parking spaces are confined in areas where you know
it's very clear whose spaces those are. So that would include the
tandem parking, for the three-story buildings. So if you took all the garage
parking for the three-story buildings plus the garage parking of the five-story buildings and
added them together, it should be around, it should meet the minimum. - And
we will clarify with the 400. - Yeah, we can do that. - On
the prior page, it says there are 692 stalls. within the garage
and surface and then it says there are 401 surface 692 minus the 401
would be 291 then went back to the architects plans and went through those
numbers and came up with the same 291 within the garages so the extent
that this was changed to 291 would it still would your conclusion still be
the same for the on street parking credits - I
guess something to look into. - I will look
into that, yeah. Not sure. - Thank you. And
then on page 19, let's see if I have
the right one. So page 19 of 83. So
item four in that, where it talks about sufficient
reason for the change to the street, it says,
"Due to site constraints, "Building 17 must be located
along I-90 "to provide a sound barrier." And
I guess that didn't make sense to me. There's no -- you can design any
sort of buildings you want that fit within an envelope. I don't understand that a
building has to be located -- a certain building has to be located next to
I-90. They've chosen to put that building there for a sound barrier, but I don't
think it has to be there, does it? So I had the same
question when I first saw the site plan and I played around with the site
plan to see where else can you put that building. So there are other factors
to why it's there. First, it's the lowest part like what Mr. Rowe said earlier,
it's the lowest part of the property. So by putting it over there, then
it has the least impact on any of the neighbors. There's also the shadows
and again, the orientation of the building, having the tallest building on the north
end so that it doesn't affect any of the smaller buildings on the north.
- Okay, so it's more to the reasons why it's a good
thing to have that building there. I guess maybe it's just say,
having this building there has these things, it doesn't have to be
there. There isn't a must that it has to be there. -
Okay, I see, all right. - The shared use trail lighting, there
was a mention about the shared use trail paving and lighting was
mentioned in that. in condition 38, but I don't think I found
something that specifically said whether the shared use trail would have lighting along
its entire length or have no lighting and what did we think
about that one way or the other um so the standards doesn't specify uh under
the you know when you look at the elements for a shared use route whether
or not lighting is part of it but we have been coordinating this with our
parks department and they they will be determining at you know probably in certain parts
of the trail, the lighting will be more important and necessary than in other parts.
So it's this next level of detail of review and that's something that we, we
would finalize at construction. Okay, and would that be then determined by the Parks Department?
Yes, Parks and Public Works. Okay, great. So one thing I will add though, that
the part of the trail that goes to the critical areas, my memory is that
it is either prohibited or discouraged in the critical areas. So for the boardwalk, I
don't know that we-- The critters, bad for safety. I know. And so that's
a discussion we're going to have to have between parks and our biologists to
try and figure out what the -- are there light limiting ways of putting
lights in there that maintain the safety and yet don't impact the critical area?
And that's a question that we're going to work through at construction. Okay. Great.
And then with regard to the shared use trail, As I understand
it ends at the property line right at the Rowley property line but I didn't
see anything that says it has to be extended across Tibbetts Creek over to 19th
and so is it possible that this gets built and the shared use trail just
ends at the property line and we don't get a trail that connects the downtown
which what doesn't get us any of the benefit? So we cannot require
them to build on someone else's property that they don't control. However, we've already
had several meetings. The applicant has had several meetings, and then we've had one,
a three-way meeting with the rallies and the city and the applicant to coordinate
because our intent is to build all the way to 19th. We just
have not finalized that agreement, but the rallies are open to it, so we're hoping
we're going to get there. And so that's why the condition is written as it
is, or the expectation is that we can't require it to be built in 19--
We don't end up with the off-branch to nowhere. The bridge to nowhere. Yes. Our
own Issaquah bridge to nowhere. Right. OK. Is there any way to-- Would
the city be able to do eminent domain to create that kind of connection? I
don't think so. I don't think for a trail, but we'll ask. I'll find out.
Because I think this is a real critical piece of this whole development. And in
order to get, especially bicyclists, and pedestrians also from Newport Way to downtown Issaquah to
get off of Newport Way there and go through that trail I think is a
huge benefit of this project. And I'd hate to have them get that close and
wait across the river. COMMISSIONER MIKE BOYLE: Commissioner, can I just ask one thing? A
long time ago in one of these meetings, and I mean we're talking years ago,
There was some significant discussion-- and maybe you remember this, Christopher, and frankly, I
don't remember who from city staff was here-- about a pedestrian overpass on 900
right around the area of Newport. And I think that discussion may have
come up even before the CIP was put in place. But it was to
-- the concept as I recall it was to allow bicycle and pedestrian passage
over State Road 900 from all of the areas west of State Road 900
that were in Issaquah to use to get to Issaquah downtown and the transit
center. I haven't seen or heard anything since then. We discussed that with the
Rowleys at the time we were working on their development agreement. I'm not aware
of a project right now, and one of the reasons
that it seems unlikely is because usually the ramps, to have ADA ramps that get
to the height that that would have to be, you know, 14 feet up in
the air. Well, it's also a state, as you pointed out earlier, it's a state
road, so it would have to be a state project. It wouldn't be a city
project, would it? Even if there was movement toward it? That's a good question. I
don't know who would build it, but I'm just not even sure that to get
up that high whether we would get significant use because of the kind of ramping
that would be required. No worries. Let's see. On, I guess one, sort of
condition 64, where it talks about consider putting rooftop gardens in. I guess two questions.
One, I would agree with the other commissioners about not wanting to have flat roofs
next to I-90 in terms of what we envision for the gateway. But also conditions
that say consider, we've always been told if we try to put a condition into
a, that saying consider doesn't really mean anything at all. It's
just sort of an intent type of thing and it doesn't require
them to do anything. But again, I would agree that we would
not want flat roofs next to I-90. Let's see, the seven foot
wide parking spaces. So this would be page 18. And the first
question, I guess, the administrative adjustment that's being done to,
moving the both sidewalks to a larger sidewalk on the south side. Connie Marsh
brought up a point if she didn't think that was allowed under there, I
presume you've gone through that and the code and decided that is possible for
the. - The priorities that she's referring to are guides And so we
definitely take those into consideration and I think the point that she's bringing
up and that we would certainly take is that we are not interested
in prioritizing cars over sidewalks and that was part of the genesis of
creating a wider sidewalk on one side and keeping people away from the
critical area. So I'd also like to add, again, we looked at
the intent of the standards and it talks a lot about
pedestrian, you know, intuitive way finding, connectivity. In this particular case,
this is the condition of what the what the western edge of the
neighborhood park is. And as Mr. Rowley mentioned earlier, this is the Washed
Out Conservation Area. There's a fence here, so it is already a barrier
for pedestrian. Over here, you do have pretty much all the buffer wetland
area. And even though we do want pedestrian access to the wetland,
we are also limiting those access at certain locations. So this exposes
it more to the whole area. So by having the 10 foot wide
walkway here, and I mentioned this in the report, and I feel very strongly
about this. If you're talking about good urban design, you want to look at
where what we call desire routes are for people. And because you have the buildings
on this side, then chances are people will more likely to walk on this side.
And also, if you look at the connection, this is the shared use route. This
is where it's going. So when you cross the street here, automatically you are funneled
into the sidewalk on this side of the street. So it just made a lot
more sense. And given that the shared use route is 10 feet wide, we also
thought then make that continuously 10 foot wide and that it's visually and intuitive to
people that that's where to go. And I agree with all that. The one thing
I don't agree with though is reducing the parking stall width to seven feet. This
is a really large site. I've got to believe they can find one foot
extra to maintain the eight foot width parking stalls. And I've seen the narrower
parking stalls in Iskwa Highlands and I think they just create more chances for
door dings or accidents, things like that. And I didn't see a reason why
we had to reduce those car stall widths to seven feet. We're
already reducing the requirement from 12 feet of sidewalks to 10. I don't see a
reason to take away another foot. So I agree with all your statements. I just
strongly feel like we should leave those car stall widths the same as the code
requires. We'll definitely look into that. And we'll come back to you guys at the
next meeting to let you know how they could comply. Right.
building height amendment. So is this, would the amendment essentially
involve eliminating the existing grade as a possible, as a
default for the measurement? So at this point, we're looking
at different options, looking at case studies of how they
do it in Seattle, how they do it in, you
know, so we are And I don't know if we would be available or
if we would be ready to discuss any option, you know, like any methodologies next
time. But basically it's something that we're looking at. So as I understand it, it's
the where you measure from is the lower of the existing grade or the new
grade. whichever is lower. Whichever is lower. So you would have to in this case
take out the existing grade. My concern would be if you change it to that
to say that you can measure from the new grade, what would stop somebody from
saying great I'll put 10 feet of fill into my site and start building from
there and call that the right. So we have the lower of in there. So
my recommendation would be to consider a revision to the height the height limit
from the 54, if we've gone from 48 to 54 to allow for taller
retail spaces or for under building parking, if we really like the under building
parking, maybe we go from 48 to 60 or 65. make that change instead
of making the change to where we measure the building height from. So one of
the pieces that plays into this and the reason why we are, so we share
your concern where people can manipulate grades to get an extra floor or better views.
At the same time, one of the things we're seeing is sites where the sidewalks
are higher than the interior grades, which means that the first floor of the building
is not related to the sidewalk, which is part of what we're trying for in
central Issaquah. So instead of focusing on finished grade and existing grades, perhaps we're focused
on sidewalk grades and road grades because that's really what we want the building to
be related to. So that's why, as Amy very correctly said, we're trying, instead of
reinventing the wheel, we're trying to look at other communities that have to topography and
figure out how they measure so that you have a good relationship to the
building of the building to the sidewalks and streets rather than focusing on grades
that may not be relevant to what we're really trying to end up with
as our final condition while avoiding that exact concern we share that concern okay
that sounds good and then the sorry that i've got so many questions and comments
but the we're here for yeah the um i guess the the last comment would
be with regard to the as i mentioned before the sloped roofs on i-90 i
think we're very important i think one of the issues that commissioner brennan brought up
in terms of a northwest look the i think the buildings need eaves to them
i think the lack of eaves and the important batten siding To me, it likens
back-- I think back to World War II and the inability to spend the money
on having eaves on a building and you end up without them. I think in
the Northwest, we see eaves a lot because we get a lot of rain and
we want to keep the water off the building. I think the addition of eaves
to the buildings would make a big difference, as well as whatever else can be
done to the roofs to make them appear maybe not just as solid masses of
black asphalt roofing. And then the last question would be for the architect. There
were a lot of comments and conditions that are put into the report by
staff with regard to recommendations for changes. And I wanted to give you a
chance to respond. Are any of those that you think you would not want
to do, the tripartite articulation? I hadn't heard tripartite. That was a good one.
Any of those that you would want to push back on or that we should?
I was just about to say, yes, they already agreed to all of them. But
I'd like to hear, since part of what we do is look at these things,
there's recommendations by staff, we would be approving all these recommendations. So if there's something
you would want us to reconsider, I think now would be the time to do
it. Absolutely. Absolutely. Can you join me, please? And you, my fellow architects? Because
I'm not familiar with all those bullet points. Please identify yourself. Yeah, Matt
Rowey with Viya Architecture. Bethany Madsen with Viya Architecture. And Jim Bedoya with
Viya Architecture. And I'm sorry, we just got the final staff report with
the '91 conditions this afternoon, and we kind of sped read through all
of them. I can't speak definitively to everything that's in there. There
were a few things that caught my attention. I think the classic
statement about tripartite architecture should be looked at a little bit more
abstractly. I think in our case, every one of our buildings treats
the base, the middle, and the top We went to a lot
of trouble to create interesting roof scapes on all the buildings. We're
addressing the ground plane differently than the typical middle floors. The middle
floor on the three story building and the middle two floors on
the larger building. So I think we meet that intent. And
so to not take it too literally, I mean, you see so many of these
buildings that look like layer cakes. You know, you've got a change of siding that
happens at the top of the first floor and then something else set back at
the top floor. And it makes for a lot of difficulty in terms of laying
out the units. creates a lot of expensive weatherproofing conditions and I really don't
think it helps the architecture. So I think we'd like to push back
if it's going to be a literal interpretation on the tripartite and would
like to argue in the favor of good design for those elements. I
can't speak to a lot of other things that are in the comments. Like I
said, we were working so hard to pull everything together at the last minute, we
haven't really had a chance to study through the multiple pages of conditions that staff
so carefully put together. But I guess we'd like to leave the door open if
we find something in there that we would like to debate with the commission and
with staff. Have a healthy design discussion, I think is always a good thing. So
that's one of the opportunities of the briefing response memo. As we work through preparing
that, it would be an opportunity not only to respond to the public and commission
comments, But if the applicant wanted to discuss some of the conditions, we could propose
something revised coming back to the commission so that we're bringing a consensus position back
to you. That would be great, I think, because there's so many here that it's
almost hard to understand what we're going to end up with with all the changes
to the extent that you can work some of those out before the next time
we meet. It would be great. So thank you. Okay. Commissioner Long. - If it
honors the board, I had a few other ones if we can entertain it. I
don't even know if it was actually one of the conditions, Sometimes good code is
written for various reasons and then it's applied in circumstances that may not make
as much sense. And the essential so-called plan has some requirements that are very
much geared towards very urbanized locations and given out where we're at the western
edge, we're not necessarily an urban center, but we're more of a village. Some
of the requirements of street walls and 10 foot wide sidewalks. in that
circumstance does doesn't necessarily make for good design. Um, when we were talking about having
a street wall and Amy had that image up there against the entry and where
the park was, it kind of creates a high safety issue in which you can't
see into the park space that we're creating at the entryway and it also lacks
visibility as an entrance sequence to the project. So there's a place where I'd kind
of push back and say that that's a park. You want to be able to
see into it. You want it to be safe. You don't want to establish a
street wall that's more for an urban area where you want to put a building
like downtown or something. And so it didn't seem to make sense to apply it
there. And then some of these internal walkways where we have nothing but six foot
wide sidewalks feeding an area and then all of a sudden to require a 10
foot wide sidewalk. That might make sense if we were like in the middle of
a retail area or a mixed use area with a lot of density where a
10 foot sidewalk would be necessary. But going from a six foot to a wider
sidewalk when everything it feeds it is just six feet seems a little unnecessary. And
when it's not that much population here, it's certainly not a destination for retail or
a lot of visitors other than occasional guests. So those kind of things, I just
think it makes for better design. It gives us more room for landscaping. It gives
us less impervious, it meets a lot of other goals. So there are a few
of those things I just kind of wanted to point out that we're having ongoing
conversations with the city about those things. But since you asked,
I thought I'd bring them up. - Thank you very much. -
Thank you. I got a couple of questions and then some design
issue that maybe we can work together. On your drawings, SDP00, there's
a whole bunch of tables here. One of them is bike parking
requirements. And we're required to put-- you're providing 276 bike parking.
These are regular bike-- 276. We've got four-- DAVID ROSACKER: Can you
give the page number already? Or is it in the plan? OK,
it's in the plan. All right. DAVID ROSACKER: Yeah. SDP. And I'm
trying to calculate how did we come up with 276. And I
could come up with that. So there's something missing here. So are you
questioning that that's too much bike parking? I'm just trying to see how the numbers
came up. OK. Yeah. That's the applicant's proposal. So that is the-- look at the
totals. That's the applicant's proposal? Yeah. They're not required to provide that much. That's their
choice in how much bikes-- Well, it says provided. That's what he's providing. Yeah, it's
on the second page. If you look at the totals, it's 3, 3, 6, 18,
and that adds up to 276. Right. But I'm looking at the staff report, and
only 116 bike parking spaces are required. So the applicant has decided that is not
sufficient, and they are providing more. what i'm saying
the table doesn't the math doesn't add up okay if you look at the if
you look at the table it adds up to 30. sdp zero zero sheet sdp
zero zero the second page second page bike parking requirements down yeah bike parking requirements
down towards the bottom i'll look at it again Yeah, if you could,
because it just doesn't add up. I see what you're saying. Yeah.
The original version that I reviewed had the right numbers. There's a
lot of parking. And then the other thing I wanted to clarify
is that walkway that you were talking about off the project site
onto Rowley's property, how high were you thinking? You showed a picture
of something like-- I don't know, maybe five feet tall. Oh, the
boardwalk? Yeah.
I want to clarify something about that boardwalk. I'm sorry, sir. Every time we go
to... Okay, Matt Rowey with Fire Architecture. One thing I didn't say was it actually
enables a lot of things in the greater area to occur. And I'm just using
this opportunity, and I'll answer your question in a second, to make more walkability and
more access for bicycles, because it's really only about 0.6 miles from our site to
the grocery store at Gilman and SR 900. and it's only three quarters of a
mile to the transit center. And Raleigh is expected to build 4.2 million square feet,
which will include a lot of job creation and retail. There'll be an urban village
right next to us across that boardwalk. And so I want to just kind of
mention that tonight because there was some question about the traffic increases and whatnot, but
that is one mitigating circumstance. So it's a very important part of our project. And
I also want to clarify that I believe the property line between us and Rowley
at that bridge is the creek is on our side of it where we're crossing
it. Correct. So we're definitely going to cross the creek and that's the whole point
of doing it. And then how it meets the ground on the Rowley side, we'll
work very close with them as we proceed. So what was your question regarding the
height of the boardwalk? When you were doing your presentation, you showed some walkway. That
was at Nisqually. Yeah, that was at Nisqually. That was a very good point that
someone brought up about the animals being able to pass underneath. When we saw the
cross bracing we had on an earlier design that you might still have in your
packet, we realized we could do it like they did at Nisqually where there wasn't
an X bracing down low. It was actually just a smaller frame bracing up high.
So there'd be probably about five feet or so. Five feet high? Yeah, at least.
Yeah. I think we haven't really designed it yet, but you know, I think it'd
be up there. There's also a grade change. It almost drops 8, 10 feet. on
both sides, and we're kind of keeping this flat. And on our side, it's up,
and it stays flat. And Rowley's is here, and that whole wetland depresses 8 to
10 feet. So we'll probably have-- 10 feet is the clearance then. Well, that's how
much difference there is. And when the beams are in there and whatnot, it's probably
going to be at least 5 to 6 feet, maybe more. Yeah. So we don't
want to really slope it. We want to keep it flat. The pitched roof versus
flat roof, I like your presentation about keeping in line with the red barn and
I think that's where you're getting your pitch roof and the red. And I think
that's a good idea. But coming from Seattle or Eastgate, you come down the freeway
and you see this is a clock. And with the red roof, red pitch roof,
I think would be nice versus a flat roof. I would definitely ask
that you look into a pitch roof there. And for all that
matters, maybe the clubhouse be put in there so you have a
distinct building that looks like the red barn and that signifies Issaquah
with the red pitch roof. So it's just common. When I first
look at it, I would have to say that you have a
lot of straight which saves a lot of utility construction
in there. But to me, I think we could maybe
put some design issues onto the street and not just
street with row houses. When I first looked at it,
it looks like row houses. So I understand the site
that you're trying to put in 400 units, but...
By golly, you know, if we could put some design into
the street design and not just straight shot, you know, all
perpendicular, that would be a lot better. Somebody looking at it,
it's like apartment buildings, straight apartment buildings. Although I do like
your green, village green concept. It's a central area we can draw the
residents in. But again, it's a row house. The things that went through my mind
when I was looking at it is that whoever designed it probably looked at the
Rowley's storage building and says, well, we want to match the environment, the surroundings, so
we're going to do the same thing here. So that's Rowley's storage building. So maybe
you need to look at it a little bit. Just a comment. So
the other thing is on parking. You mentioned that parking on the
clubhouse, people would come in, pick up their mails, which is a
good point. But I think you may need some parking in there
for people to park, run in, get a mail, and then come
back out and then drive back into their units.
I see a few parking slots in there, I think like five,
and you might need a little bit more. There's people coming in,
you know, do their business, they have to just run out and
then drive back to their units. So maybe add, you know, look
at some loading and unloading areas, parking spots in there. The other
thing is on your second means of egress, the fire engine,
Is that a second mean of egress that nobody could use except fire engine? That's
right. Okay. So do you have a gate that close it? And what's stopping people
from... I'll respond. Matt Rowey, VIA. Yeah, it would be probably a bollard
condition, a breakaway bollard. No, it's a -- It will be a gate. Okay.
That's been negotiated. Okay. There it is. So it's been negotiated with sports arena
then that you could use that access for fire engine? Yes. Okay.
There was an existing easement. There was an existing
easement that allowed emergency access between the two properties.
Yeah, emergency. And then how about for regular use?
It's just emergency. OK. So people using the gym
cannot use that access to go back into their
residence? They could if they walk. I like the
way you separate the pedestrian and the motor vehicle.
uh again you know the it's just so straightforward it's
uh um looks like a row house um you had
those uh five-story high building the d-type along the freeway
there um it's really going to stand out as you're
coming into issaquah so um i don't know what you
can do about it i think the pitch roof is
a good idea um but you need to do something
about that in that Maybe the clubhouse is what I can think
of off the top of my head. Put a clubhouse there so that it stands
out. And then the tall building just blocks the noise. But I'll leave that up
to you. That's all that I have, sir. CHRIS JERRAM: Thank you. Mr. Chair? TODD
BANDUCCI: Can I jump in? Just for the record, I guess, a comment was made
that the creek was on your property. But the triad survey on page six of
nine in your package shows Tibbets Creek, between your property and 19th
Avenue Northwest. So the wetland portion is on your property.
Tibbetts Creek appears to be on Rowley's property. Just to
clarify. Well, we'll make it work. Yeah. I cross that
creek about every day. And it's definitely-- it's Rowley's. I
mean, there are Rowley properties on the west side of
the creek. I can interject a little.
This is Matt Rowey. What I was thinking of is there's a plan to relocate
the creek. And that is part of the development agreement, I believe, for the rallies.
And then it would be on our property. That's what I was thinking of. And
so that's got to be worked out. And I stand corrected if I was incorrect
on the location of the property. Mr. Svedberg? One of
the questions asked by Connie Martian hasn't been answered is, are
any of these units low income or affordable housing designated? Great.
So there are none. We don't require affordable housing in
the Central Issaquah standards. We do have the bonus density
option for developments that go above the base height or
the base FAR. Okay. Just answering her question. I agree
with Commissioner Leong that the hitch roof I think looks
good. Question I have is one of the requirements in the building conditions is that
roof color shall be light colored with a solar reflective index and all the pictures
show dark roofs. So - Which is it? - So again, the standard
is very specific about the light reflectance level. And so we put that in
there for something to be worked out with the applicant during construction. We have
no way to do an administrative adjustment of standards for that. - Another one
of those things to be worked out down the road. Same
question in regards to the condition 78. The five-story building
shall be further refined during the construction permit review to
employ a tripartite articulation of the facade. In other words,
we're going to redesign what the picture looks like. So
refinement means they would have had to add some additional, you
know, - Modulation. - Exactly. But since, you know, they expressed that they'd
like some flexibility on that, we'll continue to talk to them about, you
know, what that's gonna look like. And including, once you start changing that
roof form or character, I have no idea what that final elevation's gonna
look like. So we'll work those out and we'll bring, you know, after
hearing what your concerns are, we'll bring something next time. And I don't know
if you can answer this question, but condition 90 talked about offsite sewer main
must be upsized. And I'm curious as to exactly what that means. Are we
going to have to dig up all of Newport Way to make a bigger
sewer line to accommodate existing developments? So I'm going to invite Doug
Schlepp here because he's the engineer for staff representing the city for this
project. So my name is Doug Schlepp. I'm a consultant to the City
of Issaquah for Engineering Services, DSD. And this is with regards to the
sewer line that's in Poplar, which is a private road owned by the
Rowleys. And so the existing sewer that's there does not have the capacity
to serve this project. And we're currently working with the Rowleys and Arena Sports
on the improvements to the utilities in that corridor. Okay, so we're not having
to dig up Newport or, because it sounded like it was for the existing
off-site properties, maybe the - Spy Hill development, anything else along Newport Way? No?
- No. - Okay. - And the plans show the sewer and water lines, or
I think, I believe they do, the offsite sewer and water improvements. - Okay. -
And it's for the utilities in Poplar. - Okay, thank you. - Thank you. -
And the final thing is I agree with Commissioner Hicks that the 26th of August
seems to be pretty quick determination for the Development
Commission to make a review, particularly with the SEPA review six days before
that. We might want to push it back a week or two. Thank
you. CHRIS RODGERS: Thank you. Let's pick up with the time issue. This
has been a consistent issue for the Development Commission or the last several
meetings, not all of them, but certainly with Costco and so on, the feeling that
there's been too much to review and too short a period of time. And to
find out today that the applicant didn't get as I understand it, until
today. - That's a clarification. They did not read it until today,
but they've had it. They've had it. - That's an important clarification,
thank you. But that said, I agree that Basically, we all understand
the crush that is on now that has happened. And everybody saw it. We
went for a long time with no DC meetings and no proposed construction because
of the economic downturn. And now we're getting to the point where it's accelerating.
And I would also like to see us get more time to look at
things, particularly final things. So that's one thing. I have a question
about the distinction between village residential and urban village. And I know that there
are two separate things, and Lucy, I assume you're the one that can answer
this because of your background. But things like parking, the definition of parking spaces
and the widths and the location of them. And I asked this specifically even
before I read this, when I go up to the Highlands, I'm struck by the
number of parallel parking places where the cars are sticking out in the street and
they're parked legally, but the parking space, the parallel parking space don't seem to be
wide enough. And we've talked here about parking space size. So is there a different
set of, same standards or are they different? Most of the
standards are similar. And I didn't bring this up with
Commissioner Morgan's comment, but I would note that Issaquah Highlands
started with six-foot parallel parking stalls. So the seven --
I know. I didn't have anything to do with
it. I just implemented it. And then later we went
to 7 and occasionally 8 foot. So 7 has been
used quite widely also in some parts of TALIS.
We feel that seven feet is sufficient. Eight feet is a little more
generous. We would not recommend going to six feet. So I wanted to
provide some more information relative to that in response to Commissioner Morgan's question.
Okay. I'm going to jump around here a little bit, but I'm going
to try not to go over things that have already been addressed. The pitched roof
is great for the five-story building. In my opinion, it's preferable. I do share the
concern about the elevation of the foundation and how it's measured. I think we ought
to either address it in terms of changing the code or not, and not keep
coming back because this seems to be something that we're seeing with almost every
project that's come up now. So there's an opportunity for refinement there. I guess
I'm the only one on the commission, which will tell you how much this
is going to be worth, that believes that the better way
to address the i-90 interface would be to have very large trees
that screened the whole thing because for two reasons one is
because uh of the mountain to sound greenway ethos that we've got in place here
and the second is frankly uh i i don't know what kind of marketing you're
doing in terms of price determination or rent determination but i don't think i'd want
to live in one of those apartments that looks the illustrations and i know that
they were immature trees and i know that there was a notation that they're they're
going to grow but That's really problematic for me. Now, you're going to see
the buildings over the top, and that's where you get into the roof and
the orientation and the northwest look. And I do agree that there's an opportunity
there to make the architecture more representative of the northwest. And there is a
condominium complex in Issaquah, which I personally think is the only one that I can
think of that meets the objective that Commissioner Brennan was talking about. And I don't
even know the name of it. But it's off Wildwood Road. And it's on Issaquah
Creek. - Calcari is the name. - Calcari, yeah. And it's frankly, it looks like
a resort. It's a lodge look with timbers and Christopher maybe, you know, the background
of that. But it's very definitely Pacific Northwest and it's a large unit. I don't
know how many dwelling units, but it's a couple hundred at least So there's
an opportunity there to take a look at something that is absolutely
clearly Northwest. Now, I understand that you're way down the road when
it comes to architectural design. I understand that. But if there is
an opportunity to consider more representative Northwest architecture, that's something you might
look at. As far as staff is concerned, I noticed that we're
seeing a lot of things in this staff report and in others that say
things like generally compliant. And that's like totally unique. It's either compliant or it
isn't. And I know that we get variations and we get changes and so
on. That's what we're doing here. But I'd be really careful about generally compliant. Because
I'm not an English teacher, but it's either compliant or it isn't. So the wording
of that through, I think, should be examined to come up with something that reflects
the fact that we're not there yet, that there's a lot of work to be
done. doesn't say because it's a contradiction in terms. So it's either compliant or
it isn't. So as the person who has to write and fill out the checklist,
the quandary when you have a project as complex as this where you have several
buildings and the site improvements are of different types, it will be be hard to
say that it's completely compliant, right? And at the same time, it will be unfair
to tell them that they are not compliant because I started out with saying that,
but then if 90% of the site and elements are compliant and only 10% isn't,
like how would you state that in a checklist. - I'm gonna leave that to
you. - Yeah, so it's one of those things where regardless, in other words, we
debated over this. What does it mean if, there is a false impression if you
use the word compliant that they're good to go. and there's nothing else that they
need to do, and that's not the case because we know even as we take
this all the way to construction, we are still seeing things that-- - Absolutely, and
I understand that. So I'm not saying that it has to be ironclad. I'm just
saying that in terms of pure English, It's a contradiction in terms. So there might
be a better way of reflecting the fact that the goal is this and we're
working toward it. We've made exceptions here, here, and here. So some general phrase like
that. - Maybe we can say compliant with conditions. - Compliant with conditions. Or compliant
at this stage. I don't even, I don't know. But to move smartly along, I'd
like to ask about the dog parks. There was a mention of dog
run and dog park. So are they two separate things or are
they one thing? So as one who wrote the staff report, there is
a difference when you talk to people who design dog parks and there's a difference
between a dog park and a dog run. So I wanted to make sure that,
and maybe I made a mistake of saying dog park in some parts, but
I normally use the word dog run to mean it's basically
an enclosed area where you could take your dog for a
walk or off leash. So that's kind of how I was
thinking when I used the word dog run. Amy, would that be for general
public or just for the residents? And if so, because there aren't many dog,
as far as I know, there's no dog park in Issaquah. So what we
have asked of them to consider is for their own residents. Okay. Well, I...
Yeah, I don't know if that's indicated in the study. You might want
to clarify that it's just for residents only, because if word gets out
that there's a dog park around there, they're going to have to take
tickets at the gate, because people are going to really want to use
a dog park if the one's available without having to drive to Mercer
Island or Snoqualmie, which I do. OK. proposed, quote, proposed senior
housing project, unquote. I mentioned that earlier. Could you tell us what
that is and where it is? That's their phase two. OK. I
thought I asked about that earlier. The chunk of property on the
other side. I think we may have misunderstood. I thought you were
asking about this piece. We may have misunderstood your question. So the senior
housing project is for the adjacent property to the west that is not to be
developed yet. It's the second, the next phase. Is that phase two? Yeah. Yeah. It's
not part of this. Right. No, I understand that. But I'm looking forward. We're trying
to get traffic and trail connectivity and things like that. So when I saw that,
that was and I believe actually it came up earlier by a question
from another commissioner. So so that's part of the same ownership and the
plan at this point is to make phase two a senior uh senior
housing project. Um so the applicants indicated that they're still looking at uh
their options. They haven't um finalized that it will be a senior
housing. Okay, but that would be a providence point or something like
that where it's senior folks, but they're able to drive their cars.
Yeah, this is active. Okay, so active seniors. I love that term.
So would that use the same at the conceptual stage, which I understand we
are now, would that use the same egress ingress? No, it will have as
a primary entrance to on Newport Way on their side of they do have
a frontage on Newport Way. Yeah. OK. Where's my mouse? That would be a
different egress ingress than is planned for Gateway. Right.
CHRIS RODGERS: OK. I know I'm hopping around here, but I'd like to go back
to the school bus issue. I know we're not the school district. I understand that.
But it seems to me that the safest way to address kids getting on buses
is to have the school bus pick up kids inside the project. ELIZABETH BUTLER: The
school district is very adamant that they will not do that. CHRIS RODGERS: Will not
do that. ELIZABETH BUTLER: Yeah. Well, you know, okay, I know it's not our
purview, and I'm not going to hammer it, but it's interesting in light of
what has happened here. And we hear you, and that's why we've already reached
out to them, because we want to make sure we understand their needs and
expectations and are accommodating them. Okay. All right. Good, Lucy. The bus comes in
hard, though. Yeah. Okay, I want to, the phrase review
at construction was through it, through in several different places,
and I, again, for public benefit, what does that mean
other than the obvious? So the subject in question is
noted to be reviewed at construction. which could sound to
people that have come here or are looking at the documents online or whatever, like,
so it sounds like they're going to build it and then we're going to approve
it. So I think you had a great turn of phrase, Randy, which was compliant
at this stage. You know, we're looking from sort of the most conceptual and we're
making it more specific. And right now the reason that we have this substantial review
at this point is to make sure can they get the buildings on the site,
can they get the parking on the site, can they get the walkways on the
site, can they get the roadways on the site. So looking at all those pieces,
And then we have to take it the next stage down and say, now how
do you construct those things? Some pieces of it, like there's a central ISCWA standard
around you can't have flush windows. We wouldn't review that now. It doesn't affect land
use. So we're going to review that at construction. We may have looked at the
road-- Excuse me, at construction? OK, with construction permits. There you go. OK. You're such
a writer. You're our personal editor. But you know what I'm--
I do, and I appreciate the clarification. OK. All right. I don't
have anything else. So at this point-- I'm going to do that.
My Vice Chair just reminded me, which I didn't need to be reminded of, but
he's right. We want to thank all of you who have showed up and sat
through this meeting. We realize that this is a work night, and particularly the members
of the public that have come here and sat through this. We do this primarily
for the benefit of the taxpayers of the City of Issaquah. The applicants part of
the game, obviously a huge bet, but the purpose of this meeting is to allow
all the parties involved, the city, the applicant, and the members of the public to
have an opportunity to understand what's going on and why it's going on and what
kind of input you can have into this. So we very much appreciate the fact
that you have taken your time to come here tonight. And also on behalf of
the commission, as always, the staff report was impressive. uh showed a lot of work
and we very much appreciate the applicants uh work to get this word out
to everybody as well so as it's scheduled we'll be back here on the
26th of august unless there is a an adjustment in the schedule to give
folks some time to look at that Mr. Morgan? I would just
like to reiterate, especially with this one, the tremendous amount of effort that's gone into
it by both the architectural team and by staff in terms of the report. I
can't think of a more thorough staff report that I've ever read. And so I
greatly appreciate it. And all the exhibits and the explanations provided by the architectural team
really helped in understanding the project. - And just to ride on that, I like
the idea of the name of it. It is a gateway. This is the first
thing when you're coming east that you're going to see at this stage in the
game. Who knows what's gonna go further west of it on out. But at this
stage in the game, it is the entrance. to the city, and there's a
tremendous opportunity here to do it right and to do it
in such a manner as has been said, but to reiterate
it, that says Issaquah and not Bellevue, Redmond, Brooklyn, whatever. OK?
Anything else? One more thought here on the timing question that I've been kind of
pondering over here for a minute and that's related to the adjustment of the code
that would be necessary to allow for a pitched roof on this building. So that
takes an amendment to the city's code to do that. So there's a process that
has to go through that will take significant time to get there once you figure
out what the change is. So we're going to be asked to make a decision
on this permit before that happens. So we're going to be making a decision on
a permit that's going to either say, well, you're going to have a pitched roof
or it's going to be a flat roof. And we've all pretty much concluded that
we don't want to see a building with a flat roof at this location. So
I'm kind of out in the middle trying to figure out timing of the decision
we make or what the nature of the decision would be to ensure we get
the right outcome, even if that code amendment hasn't been passed. Can I jump in?
Would we actually change the condition to state that the-- roof line, you know, if
we stayed it has to be a pitched roof. Right. They would lose the story
and have to change the grade. So I think the thing that we need to
go back, I mean, that's why we have this two meeting format because it's so
important to hear the thoughts, expectations and desires of the public and the commission.
I'm not sure that there is a basis for us requiring a pitched roof. That
is the piece that I need to go back and Amy needs to go back
and study in the code because we've heard your desire for that. And so I
think we need to lay out the different options related to the code, code changes,
and what the commission and public have expressed.
We'll wait to hear back. Mr. Chairman, can I add some light on this? Just
for, since we brought it up real quickly, the consequences of that are impact a
lot of different development codes. If we were not allowed to do a flat roof,
we would have to take a whole floor off of both buildings. which would, I
don't know, something like 30 units we'd lose or more, and I don't know how
you feel about that. But it would also take us under the threshold for minimum
density requirement of .75. So as Lucy stated, I don't think there's a code requirement
that mandates one way or the other, but that would be a consequence of it.
We're hoping, though, that it can be resolved soon because we need to know what
to do and that it could be a pitched roof on the structure we're proposing.
But Commissioner Morgan, your suggestion is that we change the condition to address that. I
was saying if we really want a pitched roof, we change the condition that they
have to have a pitched roof, Lucy, you're saying you're not sure we can require
that. That's why I want to go back and study the code in light of
the comments we've heard and have conversations with the applicant to understand what our options
are between their needs and desires, the code, and what we've heard tonight and try
and clearly lay out what your options are in making a decision. Because
I think you've done a great job of
telling us really what your vision and preferences
are. Okay. All right. Anything else? We break
breakfast? Yeah. All right. Again, thank you very
much. The meeting is adjourned.