CHRIS JERRAM: Well, good evening. I'd like to call to order the September 23, 2015
meeting of the ISQA Development Commission. Just to give you a breakdown of what we'll
be doing tonight, we have a couple of things to do in terms of approving
minutes. And then we've got one project that we'll be hearing tonight, the Mall Gateway
Apartments project that I think we've got a very big crowd for tonight. The process
we'll do is we'll have a presentation by staff. a presentation by the applicant if
they want to do so. And then we'll open it up to public questions or
comments. And we'd like you to sign in at the sign-in sheet down in front
if you could. And when you come to the microphone, anybody that comes up to
speak, we'd like your name and address for the record. And then when we go
through the public comments, if we have-- a lot of comments since we don't want
to be here till midnight. We'd like people to limit their comments if they can
to three or four minutes. And if you just agree with something that somebody else's,
a comment that they've already made, a point you could get up and say, I
agree with the comment that so-and-so made, that we get that into the record. You
don't necessarily need to repeat the same thing over and over again if you'd like.
And then after that, we'll close the public meeting. We'll take a short break because
the commissioners received several numerous emails today that we need to read through. We'll take
a short break after that. Then we'll come back, and it'll be a time for
the commissioners to ask questions of staff and the applicant and discuss the project.
So with that, we'll move forward with the approval of minutes.
The first is from the August 5th, 2015 meeting. Does anybody
have any corrections or additions? Yes, I do. I'm sorry, could
you repeat which minutes we're looking at? August 5th? The first
one is August 5th. Okay, yes, I do have a correction
under, let's see, page eight, under Hicks. I have
lines down. She asked developer to reconsider item 22 on page 23. And brackets
include annuals at strategic locations such as community center, high volume pedestrian paths, and
at building entries. And after that bracket, I would like it to say too
low water native perennials as seen in other developments and city plantings. OK.
Could you repeat that, please? I surely will. After the last
bracket, in between that bracket and spoke, please put to low
water native perennials as seen in other developments and city plantings.
Thank you. Is that good? Great. Any other additions, corrections? Hearing
none, do I hear a motion? I make a motion that
we accept the minutes as corrected. Second. Moved and
seconded. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Those passed.
And the next would be the meetings from
September 2nd, 2015. Any corrections, additions, deletions? I
do. Great. Page 16 of 179 under Commissioner
discussion under Hicks. Asked about the walking distance from the
traffic center. Please change traffic center to transit center. Great. Anything else? No,
that's all. A motion? I'll make a motion that we accept the minutes
as corrected. Second. And moved and seconded to approve the minutes. All in
favor? Aye. Aye. And they're approved. So we'll move on to the public
hearing for the site development for the Mole Gateway Apartments, although Lucy Sloman
may want to Have a little discussion also about what we're doing tonight too. So
just first of all, I think I can see we have a full house. I
just want to let you know that I believe there's a speaker out in the
lobby. So if you want to sit and listen out there or stand out there,
I'm not asking anyone to leave. But if you're more comfortable out there, I think
you will be able to hear. So this is the public hearing for
the Gateway Apartments project on the former mall farm. I'm going to tweak slightly
the structure that Mel presented. Many of you are aware, because I would imagine
that you're -- we're parties of record and you received the briefing response memo,
that each -- that all of the comments that we heard from the commissioners
and the public after the first part of the public hearing on
August 5th up to the issuance of the memo a week ago,
we have consolidated everything by topic. And there were both applicant and staff
responses. So in the same format tonight, we'll go through the topics and both the
staff and the applicant will be available to talk about each of those. And we
have also clustered some of them that, you know, if something was of a similar
topic but occurred later in the memo, we've tried to put things together just so
that they're more logical. We would request that if the commissioners have questions
or continuing concerns or whatever, bring them up as we finish our
presentation on each of those topics, you know, in case we need
to draft conditions or look for materials that just helps us to
hear about anything that's still lingering for you guys at that time.
So you want to do the questions during the presentation as opposed to waiting for
the public hearing to -- Just related to the presentation that we're making. So if
we're talking about a topic and something we've said doesn't seem clear or you have
a follow-up question, just go ahead and share it with us then. You're of course
-- Commissioner's okay with that? That's fine. You're of course going to continue and have
your conversation afterwards. This is just related to whatever comes up with the memo.
The public will have their opportunity to speak. There is an opportunity, although we
don't often take it, that the staff or the applicant could rebut. So we
would do that before the public -- the speaking part of the public hearing
is closed if anyone, either staff or applicant, asks to rebut. And then we
would go into the discussion. The
other piece that I just wanted to do up front was one of the topics
in the briefing response memo that had come up from the Commission was topic 21,
which had to do with process and decision makers. And so we just thought we'd
review that up front since we're sort of talking about how this works. The decision
maker for this land use permit is the Development Commission. So, and if there
was an appeal that would be heard by the hearing examiner, the council, this was
the question, does the council have a role? And no, the council doesn't have a
role in this particular permit. The Commission's decision is based on whether the
proposal complies with the comprehensive plan, the central ISCWA plan, the
central ISCWA development and design standards, which you'll hear us call
central ISCWA standards. We sometimes abbreviate it because it's a mouthful
of words. And then other ISCWA municipal code sections that we
may have identified. I think that's the
main thing, unless you have any questions. Great. Any questions? Great. Well,
we'll go forward with the presentation by staff.
so good evening everybody my name is amy tars and i'm the senior planner
here at the city of isaac before i start my presentation i would like
to submit um the you know we we mentioned that there were um several
uh public comments that were submitted today um there's a total of basically 10
comments that we received from eight citizens and that will be submitted
as attachment aid for the public record. And just for everybody's
information, we did print out your comments and the commissioners have
been given a copy of it. There is one comment that
is not in your packet. And that is the final comment I
received at 5:14 today while I was rushing out. And so it's from Mary
Lynch and I just talked to her and requested that later when we open
it up for public comment, if she could just share with you what the
content of her email was to us. So I'm gonna go ahead and start.
Again, for just a little bit of background for the public, because some of you
were not here at the last public hearing. This is a continuation of that public
hearing. And what we do is at that first hearing, it was pretty much an
introduction of the project. And we try to use that as an opportunity to
collect information and questions both from the public and also from the commissioners. And
then we come back for this meeting to basically respond and provide whatever additional
information is requested. So that's the bulk of my presentation today will be
responses to what were the questions and comments that were brought up at
the last meeting. So what you're not going to see here tonight is
a detailed presentation, again, of the background information that we did at our
last meeting. Hopefully you had a chance to read about it. They were
available on our website. since the project was submitted back in May.
So just a quick, again, so Lucy had given us a
quick just kind of introduction of how we're gonna do it
tonight. Two things that I wanted to update everybody about. At our last
meeting, the SEPA was not concluded yet. So we just wanted to
bring up that as of this meeting, the SEPA comment period and
appeal period ended. on September 10th, and again, you had received comments,
and it's in your packet, from several citizens, and it includes
staff responses to those comments. And at the last meeting, we
also informed you about the citywide road and crosswalk safety study,
and Newport Way happens to be one of the streets that's
part of this study. So Lucy also
talked about the issue of what is the Development Commission's role
versus City Council. And there was a question about whether the
Development Commission has review authority over site ingress/egress from Newport Way.
And the other one was the traffic volume and improvements on
Newport Way. The Development Commission definitely has a role in determining
certain aspects of the design of Newport Way that is defined
by the Central Issaquah Development Standards. So things like what the
Parkway Standards describes in the Central Issaquah Standards, they basically make
that determination if this project actually complies with that. And to the
extent that ingress and egress is part of design standards, then that's also
part of their role. So can Development Commission approve this project without the
height amendment to the land use code? So one of the things that
we brought up last time is that the buildings the two five-story buildings
are currently designed with sloped roofs and the slope of the roof exceeds
the height limit as described today or defined today by the
land use code. So we notified the development commission and
the public that in discussing this particular issue with the
developers, they basically have an option of providing flat roofs.
And if they provided flat roofs, they would not exceed
the height limit. We encouraged them to show a design with pitch
roofs because we wanted to give the Development Commission and the public an
opportunity to determine which character of the architecture is more appropriate. And at
that time, the Development Commission leaned more towards the sloped roofs. And there
are several ways that they can, if the amendment to the land
use code does not pass, they have other options on how they
can adjust their design in order to meet the height limit. And we
invited the architects to come today and they'll talk about it a little
bit later when we talk about the details of the pitch roof versus
the slope roofs. So now I'm going to invite the traffic engineers and
our staff, Doug Schlepp, to talk about the next three slides.
Good evening, my name is Doug Schlepp and I am a Development Services
Engineer charged with review of this project. Good evening, my name is Jeff
Schramm. I'm a Traffic Engineer with 10W, responsible for the traffic study that
was conducted for the Gateway project. Can you provide your addresses too for
the record? Sure, go ahead. I reside at 21647 SE 33rd Place, Sammamish.
Again, they can be either business or personal too.
My business address, this is Jeff Schramm at 11400
Southeast 8th Street, Suite 200 in Bellevue, 98005. Thank
you. So I guess I'll start first. We were responsible
for conducting the traffic study for the Gateway project, worked closely with staff on identifying
the appropriate mitigation measures for the project. We were also in attendance at the first
public hearing of the Development Commission. We heard your comments, your questions, and those from
the public. A lot of our responses are detailed in the memo, the briefing memo
that you have in front of you. But for the purposes of tonight, what I
thought would be more appropriate is We broke down or kind of consolidated the comments
that we heard into three primary topic areas. So what I'd like to do is
go through the next three slides to talk about number one, traffic volumes on Newport
Way and the project impacts to Newport Way. The second slide I'll talk about is
a Newport Way road design. And the last one we'll talk about is how the
Gateway access, how the Gateway project accesses Newport Way. So in this first slide, Newport
Way currently is a two-lane road. It's a two-lane arterial that carries about 10,000
vehicles a day. It has a posted speed today of 40 miles an hour.
But as we know, the city council recently adopted a reduction and that will
soon go to 30 miles an hour posted. The city's long-term plan for Newport
Way accounts for the Gateway Project. Build out of the project along
with other properties along Newport Way corridor were included in the city's comprehensive plan,
the city's long-term traffic model, as well as the concurrency evaluation for the Newport
corridor. The gateway project itself at about 400 apartments will generate 2,650 trips a
day. When those trips are distributed along both directions of Newport Way, that accounts
for about a 10 to 12% increase in traffic on Newport Way. This is
well within the planned capacity of what Newport Way is intended to be, and
that is a three-lane road as development occurs along the corridor. The next slide
is... The next slide is intended to
address some of the comments related to the roadway design of Newport Way. The city's
central, the central Issaquah plan and the Issaquah design standards identify Newport Way as a
parkway. And as you can see from these cross sections up here, one of
the primary improvements will be a center turn lane. There will be continuous bike lane
on both sides. There will be a multi-use trail on the north side as well.
What the city has done in their planning is that they have anticipated as development
along this corridor occurs that Newport Way will be widened and improved to the standard.
What the Gateway project will do is it will improve its frontage along that portion
that they own on Newport Way to be consistent with this plan. The frontage improvements
will also be designed and constructed to meet site distance requirements and safe sight lines
for pedestrians, for bicycles, for motorists. And primarily the Gateway project will mitigate its impact
to the Newport Way and its corridor by constructing these frontage improvements paying its
traffic impact fee, paying the city's bike and pedestrian mitigation fee, as well as implementing
a new intersection control at its access with Newport Way, which is what I want
to talk about on the next slide. So this last slide is really just intended
to address some of the specific comments and questions that came up at the last
meeting and talk about the location of the project and its impact in Newport Way
as well as some of the comments we heard from the Sammamish Point condominiums. For
this project, a single access is proposed. A secondary access has been identified
separately through an easement to provide only access for emergency vehicles, which
meets the fire code requirements. A single access at this location will
be adequate to accommodate the additional traffic from the 400 apartment units.
At this access, the Gateway Project will construct a new intersection that
will include either a signal, signalization, or a roundabout. As you know,
the city, and as Amy mentioned, the city is currently evaluating Newport Way as
one of their corridors in the larger pedestrian crossing study. What we've been able
to determine so far is whether signalization or roundabout is determined to be implemented
at this location. Either one will implement new crosswalks and safe pedestrian crossings at
this location. The intersection control will also improve access across the street. to the
south to the residence of Spyglass Hill, which is currently access as Newport on the
south side at Pacific Elm Drive. Currently controlled with a stop sign, the roundabout or
signal will accommodate that development as well to provide a full access intersection. Regarding the
access to the Sammamish Point condos, We expect that either traffic control point, or
either traffic control, the signalization or roundabout, will be designed to address left turning
and all turning traffic to that driveway. We expect that driveway to remain. Depending
on whether it's signalized or roundabout, we'll have different channelization or control, but either
will be designed to maintain that access point. So Doug has a few
more comments about some of the. And I just wanted to add to
what Jeff said regarding the access. There have been a lot of comments
regarding access from Northwest Poplar. That's a private road. And so the city
cannot require the property owner to convey public access through their property to
this project. And I think that this would be a good point also to
stop. We've covered two slides with a lot of information. So if there's any questions
regarding this information, we would entertain any questions from the commissioners. Do we have any
questions on this right now? Just a couple quick questions. Um, as far as the
timing is concerned, so it's going to be a controlled intersection. You said either signalized
or with a roundabout about when will that decision be made? So we anticipate that
the city will have its draft report for Newport by the end of this month.
And at that time, we're also expecting an update to the traffic
impact analysis or the TIA, which needs to be updated to reflect
the current speed limit on Newport, the reduction from 40 to 30
miles per hour. So I would say probably within the next three
to four months, two weeks we would have information
to review in order to further this but the actual design
of the project related to the intersection control will take several
months I would expect. The thing I would add Commissioner Brennan
two things. One, The original proposal came in with a signal.
We've seen how that fits. The roundabout, we've seen preliminary roundabout layouts.
They don't change, they don't impact the site. They don't ripple into
the site. And condition, final recommended condition number four in attachment one
gives a date of October 1st for the city to have made
that decision as a consequence of getting that crosswalk study. Thank
you. It should be on all the time. Okay. I have a
question on the timing of the build out of the view that
you showed of Newport Way. The cross section view. There you go.
Will that be applied just to the area next to the property
or will this be done for all of Newport Way or is
this What's the plan there? Are we going to get
just part of it as it pertains to the property
of the development? So these are the improvements currently are
developer driven and right now we are reviewing three different
projects which extend generally from about 500 feet westerly of
SR 900 to the western limits of this project. So
I'm guessing it's a couple thousand feet, maybe a half a
mile. And so it would generally cover that distance of Newport
Way. I can't speak for the developers to when they would
complete these projects, but they're all starting about the same time.
and we would anticipate that they would, if they continue at the same
pace, that they would all be completed around the same time. But let
me clarify one thing just to make sure that we're not mixing apples
and oranges. The responsibility of this project is the half street improvements of
their frontage as well as the intersection control method That is selected so they
would be responsible to build both of those in association with their project Okay,
so we could end up with a Newport way that's got this for part
of it and not this for part of it Well, but it's it's not
connected to this project. It's not connected to this project, but I understand the
interest in the question and When this project and some of the
other developers who are looking at projects in this segment of
Newport contacted the city, we began to coordinate with Public Works
Engineering that does capital improvements. So we are looking at which
segments would be built by developers and how can the city's
pieces in between those be timed. So we don't have a specific
timetable for that. On the other hand, part of what the goal
in having the crosswalk study come out at this point is related
to city budget periods because this is the time for the council
to be deciding how they might want to phase in those pieces
that they're responsible for. okay thank you and if i could i've got
a slide that i'll show later and i can show you visually what the projects
are that are currently under review so you get a sense for the scope of
those improvements okay thanks other questions for the I've got one math
question, I guess. I saw 10,000 cars a day, I think, and
then 2650 added, and it was a 10 to 12% increase. Well,
yeah, good question. Doug said that would come up too. Traffic will
distribute kind of east-west on Newport Way. So at the intersection control point,
you'll have the 2,650, but it's about a 60/40, 50/50 distribution depending if
it's morning or afternoon. So what it will feel like on Newport Way
will be about 10 to 12%. Great, thank you. I have a follow-up
along those lines, Chairman. Okay, so that you say it can
absorb this project, but how does Newport Way stand or is there any information when
all the other projects get added in? So I'll have another slide here and I'll
be able to answer that question, I believe, because we're looking at right now the
access point, but it sounds like your interest is what's gonna happen along Newport. -
Holistically, yeah. - Yeah, and there was a question that came up at the last
meeting and I'll be able to address that somewhat. - Okay, thanks. - Done with
your presentation for now then? - I have a few more slides. - Okay, great.
And just to clarify too, Amy, are you coming up after this? Great, thank you.
Okay, so there was a question regarding services. Currently, there
are no transit services on Newport Way, and this project
has no direct influence on that. It's a process of
negotiation between the city and the transit service provider. And
so as the city continues to develop there may be
opportunity in the future to restore service to this corridor. I was
coordinating with the school district regarding the bus service to this project
as we do with all of our developments and there was some
question of whether or not the buses would actually enter the site.
The current operation for the school district, which is fluid from year
to year, but currently is for a westbound movement on Newport and
then eastbound return. And they pick up the kids off of Newport
Way and they don't enter the neighborhoods. And then there was
a question about the fire and emergency vehicle access into the site. The Eastside
Fire and Rescue has reviewed the plans. They review them with their largest ladder
truck vehicle to make sure that the turning movements are clear through the site
and that where they have to do a maneuver and turn around that there's
adequate room to turn around. And all of those criteria have been met. There
is a condition in the staff report that we tested in the field because sometimes
there's minor changes that can occur that we need to modify in order to make
sure there's adequate clearances. But the modeling to date shows that they have access to
the site.
There was a question too regarding the concurrency rating of the intersection at SR
900 in Newport Way. And I think this Commissioner Ginther will get to your
question about what's happening on Newport Way. When the city did their concurrency update,
they analyzed various intersections along Newport. one of which is the
terminus of Newport at SR 900, or the intersection there. The
color for that intersection currently is green, and based on the
2030 modeling together with the land uses in place currently and
the proposed improvements during that timeframe, that intersection would continue to
be and operating at green. There was
a question of whether or not there'd be a pedestrian or bike
overpass to the transit center over SR 900. And currently there are
no plans for that, nor is there a requirement for this project
to provide such an improvement. And if there's any further questions regarding
these, hopefully that I addressed Your questions, and I apologize, one
of the slides that I had prepared doesn't show the extent of
the Newport Way, but if there's another slide that comes up later,
perhaps we can show an overview of that and identify those improvements.
But essentially, from approximately 500 feet westerly of S0 900 up to
the western limits of this project, excluding the Sammamish
Point condominiums project would be improved with
three different projects if they continue forward
to completion. Any other questions at this
point? No? Okay. Thank you. Thank you.
Amy? So now we're going to take
you to item number four and number
23 on your briefing memo. I'm going to
start off with just a big picture to address basically what those
concerns were. One had to do with the character of the architecture,
as you have seen last time. And also, there were comments about
how the buildings are very straight and the streets are very straight.
It seems a little different than what, I guess, a lot of
maybe residents are used to in this in the city. So
first, I'd like to bring up, you know, a lot of
the comments or address the comments about the division for the
Western Gateway. And there were several comments made about how the
the the buildings that were proposed didn't really meet the vision.
And so I included and quoted parts of what is written
in the Central Issaquah Plan under the vision statement for the
Western Gateway. And basically the key words were attractive gateway to
Issaquah, well-designed moderate density residential buildings, that use natural materials such
as timber and stone. So first, it definitely recognizes that this should
be a gateway project, that the architecture and design should be something
that would signal that you're in a very special part of the
city and it's and that the city itself is a very special
city. And then well-designed moderate density residential buildings. Again, in the Western
Gateway, it was, It's implied that it's not really meant to be
an urban village or something where it's really, really urban, like the
urban core of central Issaquah. It is intended to be residential and
moderate density. It's not meant, again, to be high density mixed use,
even though those types of development are allowed in this part of
Central Issaquah. And then the use of natural materials such as timber and
stone. And in our last meeting, we clarified that and what we understood
was there were examples that the commissioners had in mind of what
represented the kind of architecture for this gateway area. So, so I
just wanted to bring up that these three images here were pulled
out of the Central Issaquah plan. And this apparently gives a flavor
of what's intended. And then down here, just wanted to talk briefly
about the streets. So again, in the Central Issaquah plan, the
idea where you see these gray dashed lines, what it's meant to
convey is that whenever we have these large undeveloped tracts of land,
the intention is to break up those blocks, those large lots into
more manageable, walkable blocks by introducing a gridded street. And so
On the right is an image, basically a diagram that shows
how the internal streets and walkways of the Gateway Project was
conceived. And it shows basically using the grid concept that was
signified in the Central Isilkot Plan. So again,
as far as the character, one of the buildings that the Development
Commission mentioned last time as something for staff to look at is
Kalkari. So this is a photo of Kalkari, and it does have
those timber elements and pitched roofs. And again, board and batten treatment
for the walls or the exterior walls of the building. And
so I'm going to invite the architects and the designers to
now talk about, given the framework that I just explained, how
they're meeting and addressing and achieving the vision for the Western
Gateway. Can I access the purpose?
Good evening everyone. My name is Jim Bedoya. I'm with Viya Architects and I'm
the architect on the project. Our address is the Tower Building Suite 800 in
Seattle 98101. And I just want to start by thanking the Commission and the
staff for the comments and concerns and the public that came out of the
last hearing and Since that time, we've been working closely with staff, meeting on
a weekly basis to further refine our presentation to you this evening and also to
further refine the design and our ability to communicate the vision for this project. I
think at this point, though, for everyone's benefit, it's worth spending a little bit of
time talking about the site planning concepts that got us to this project and how
they were a major influence on what the architecture is trying to
do. And so just to quickly reiterate some of the points that
Amy made, our site, this is Newport Way for everybody's orientation. This
is the I-90 corridor. And our site is bounded by a wetland
reserve that's owned by SDOT. And then we have a series of
wetlands that are buffering the two creeks that flank our project. We
have I-90 along here and there's a wetland associated with that and a
buffer. And then we also have a wetland on the east side of
the property up against the arena sports. The residential project that's next to
Newport that buffers us to the south We intentionally put our park
space and additional buffer space along that boundary to soften the impacts
of the project on the neighboring properties. The site slopes about 20
feet from the arrival point coming off of Newport down to the
freeway corridor. And we intentionally put the largest buildings up against the
freeway to act as a a buffer, both a visual and an auditory
buffer to the noise of the freeway, and deliberately planned it so that the
internal part of the site is going to be composed of three-story buildings that
are going to be broken down, and they'll be 10 or 20-unit buildings. And
they're all connected, as Amy pointed out, by a singular loop road that meets
the neighborhood street design character. tied together internally by a series of
pedestrian streets or pedestrian connections that tie this corner of the site,
which is where the clubhouse and community center is, which is also
one of our more significant community open spaces, to a second open
space that's the central green. we've cited all the buildings so that the
outlook and the connection to the wetland buffer isn't impeded by having roads or parking
coming between the living units and those open spaces so you know all of these
moves that we've made in in planning the project are really consistent with the vision
that is in the central isaac plan in terms of design guidelines and and how
to make a space like this connected and make it a walkable community, make it
a safe place for kids to go out and play and be under the watchful
eyes of their parents or their neighbors and feel like it's not a place dominated
by cars, but a place for people. And so those were the really the guiding
forces that led us to doing a series of simple buildings that sort of play
off of a traditional Northwest farm vernacular with steep pitched
roofs and clapboard siding and a mix of colors
that'll help to brand the project as being a
pedestrian friendly place to live or to visit. So
this is a view as you come in the
main entry that we pointed out. where you're seeing the
clubhouse as the first element of the project that you come in contact
with. And the resultant community space that will have a series of garden
spaces and can act as a small amphitheater for neighborhood performances if that
becomes a desire. And a simple language of buildings that are three-story with
a relationship back to the street or to these pedestrian ways
that also serve as the primary entry for a lot of the buildings.
We understand the importance that this site plays in Issaquah. It is a
gateway site. It's extremely visible from I-90. And as I said before, the
way those buildings interact with the public on the freeway is
a different scenario than the way they're interacting with the public along
newport and and internally so we wanted to go back and spend
some time explaining exactly how the buildings behave along the freeway this
is one additional slide that shows that neighborhood green that's at
the east end of the property where the units look out. There's no
roadways going. All the entries to the buildings are coming off of this
pedestrian circle that accesses those buildings. And so there's a pretty substantial public
or private community space in the center that is a safe place for
kids. A lot of comments
came up at the last hearing concerning the big buildings that are along I-90, and
we wanted to give a chance to better explain what's happening there. There is quite
a bit of modulation both vertically and horizontally built into the plan and into the
architecture. we understand how important those first views of the project are we've
added some heavy timber elements as trellis that add some shadowing and some depth
to the elevation we have a mix of board and batten siding which is
a very traditional material and lap siding or clapboard siding And we've introduced a
strong vocabulary of sort of an accent color that plays into each of the buildings
and it acts as a bit of a way finding for people that are coming
there for the first time and also the people that live there.
So you can see there's quite a bit of modulation with the dormers and the
bearing roof forms, and we wanted to have this exaggerated steep-pitch roof as a common
element that exists in the smaller buildings as well as these two buildings that we
have along the freeway. And then between our buildings and I-90, which is here,
Our plan is to have a small evergreen forest eventually. I mean, there'll be smaller
trees going in, but eventually Douglas firs and cedars get to be quite large. And
that's a benefit, I think, both to the public as a foreground to the project
and to the people that are living there that have to look through them to
look across the freeway. So I think it benefits both the user and the public.
This is a view. as you're heading west along I-90. And it's a
similar treatment. We have the same sort of corner condition. Both buildings are
very similar and the corners play an important role in how those buildings
are perceived from the freeway. You can also see that You get
a glimpse into the smaller village beyond and the introduction of vibrant colors
and the scale of those buildings I think is a nice compliment to
the role that these larger buildings play along the freeway. This is just
a shot of The main entry to one of the four story buildings, we've
introduced some heavy timber elements as part of the entry statement. Because of the soil
conditions and the fact that we are parking underneath the building, which is why you're
not seeing parking lots from the freeway or parking lots surrounding these buildings, we've gone
to the expense to put all the parking for these larger buildings underneath the building
in a concrete garage. Because we have a high water table, we
have the buildings partially submerged. It's not completely buried, but it's partially
buried. And so we have the additional landscape berms along the street
edge to help soften that and a lot of decks that visually
connect back to the street. We talked earlier about the introduction of
color. The Northwest has a really special quality of light, very similar
to Scandinavia. This is kind of an inspirational shot of this kind of traditional
Scandinavian village. They're not shy about using color and we're not going this far with
it, but we thought it would be great to just get out of the beiges
and browns that you see so often in multifamily and have at least one part
of each building be memorable as far as the color. And so the strategy was
that we had five colors that were an accent color. and they'd be dispersed evenly
throughout the site so people can find their way back or they can use it
as a way of wayfinding for guests. So it's a simple language and it's a
simple kit of parts that's repeated throughout the entire project. And we have five building
types and each one shares that same kit of architectural parts. So
at the last meeting, I think people were having a hard time understanding the flat
elevations that we had that were required by the land use code to explain the
buildings. But we thought it would be better if we could put those elevations in
perspective so everyone could understand that there's really quite a bit of depth and modulation
and detail with the window openings, with the changes in siding, with the expanded roof
overhangs that were mentioned and we've responded to. So this is one of the 10
unit buildings that we have and we have two different types of the smaller 10
unit buildings and this is the other one so you can you can see there's
a consistency of how each of these is handled and then we have a building
that's twice as as large as that a 20 unit building and then finally we
have the the four-story building so that that are up against
the i-90 so amy had mentioned uh a small
discussion about the pitched roof. We embrace the idea of wanting to keep a
pitched roof on the four-story buildings because they think it's in more keeping with
the rest of the project. And even if the amendment doesn't pass before we
submit for a building permit, we have the option of either reducing the floor-to-floor,
reducing the pitch of that roof, or employing the bonus density
for affordable housing to achieve the additional height. So
one way or another the buildings will continue to
have a pitched roof. So this is one last slide of the community
building, which is very much a Northwest Farm building. And it'll be the focus for
a lot of activity within the project. People will pick up their mail there. There's
a swimming pool and an outside area and a performing area and quite a bit
of open space surrounding that. And that, as I said, will be the first part
of the project you see as you come in. So I just want
to thank everyone for their patience and if there are any questions or if
I can help clarify anything, I'm happy to do that. I'll give it back
to Amy. Thank you. No questions? It's been one talk about the design right
now or quite specific questions for the architect? Just a process question.
- Real quick, this is for staff. Timing wise, so this project was designed and
as designed is in excess of the height allowed in the current code. It's relying
on a code change if I recall from the last discussion. So timing wise as
far as the decision, I know staff's working on that, but I'm just curious about
timing wise with regard to consideration of the code amendment versus the schedule for this
project. Is there the ability for this project to benefit from a code change or
is this coming too soon for that benefit and we're going to see a design
change as a result? So the code amendments on the schedule
they have right now, and you know how those things go, but right
now they would be approved December 7th, which would be prior to when
we're anticipating building permits. So there would be the opportunity for this project
to retain the current design and move forward. They have
also, I believe Jim's last slide identified a couple of
ways that it's not a big difference in height. And
so by several different small things, they could retain the
character of the building, the pitched roofs, and comply with
the height requirements. The important thing for us is
that the character that's being presented can be achieved either with these small changes or
if the code amendment is approved on the schedule that it currently has. Great. Thank
you. Just one thing. This is the first time I think I've heard
of a bonus density that would have an affordable housing element. Could you let
us all know how many units that might be, the affordable housing element? So
I don't know off the top of my head. The way the bonus density
program works in central Issaquah, there is a base height and a base
floor area ratio. And if you exceed one or both of those, there's
a calculation that is based on the amount that you exceed that. So
for instance, and I'm not saying this is applicable to this building, but
if one floor was all that, you know, a part of one floor
exceeded the base height and that floor was 1,000 feet, then part
of it would be to be allowed to exceed that base height. Part
of it would be provided through affordable housing, and part of it would
be provided through one of three mechanisms which the builder can choose between,
which is either more affordable housing, open space, open space for the
public open space or money that is paid into a fund that the city
can use to either buy open space or provide affordable housing. And so the
builder can choose between those options. So one portion of meeting it, I think
it's a third, has to be done through affordable housing. Okay. The other two
thirds, they can do through one of those three or a combination. and
affordable housing is part of it, but they could also do the public open space
or pay into the fund for open space and affordable housing. Thank you for that
clarification. Yeah, you bet. Those are the two sort of priorities that were identified as
public needs to achieve the vision of Central East Quad. Excellent. Thank you. Any other
questions for the architect right now? Thanks, Amy. Okay, so
I did want to cover all the other small items under
architecture that was brought up last time. Commissioner Morgan, you did
mention about the eaves and how it's important to have eaves and I guess
illustration does show that they do have eaves now. And then other things that
were asked by of staff last time had to do with whether or not
we can condition this project to to keep the steep, the pitch
roofs. And based on the response from the architects, they're saying that
they will be able to do that. But in other words, last
time what we tried to explain to the commission is it's not
a requirement in the standards that this project has pitch roofs, but
there are other ways that they will be able to keep their
pitch roofs. So Oh, I guess I was a little ahead of myself. So the
other thing that we did mention in our response to the briefing memo is that
In the case where you were concerned about the flat roof, that this
wouldn't be appropriate for this building. So we provided you illustrations of another
building that you brought up as a representative of a Northwest building, and
that's these two bottom photos. And this is the group health building in
Bellevue. And in fact, it does have flat roofs. But with the use of,
again, a very expressive architectural element that's basically an extension of their roof,
they're still able to create that Northwest character. Not saying that this is
how we're going to, that we'll end up with this for this project,
given that we do have three options for keeping the pitch roofs. But
I wanted to make sure we cover all those responses. So item six
and seven has to do with basically the parking. There were concerns about
how this project does not have adequate parking for its residents
and concerns that the parking will spill over to Newport Way.
Apparently, that's kind of what's going on right now. So regarding
automobile parking, the project has required a minimum of 400 spaces,
and they are providing a total of 690 spaces both in
covered or garage parking and surface parking. So the standards has
a minimum and a maximum requirement. And based on the standards,
their maximum would have been $650. However, the intent of
Central Issaquah is to encourage parking to be in
garages. And so there's a footnote in the standard
that says that we only that the standards, the parking standards actually
apply only to surface parking because we are trying to discourage surface parking and we
really want to encourage more garage parking, which is what they're providing. For bicycle, so
the other question has to do with with Newport Way. As you have
seen in the previous diagrams for Newport Way, when the new design
for Newport Way is implemented or built, there won't be any space
where people can park. It was never intended for on-street parking. So
in fact, the current condition of Newport Way because of this
it is going to be very different than the future. And while
the current conditions allow or are in so many ways created that
on street parking situation that's a problem to the community right now,
that problem will be addressed by the new design of Newport Way.
Bicycle parking, this was more for clarification. I erroneously included wrong
numbers in the staff report. So no real issues. We just
want to come back with the correct numbers. They're required to
provide 99 spaces at 0.15 per bedroom. And so they are
providing 276 spaces. And that's a combination of bike parking in
their park or community spaces and also in each of the buildings,
which will be more long-term parking for the residents. - Amy, before
we move on, question on the parking again. Are we at or
below 655 surface stalls then? - Let me get that. So we,
so we, oh, it's not doing it. Previous, okay. So, As far
as the project, it is providing 690 spaces. So we are way above. But I
mean, that's the maximum, but that's the maximum surface dolls are 655. Are we at
or below the maximum number of surface dolls then? Oh, we are below. Yes, this
project is below. Yeah, great. It's closer to the minimum. Right. Thank you for clarification.
Thank you. Any other questions about parking? Just for future
reference, just educational on how this part of the code works. So you said that
below grade parking doesn't count. So if you have a project that has essentially most
of the parking below grade and you still have a minimum 400 space parking requirement,
how -- So, yes, so I got that clarification today from the
person who wrote this. So the intent, again, because the intent is
to discourage surface parking, then they're not required to provide 400 spaces
all on surface. It's just to ensure, again, like what the community,
you know, conversations. comments have said, you know, I mean, how do we know that
there's enough parking here? So we want to ensure that new projects do provide enough
parking so they don't impact their neighbors. But we're not going to penalize them by
forcing them to provide surface parking at the minimum. As long as they provide a
total that meets the minimum. All stalls count towards the minimum. Surface stalls only count
towards the maximum. That's a great way to explain it. Thank you. Just to add
on to Amy's explanation that part of the reason that we
don't count structured parking, one of the main reasons is there's
an economic disincentive to build unnecessary structured parking at $20,000 or
$30,000 a stall. It's unlikely that someone would build gratuitous parking,
whereas surface parking is relatively inexpensive to build and
easy to overbuild. So surface parking, everything, as you
said, everything counts towards meeting the minimum, the maximum.
It's only the surface parking that's restricted. Any more
questions? Okay. So now I'd like to talk about
item A, the neighborhood park. There was a question about
what type of activities will be programmed and will it
have opportunities for multi-generational use? And so what I did was
I included just a diagram. It's a bubble diagram that shows
what types of activities and spaces could be accommodated. So again, I
wanted to clarify that the neighborhood park will be developed at a very, very
basic level where it's going to have an open area where you can have
free play, but ultimately it will be dedicated to the city and city staff
will be responsible for planning and programming the spaces. So this is, if you
can think of this as a two-step planning and programming. The applicant
is providing something that's very basic, but we will, as staff,
we will reach out to the community to eventually determine what
are the appropriate types of uses for all these little bubbles.
But there's definitely, at the very basic level, we had worked together
with the developers and the applicants to at least identify what
could happen in those spaces. Regarding the location, there were some
questions about why isn't the park in the middle of the
site. And Jim mentioned earlier how part of the ideas for
the neighborhood park, first of all, to provide a buffer between
this new development and the existing Sammamish Point neighborhood. So while this green
area only shows this as the neighborhood park, there's also the shared
use trail that goes along here. So Sammamish Point condominiums will be
protected through this green green space between this project and
their community. The other purpose of locating it here is
we had to take into consideration that this park is
meant for everyone, not just and really not for the residents
themselves. So the closer it is to Newport Way, the more it's
going to be accessible to the larger Western Gateway neighborhood. And again,
we also provided a very convenient 10 foot wide multi-use trail Again,
to make it easy for people to find it, this trail connects out to Newport
Way and then this also connects all the way out to 19th Avenue Northwest, back
to, again, the other parts of the city. Parking and for park users,
there was a question about that. And so here where I provided the circle,
there will be eight parking spaces provided. We have talked to our park staff
about how many parking spaces they require and they think that this is adequate.
Again, it's because this is not meant to be a park for large sports
activities. activities and events. It's really meant to be a park that people in
the neighborhood can walk to or bike to. And in certain situations, you know,
special situations where you need to drive, then you do have those spaces, including
one ADA van accessible parking. And as far as ownership, as I
mentioned earlier, the park will be dedicated to the city and the maintenance
will be determined at a later time after we we work it work
out with our park staff on all the different programming and improvements that
will happen in this part. Oh, I'm sorry. Do you have any questions
regarding the park? How does that parking compared to a similar park
that size within the city? - I'm not sure that we do have, so
we didn't get to that level of discussion with our park staff. We did
check with them and they didn't have any issues with the eight spaces. -
Are you talking about the size of the park or the amount of-- -
Yeah, the size of the park relative to the amount of parking spaces the
public could use. - So, No parking is required. We
discussed with the Parks Department the amount of parking that
they thought would be appropriate and the applicant was willing
to provide that and so that's how we arrived at
the number of stalls that are provided. Thanks. Any other
questions on the park? No? Okay, Amy. Thank you. Sorry.
Okay, so the other aspect of the open spaces
that was brought up is the safety of children
and shade. So, So this applies to all the parks, not just
the significant open space, community spaces, which includes the neighborhood park and the shared
use route, but also the community spaces that are private and for their residents.
So for children's safety, I'll start with the bottom photo or illustration because this
shows you how Basically, three sides of their central green is
surrounded by sidewalks and only one side is close to
a vehicular path. And they also are going to provide
plantings and some natural barriers to enclose this area so
that children can play here safely. This photo here may be
a little bit harder to see, but basically they are providing a
low wall along here where they have their community sign for the
development. And also, again, if hopefully you remember what was on
the site plan, but over here they have terraces and outdoor seating
and they're all actually enclosed by low walls. So all the area
that's open and for the public will actually have some sort of
an enclosure, some natural or manmade barrier. And as far
as shade, there was a comment about why don't we have
more evergreen trees throughout the site that seems that we need
more shade and trees in the neighborhood park in the central
park. So again, we have to balance both shade and sun
given our lovely weather here, which I really love. Nine months
out of the year, we don't usually get sun. So it seems
like in this particular case, we do want more open areas for
something that's more pleasant. So item number
10 about affordable housing question was why aren't we requiring it? And so
the answer is it's not required or why are they not providing it?
Again, we can only ask for what's in the in the standards and
we have and may have an opportunity to get affordable housing with
the bonus density if that's what becomes the option for the applicant
regarding the pitch roofs. The mix of uses, again, the question,
so for item 12, the question was the central isoquavision is
for a mix of uses. So why don't we have mix
of uses here? So in the Western Gateway section, this particular
property is zoned Village Residential. Not Urban Village,
Village Residential. So what Village Residential conveys is that
this is going to be more residential. Although when you look at
the list of uses that are allowed, surely, you know, mixed use
developments are allowed here. So we cannot require a mixed use development
here. But we, you know, so we are so what they are
providing is compliant to what the standards requires. Regarding
plantings, item 11, again, a question about evergreen trees. I touched on
that with the park. They are providing evergreen trees along the edges
of the property where it is most appropriate in the wetland areas. Native
plants, we acknowledge that in fact in the development standards, we do
have requirements for 30% of trees and 30% of shrubs to be
native. So that's a given. There will be at the minimum 30%
native trees and native shrubs. Annuals and edibles, again, this is
already in the standard. We do have a revised condition, and I
included that in here. Basically, to clarify that we will be requiring
annuals and annuals at strategic locations and edibles in the appropriate context. So
for instance, if they're already having some sort of a pea patch,
those would be great places for edibles. Again, it's requiring something and
being reasonable as to where we require those things. So I'd like
to pause here to see if there are any questions. to
share just a clarifying question um so the revised conditions are included as attachment
one is that yeah staff report and condition 22 is talking about the
park impact fees and dedication of parks property i'm trying to match up
that revision to the appropriate condition just to make sure we captured it
i don't see any conditions so it's so renumbered as c1
C1, attachment 1. Oh, okay, in the back. Okay, gotcha. So if you look,
see, attachment 2 shows the original conditions with the original numbering, and then we
renumbered them all because we had eliminated so many. Okay, now I get it.
Thank you for that clarification. Thanks for asking. Any other questions? Is there a
PPATCH element planned? Not that I know of right now.
And can anyone answer that? That would be great to know. No. No? No
pea patch element? No pea patches. That would be a good addition, I think,
if we're going to include elements of edibles. I'd just like to talk
a little bit about the guiding principles of the CIP and address the affordable
housing. And I see that the whole thing is in compliance, but I'm just
going to read from the guiding principles of the CIP on page 14. Housing
calls for adding housing to the area in a variety of types and affordability
levels, including new mixed-use projects on existing commercial sites. to accommodate people of
all income levels in all stages of life. So as we're moving forward
and planning and developing, I think we need to really keep that guiding
principle in mind because a lot of people worked very hard on the
CIP and should be acknowledged. And I think every effort should be made
to add affordable housing element to this project. Thank you. Anything else? Any
other questions at this point? - No, okay.
- So now we're going to item
13 and 15. So item 13 was a
question about a fence along, an existing fence along the wash
dot mitigation site and whether that could be replaced. So given
that that site is not owned by this property owner, we
created a condition that gives us some sort of or gives them
and gives us some sort of a way to address this. It's a good
idea, but again, we can't force people to do something in another person's property.
So the proposed new condition says if changes to the fencing are allowed by
the easement protecting the Washedat Wetland Area and the existing fence is inconsistent
with the Central Issaquah Development and Design Standards, the
fence will be changed to comply with the standards.
So that is condition 41 in attachment one. -
Any questions? Okay. Okay, so item 15 has to do with
a connection on Schneider Creek. So the question was, you know, why can't
there, well, one of the question has to do with a sidewalk on
this edge. If you recall last time, we talked about an administrative
adjustment of standards for this street because they're not providing a sidewalk
here in lieu of providing a 10-foot wide sidewalk on the other
side of the street where we as staff determined that there's going
to be logically more people walking on this side and then the
other The other concern for us is that this is the edge of
the wetland buffer, so minimizing the impacts of people walking next to the
wetland and the wetland buffer. And then the question, and so in addition
to providing this 10-foot-wide walkway, They are also providing this soft surface trail
that allows people to still have a connection to the wetland or to
the natural area. And this soft surface trail will be provided at the
outer 50 feet of the buffer so that the inner 50 feet of
the buffer will be heavily vegetated and where the concentration of the
enhancement will be. So it's basically benefiting both the community and
also the natural environment. Another question has to do with the
connection across Snyder Creek. to what we call the phase
two, the senior housing project. So we are also, we have
included condition from the first meeting that requires this property owner
to provide an easement both for this connection and then the other
comment has to do with a connection through I-90. And again, as
I presented last time, we are also requiring an easement for a
connection for a future I-90 bridge from this property to across I-90.
Any questions about that? that future bridge idea where would
that land on the other side of we have so that's up to the city
- that's a responsibility of the city and we're not anywhere close to planning that
bridge but it's shown on the it's shown on the central is a clock plan
that there's supposed to be some sort of connection and it lands fairly it's meant
to connect close fairly closely to Sammamish State Park okay
Any questions on this? Amy, I have a question. Sorry. The soft trail
terminates at where the easement would be for the pedestrian pass going across,
but it doesn't appear to show a connection from that back to the
street. That's a good point. It seems like if you just get the
end and go all the way back around or just go through the
woods and back up onto the road. Yeah, I'm not
sure. Yeah, do you mean at the left or the right where her
cursor is now? So the phase two would be building that segment and
bridge and we've asked them to provide an easement so that if for
some reason they weren't building the second phase, Because that's a requirement
that project parcels are interconnected that the future subsequent owner would
be responsible for connecting that. But in the phase one, I
guess it seems strange. You would get to the end of
a trail and just stop and turn around or seems fairly
easy to connect it back to the... Bill Shields. 15020
Bear Creek Road, Northeast, Woodinville 98077. We looked at this project initially
with the idea that there would be a crossing. There is one
there right now, which is used for farm equipment. And that has
essentially the same alignment as shown on the drawing here.
It should have shown it was the idea that it not be a loop that
would take you out to the end and you have to walk all the way
back. So it was intended that it come in and I guess the drawing just
doesn't show that. So I think it's a good point. And of course, anyone coming
from the north crossing that may not want to take that long, long loop around.
So it's really intended to be for kind of a nature experience. So the connection
in the future to the senior housing on the west
side, there would be more of a direct connection into
the Gateway project. - I'll work on an edit to
condition 18 to clarify that. - Clarify that it connects,
great, thank you. - Can I get your name again?
- Bill Shields. - Are you just saying it? -
No, I'm a consultant. - Thank you, Amy. - Are
we okay? Okay, next one. So
there was a question about the extent of the boardwalk
that is part of the shared use route to Tibbetts
Creek and how whether or not it will terminate basically at the property
line or it would cross through the neighboring property, which is the Rowley
properties up to 19th Avenue. So the simple answer is it will be
connected all the way to 19th Avenue Northwest. And the applicant is
working with the Rowley properties to allow them to build that
section of the shared use route through the Rowley properties. And
we also basically provided a new condition that says the boardwalk will be
designed. Oh, I'm sorry. So the other question has to do with whether
the boardwalk will be designed to allow for wildlife passage underneath. Basically, it's
like a trestle or a trestle structure. And so the answer
is yes. And that is currently being designed. And so we
added a condition to say very clearly that it will be
provided with adequate clearance to allow for wildlife passage. Questions about
any questions? Okay. Okay, so impacts to existing city
and its residents. So we receive a lot of comments about concerns
regarding how such a big development will impact current fire and school
and police. and park services. And so first I'd like
to just mention again that there are, the developer is
providing community benefits which include a neighborhood park and a
shared use route. And also they will be required to
provide all the impact fees, both parks, fire, school, and
police And as mentioned earlier by Doug, by Doug
Schlapp, all the other transportation related impact fees and
also pedestrian and bike mitigation fees. And as far
as item 18 so the question is why are
these rental units and why aren't they condos or owner
occupied again we do not or the Central Issaquah Development
Standards does not specifically require development to be rental or property owned.
And having rental with home or owner occupied units is more consistent
with the vision of having a diversity and a mix of uses
in the central that was, you know, earlier referred to in the
Central Issaquah Plan. And again, I don't know if
the applicant wants to respond to this. You
guys, you're good? Okay. Any questions on this
one? No. Okay. So wetlands. So this is
where I'm going to invite the consultants to
talk a little bit. Commissioner Hicks last time
requested that more elaborate, I can't think of the
right word right now, but to expound on the whole proposal for
wetlands and critical areas enhancements. So I'd like, oh okay. So yes,
so I'm gonna start off by having them talk about that and
then I'll address the other wetland questions. Good
evening. My name is Anne Olson. My business address is 15020
Bear Creek Road, Northeast, Woodinville, Washington, 98117. So the question came
up as what are the categories of the wetlands? And there's
three wetlands on the project site, one along I-90. You could
use this. Yeah. Oh, okay. All right. One along I-90, we
call that Wetland B. One along the Arena Sports right here, which is Wetland A.
And then the large Tibbets Creek Wetland that extends off-site to the south along Tibbets
Creek. And they're all Category 3 wetlands, and these wetlands have been reviewed by the
city's peer review consultant and the categories have been verified. The category
requires that the wetlands have a 50 foot buffer and so the site is
bound by wetlands and then of course Schneider Creek up here and so the
wetlands are giving a 50 foot buffer on both the east and the
north and then an average 100 foot buffer for Schneider Creek on the west side
of the development. No development is proposed adjacent to the Tibbetts Creek Welland. It's a
portion of the site that is unaccessible except for the proposed shared used trail and
boardwalk. So what we are proposing to do is that all of
the buffers for the wetlands and Schneider Creek are going to be extensively
enhanced as part of this development. It will include a lot of evergreen
trees as requested by during the last development commission meeting as well as
many other native plants and trees, shrubs and so I guess that's all
I have. Are there any other questions? I was
reading through Matt Corsi's comments about the canary
reed grass and the plantings that will be
done to shade it out. And I wanted
to get some clarification on the species of shrubs and ground cover that will completely
shade out and smother the canary reed grass. So what we're doing up in the
Schneider Creek buffer area is we're actually going to bury the reed canary grass.
We're gonna bury it with some peat and some other soils to create
an undulating berm and create the trail. So that will basically eradicate the
reed canary grass within the Schneider Creek buffer area. The other buffer areas
along I-90 and wetland A along the arena sports club is we will
be planting a diverse collection of evergreen trees, Doug fir, western red
cedar, maybe some pinus, sicca spruce, and then along with that we'll
be planting deciduous trees and large shrubs. So what these will do
is they, reed canary grass is a tall grass, and so we
intend to plant species that are taller in the beginning of the
grass. They will grow and then eventually shade out the remaining grass
underneath them. brown covers would not be appropriate in some of
these areas because they would just be overtaken by the grasses and
probably smothered. I also had a question about the grading of the
stream banks. I want to make sure that it's clear that there
will be no grading of the stream banks below the OHWM. I'm
sorry, I'm not really sure what that acronym means. And
that the SEPA was revised to, I don't know, reflect that
there won't be any grading of the stream beds yes we have we are not
proposing any grading below with ordinary high water mark and that's what ohwm stands for
of schneider creek and we we clearly depicted that on the conceptual grading plan that
we proposed and and presented to the city and that's one of the agreements we
had with the city's environmental planner thank you for that clarification any other questions on
- Landscaping? Wetlands, I should say. Thank you very much. - You're welcome.
- Okay, I guess Anne answered all the questions on the wetlands, so
I will proceed unless somebody has a question for me. Okay,
density. So again, this is one of the topics that was brought
up last time. There was a request for clarification on how we
came up with the number that I had last time. So we
went back and recalculated the the lot area and we got more
clarification from the applicants also about the lot area. So first, let
me clarify that in the Central Issaquah standards, we do not use
density in terms of number of units for residential development. Everything in
Central Issaquah is based on floor area ratio. So the top
numbers show you how they complied with the floor area
ratio. For this particular part of central Issaquah, which is
zoned in the village residential, there is a minimum required
FAR of 0.75 for properties that are three acres or
more. So this applies to their site. Here is just basically
the calculation. And the calculation is also based on, again, this is
based on the standard, the developable area. So the developable area is
not the total lot area if you were to calculate from boundary
to boundary. The developable area takes out all the critical areas. And
so what remains is, what we base the FAR on. And so
based on that FAR, they are basically meeting the minimum requirement. And
actually, they're very close to the minimum FAR, which is .7. They're
proposing .78. So just to help respond to the question, is
this development actually what you would consider a medium density development
based on the Central Issaquah vision for the Western Gateway? So
one way that we looked at this is to look at
other existing residential development along Newport Way that was originally built under
a medium density standard. So these are the developments that are existing right
now that were built, except for Spyglass Hill. So Sammamish Point Condos and
Bentley House. So the Gateway Apartments using the traditional density
calculation of dwelling units per acre, again, not what the
standards require, but just to clarify how we determined that
this is a medium density development. It shows that it
is within the range of a medium density residential development.
Any questions on this one? Item 24, the question had
to do, and I think I already responded to this, but regarding
these parking and not having a sidewalk on this edge, there was
a question about the width of these parking spaces. There was a
concern that if we reduce it from eight feet to seven feet, that we'll
have some conditions that somebody had referred to the Issaquah Highlands where, you know,
parking where the parallel parking in the street were very, were the
experience was that they were very narrow. And so,
and the question about whether, how does these standards
compare to the Issaquah Highlands standards? So basically learning
from the lesson from the Issaquah Highlands, And Lucy answered
this question before since she was experienced on the Issaquah Islands. Those
spaces that were very tight were actually six feet wide. And so
these are obviously They're going to be seven feet,
and given the amount of open spaces on
one edge and this street, that there will
be what we believe will be adequate space
for parking. So I think I answered all.
So, Amy, I just want to clarify one thing. When we originally came to you,
we were talking with the applicant about seven feet. That's why I'm doing hand signs
out here. But in further discussion, they want to actually stay with the eight feet.
They would have the flexibility of going to seven, and we think that seven could
be appropriate. But I want to clarify that their design right now is for eight
feet. - Let me ask a question. So was that part, going to
seven would have been part of administrative adjustment of standards? - Right, so it's an
option that was recommended for approval within the staff report. And that was their previous
design. But I think partly in response to the commission's comments, partly, where they are
planning to stick with eight. So if they want to go to seven,
do they have to come back for an administrative adjustment of standards then?
That's that tricky word in there, administrative. So, no. They just go to
the administration for the adjustment, as anybody could in any development. Yes. So
what we'd be approving would be eight-foot wide stalls. They showed eight. We
had recommended approval for seven, so they could still have -- they would still have
the right to go to seven. Their plan proposes eight, and they don't anticipate a
need to use the seven. Right. So tonight we're approving eight-foot-wide. They would have to
go back to the staff -- back to the administration to get an adjustment if
they wanted to do that later. That would not be in our -- come in
front of us? It would not come in front of you. Okay. Any questions on
that? Thank you, Amy. Thank you
for the clarification. So the other question has to do
with the design of one of the streets serving the
five-story buildings. This was a situation where We instead
of having parallel parking with the standard street trees, they have garages and
parking on one side and then parallel parking on the other side.
So our neighborhood street standards obviously would have required the
same treatment on both sides of the street. This is
one situation where we balanced several goals and intent in
central Issaquah and the idea of encouraging parking obviously
inside garages and not having surface parking is reflected in
these smaller buildings here. And then at the same time,
we wanted to create a pedestrian friendly environment for just
the edge of the taller buildings. So the compromise was
to basically allow allow one side of the street again similar
to the rationale we had for the 10 foot wide sidewalk here.
understanding that it's highly unlikely that people will be walking right along a row
of parking that's not the most pleasant place to walk when you know that
you can walk on this edge of the building where you're going to have
benches, you know, they will there will be benches and and other pedestrian amenities
on this side of the street. Any questions for this one?
Okay, so off-site sewer main, there was a question about whether
the off-site sewer main will result in construction interruptions on Newport
Way. So the off-site sewer main that is required for this
project is actually going to connect on Poplar Way. So Newport
Way will not be impacted at all. And as far as
the dog park versus dog run, first, we wanted to clarify
that we were using those words interchangeably. And originally, we had
a condition which is struck out here where it talks about
requiring them to provide a dog park or dog run. However,
because this is not a requirement in the Central Sequoia Standards,
and although it is encouraged, and we did discuss this extensively
last time about the value of having one. So we revised
the condition to basically acknowledge that as much as we cannot
require a dog park, we know that there will be people living
here with dogs and they'll be walking their dogs. So there is a very
specific standard in the Central Sequoia Standards and Design, I'm sorry, Design,
Central El Salvador Development and Design Standards that does
require for a developer or an applicant to provide
some way of basically managing pet waste. And so
we did revise the condition 41 to basically
state that. And it's renumbered as condition C3
in your attachment, in attachment one of your
briefing memo. Any questions? So item 29. This
was also something that was a concern to the Development Commission and there
was some confusion about why are we asking for a special paving for
crosswalks? And there was a concern that it wasn't safe. So on the
right, we are basically providing two different types of treatment for crossings, for
pedestrian crossings that are in our street standards. and we are planning to
use both of them in this development. For areas where The crossing
are at the intersection of two streets. We will use the T36,
which is the standard painted crosswalk that as one commissioner had noted
last time is more intuitive because it's what people are used to.
And we recognize that there will be where you have intersections where
you have a lot two different directions of traffic going
on. That's probably appropriate. And then for areas where
they're simple connections and also connections for their pedestrian
circulation, we are going to use the paved, the
special paving as a way to distinguish those two
types. So both of them are acceptable and are covered in
our standards. The special paving is what was in the Central Issaquah standards as
a requirement. - I guess I'm being really dense, but I can't tell the
difference. They're both detailed T36. - Oh, I'm so sorry. - The top one's
36, the bottom one's 37. - Yeah. - Okay, thank you. - So this
one is T37. So this is a special paving. T36, my
typo. So I want to also identify a
feature of this special crossing. The paint or
the application of Durastripe or paint that is shown here would
be the same bordering the decorative painting or decorative crossing so you would be able
to see this crossing as you would this here. So they have the similar features
in identifying where people would cross and it's reflective and you'd be able to see
it at night as well as during the day and the color would be white.
Thank you. So the circles are showing the special paving that's
shown in the lower right corner. Okay, thank you. Any more
questions? So roof collar, this question came
up because we do have a standard that talks about roofs
should provide a reflective, a solar reflective index of 78. And
so we got clarification about that. And basically for roofs with
that, solar reflective index, they're pretty much white roofs. And given that
these buildings have pitch roofs and they're shown, as someone had
rightly commented last time, they're shown as more dark colored roofs.
So we did get some clarification that the solar reflective index
is only applicable to flatter roofs. And so it won't apply
to pitch roofs. Now I have
to look at item 33.
Okay, so item 33 was basically Commissioner Morgan's question to the
applicant last time if they had any concerns and they'd like
to express. And so we definitely heard their concerns and we
have been working with the applicant very closely on, and as
you can see in the briefing responses, We have responses and they
have responses. So we work together to basically address all the
concerns and the comments both from the public and the commission
last time. And we we have come to a point where
we really think that we have worked out a lot of those
questions and concerns from the last meeting. And so I'd like to
close out my presentation with just saying that we do feel very
good about the process and we are very appreciative about both the
public comments we've received and also just how the applicants have and their consultants
have worked very well with us to address a lot of these concerns. And
I would just add that Attachment 1 has these new conditions that we've met
many times and did a lot of email work with the applicant. And if
the commissioners have any comments or questions about how we got to them,
the final form, feel free to let us know. So
that's the end of your presentation, Amy. Does the applicant
have a presentation to make? No? Okay. Okay, so just
to close out my presentation, based on the submitted application
and plans, both from the August 5th, 2015 public hearing
and today's public hearing, the administration recommends that the Development Commission
move to approve the site development permit for the Issaquah Gateway
Apartments project file number SDP 15-00002 as described and evaluated
in the staff report dated August 5, 2015 with
attachments 1 to 10 and project drawings received August
1, 2015 briefing response memo dated September 16, 2015
with attachments one to eight, because today we added one more, and
subject to the conditions therein and as amended tonight. And secondly, direct the
Development Services Department to prepare findings of fact and conclusions for review and
approval by the Development Commission Chair, affirming the Development Commission's decision to approve
the Issaquah Gateway Apartments project. File number SDP 15-00002 as described and
evaluated in the staff report dated August 5th, 2015 with attachments
one to 10 and project drawings received August 1st, 2015 briefing
response memo dated September 16, 2015 with attachments one through eight
and subject to the conditions therein as amended tonight. Thank you.
- Great, thank you, Amy. Question for the commissioners. The plan had
been to at this point go to public comments and then take a break and
go through things. We're almost two hours in. Would we want to take a break
now, get a chance to read through the comments that came in today, let anybody
else sign up to speak if they want to, and then come back and do
public comments after the break? Do you have a preference either way? I'm fine
either way. Appreciate a break. I think, yes, I think the red liquid. Appreciate a
break. So we're going to take about a five-minute break. Again, if you want to
speak tonight with comments or questions, we've got a sign-up sheet down here that we'll
be going off of. We've got some comments to read through here on our break,
and we'll come back in about five minutes and start the public comments portion of
the meeting. Speed reading? Speed reading.
We'll call the meeting back to order again. And so we're at the point where
we'll have public comments and questions. Again, when you come to the microphone, please give
us your name and your address, either personal or business address. We'd like to keep
comments to three minutes or less if we can. And again, if you're just repeating
what somebody has already said, given that we're already well over two hours now into
the meeting, we don't want to extend it. any longer than it needs to be,
you can always just say I agree with what somebody said before. So we'll start
off, I'll go through the list. If I butcher your name, please forgive me. When
we're done going through this list of people that have signed up, if you decide
you do wanna speak, we'll still have time for that as well. So we'll start
out with Geraldine Carey.
My name is Geraldine Carey and I live at 955 17th Avenue,
Newport Way. 17th Avenue, 17th Avenue, in Issaquah. My driveway exits off
Newport Way. Sorry. I hate being at meetings like this because I
get nervous, but this is such a project that has so much
emotional turmoil to me. I hate it. I have lived in Issaquah 37
years and I see nothing but gridlock on Newport Way. I see nothing but headaches
for the city of Issaquah when this project and the other developments are done. You're
doing a disservice to the people in Issaquah. Nobody's gonna be able to get into
and out of Issaquah on Newport Way. When you dump 400 units of traffic
onto Newport Way, they're gonna either go west onto 90 and they can't get
on 90 because 90 is already gridlocked. I mean, unless you widen I-90 to
10 lanes in each, going into Seattle, you're not gonna be able to get
off of Newport Way. If you go into Issaquah on Newport Way, it's already
gridlocked past Summerhill. I just don't understand how you can
let this kind of traffic within the city of Issaquah
without making major changes to Newport Way. I mean, it's
just, I can't believe any of you guys You know, you're
doing something, you're getting paid, you're putting in a development, but you're messing with my
life. You're messing with the people in Issaquah. You're ruining our quality of life because
you're going to put this huge amount population that has nowhere to go on our
roads and you just pat yourself on the back and say I'm doing a good
job I'm making a nice apartment well to me they're dumpy looking they remind me
of what low-income housing looks like on SR 900 going down into Renton on the
right side of the road I mean, I see no quality. I see nothing
desirable about it. You're making the access into your development beautiful, easy, everything. But the
rest of us who have to get on the Newport Way can't do it because
of the traffic you're gonna put on that road. And you know, I don't understand
why you can't get it. I drive that road probably three or four times a
day into the city, into Bellevue, into Renton, And, you know, traffic is
bad enough. They lowered the speed limit to 30 miles an hour. You know, that's
good, but when you add 600, 2,000 more car traffic, car trips a day, I'm
not going to be able to get out of my house. You can, you know,
your people will be fine, but the rest of us who live on Newport Way
are just going to be locked in our driveways, broadsided because your traffic is going
to hit us. And I hope you understand I hope you read and
you understand what you're doing to the city, to me, to residents. You're
gonna ruin the rest of my life here with your development. And I
hope what goes around comes around to you. Thank you. - Thank you,
Ms. Kerry. - Sorry, I just get emotional when I think about it.
- Thank you. The next is Tina Confort. - Hello, my name is
Tina Confort and I live in 1220 Oakwood Place, Northwest Issaquah.
And I believe we're here tonight for all of the
same reason. The Gateway Project 400 units will triple the
traffic along the Newport Way corridor. This project needs to
be postponed until all the traffic start is completely done.
The Gateway Project second exit should be looking in the
for construction vehicles Newport Way is another homely way
for the construction projects. Here are some of the alternatives. Mr.
Wolf should negotiate with the owner of the private road, Mr.
Raleigh, for the use of the private road along the High
90, or the use of the road Northwest Gilman Boulevard, which
connects to the private road along the High 90.
Road easements are for the purpose to provide for current
or future improved public roadways. To avoid the land lack
of parcel or for general public accesses, these easements are
acquired through a number of ways. The most common are
easements dedicated by property owners during the development process.
court ruling, imminent domain, subdivision, exercise of prescriptive
rights and by voluntary action. Please take into
consideration the suggestion and the alternative because Newport
Way cannot take any more traffic. Newport Way
cannot take another child's life, mortality. I am
the next door neighbor of that child. I feel every day
the parents, what they go through, it goes through in me.
You don't understand, but I do as a neighbor. So this,
the Newport Way development gateway, it need to be more traffic
study, how they gonna handle the traffic go through only Newport
Way. And where are the vehicles from the construction, the
trucks are going to go by? Are they going to go by
Newport Way? Newport Way is a design corridor, no trucks allowed. So
find other way to direct the traffic. And I am going to
conclude with my comments by, I am concluding the City of FISA
Quad Government to postpone the Gateway Project. and to improve the
crosswalk along Newport Way for traffic and pedestrian cyclist safety.
Remember, safety comes first. We don't want to see no
more lives, no little child lost life on the corner
of Summer Hill and Newport Way. Thanks for listening. -
Thank you. And next up is Joe Verner. Okay, we'll
go to Jim Lippincott.
I'm Jim Lipencott. I'm at 2258 Newport Way Northwest in the
Sammamish Point condominiums. I sent a couple emails today, one to
you guys and one to Amy. We did receive those. OK.
Yes. Hopefully you had a chance to review them. That's what
we did on our break. Good. My concern is I'm very
concerned personally with Newport Way being widened to an extent where it
infringes on our current land. I understand there's going to be a parkway. I
understand there's going to be a 10-foot sidewalk and a 4-foot vegetation side area
and a center lane and two bike lanes. And I don't know how they're
going to do that without saying, you know, we need your fence. We're going
to come into your front yard. I want to
extend an invitation to Doug Schlepp, Jeff Stram, come meet me. Come have
a cup of coffee. Come bring a tape measure. Let's talk about it.
Let's look at it seriously. Provide some sort of confidence to the Sammamish
Point that we're being considered in this. I know there's power lines on
the south side run by the PUD. I really think those could be
moved back to where there's a a chance for both the north
and south to share some of this widening that's going to go on instead of
everything coming off the north side and Samaritan's Point. That needs to be discussed. We
got a chance to get this project right. And if it takes an extra month
and another development board meeting to do that, let's have the integrity to do that.
Take a little more time. Thank you for your time. CHRIS JERRAM: Thank you. Next
would be Hart Sugarman. Good
evening. My name is Hart Sugarman and I live at 2550 Northwest Oak Crest Drive.
Resident of Issaquah for over 19 years. Watching the city grow in population from when
I arrived here it was 13,000. Now it's 34,000. So we know the city's growing
but it has to be controlled and you're the folks that have the say of
what goes on here and controlling the growth of the city. when i last spoke
in the august 5th meeting i threw out some numbers and i wanted to just
present them more on a platform here we can read it in our current community
of summer hill we're 55 homes spyglass is 50 sammamish point is 132 bentley is
47 and pine cone neighborhood is 78. so today we have 362 residents With the
developments on the books, we have Gateway Apartments at 400, the senior apartments at 136,
Bergsma at 78, and Reeve at 33, so we're up to 647. So as the
lady mentioned, the first public comment this evening, we can't get out of our driveways,
we can't get out of our roadways because of the traffic that's flowing on Newport
Way. So increased volume of traffic is impacting the entire community where we live. Now,
this evening we saw cross sections of two proposed roadways, one with the center third
lane and the other one with the tree line in the center. The tree line
in the center is definitely not the way to go because with the backup of
traffic today, if you're only going to have one lane in each direction and there's
an emergency vehicle that has to get through, where does the car in the single
lane pull over to and how can a fire truck pass that car when there's
a tree in the center? The center tree line also prevents people from seeing the
roadway. We have curves in the roadway. We have sight lines to deal with. So
we have to be able to see the cars that are approaching and the pedestrians.
I'm an advocate for pedestrian safety, cyclist safety, and motor safety. So we have to
keep that in mind. So as you go through with the decisions on these projects,
You have to make the roadway improvements first before the development begins construction. A petition
was submitted to the City of Issaquah to do that, and I suggest that we
all pause at this time, make the improvements as a whole, not piecemeal. You can't
do one section now and another section later. Complete the improvements of the infrastructure and
then start the development. Thank you very much. Thank you.
Next would be Bob Crotchy. Close. Crotchy.
Crotchy. Bob Crotchy. I live at 2150
Newport Way, northwest in Sammamish Point.
I've been in this area, Issaquah, for 13 years, and Newport Way is
from this new project, the Gateway Projects. It's just going to make Newport
a mess. And I suggest that I know that there was a traffic
study, but It needs to be more comprehensive. And now that
the speed limit is 30 miles an hour, it needs
to be redone. I understand it was done by the
developer. It needs to be done independently and a thorough
traffic study done. And that's the big thing with me.
But anyway, that's it. Thank you. Carol Lopez. Hi, good
evening. I have a list here of 10 items that I put together since the
last public hearing. And I want to once again start by thanking all of you
for your hard work. I do appreciate your hard work, the attention that you all
are putting into this project. and the considerations, I appreciate that Amy was going through
some of the things that I have on my list as concerns. Just by way
of background, I need to back up a little bit and identify myself. Carol Lopez.
I live at 2262 Newport Way Northwest, Issaquah. I've lived at Sammamish Point Condominiums for
17 years. For five years I served on the board, the HOA board at Sammamish
Point Condominiums as a vice president, as a treasurer, and until March of last year
I served my final year there as president of the HOA at Sammamish Point Condominiums.
So I'm well aware of the various concerns that we do have in our community.
I'm very appreciative. Ms. Lopez, just letting you know too, we did get a copy
of your 10 points. Very good, thank you. You're welcome. I'm just going to run
through these very quickly. Some have been addressed by Amy, so I'll just dig in
here. First of all, the traffic studies. I appreciate that there have been various traffic
studies referenced. However, I am still not convinced that there has been a traffic study
done independently that is validated by a third party that adequately addresses
the concerns of the community. It seems, my impression is, that we are
relying on traffic studies and projections done by the developer and while I
appreciate their work, it seems to me there's a conflict of interest here.
So that's number one. I don't understand why we're relying on that type of study
rather than running an independent study. And again, as Bob was saying earlier, now that
the speed limit has been reduced from 40 miles per hour to 30 miles per
hour, it seems to me that we do need to reevaluate the traffic and congestion
and projections for Newport Way. I'm also very concerned that tonight I saw and it
became more clear to me that there are plans to turn Newport Way into a
three-lane arterial. This is a huge concern. We at Sammamish Point Condominiums are going to
be the next-door neighbors should you proceed with this complex. And to turn Newport Way
into a three-lane arterial, where in the world are you going to find the room
for this? We have backyards, we have patios, we have a whole
group of homeowners in a 132 unit community who have purchased property. And
these are homes, these are investments, this is where we live. and the
prospect of widening Newport Way says, "Okay, well where are you going to get that?"
Our property line is at risk. Our 10-foot easement is at risk. And our safety
is at risk. So I'm concerned about that. Number two, my item number two is
one entrance and egress. I heard the comment earlier that the applicant feels that one
entrance and egress is adequate. I disagree. I think that too, we in our
smaller unit, smaller property, have two and we depend on them, we
use them. And so it does seem to me that two entrances
is more than appropriate should you proceed with this complex. Number three,
the width of Newport. Why I already addressed that. Also, I wanted to note on
this that when we have snow, and we do still get snow, we didn't get
much snow last year, but when snow occurs, and this has occurred many, many times
through the years where in Issaquah the snowfall comes, and guess what? A lot of
the surrounding communities, which we are a foothill community, have issues where the cars are
not able to drive up the streets because of the snow. So Newport Way
becomes where they park. We're talking about the residents of Lakemont, of Squawk Mountain,
of Tallis, of the Issaquah Highlands, Oftentimes, we have had instances where they have not
been able to get up into their communities. So this needs to be taken into
account. Newport Way becomes where they park in those instances until the snow melts down
enough to where they can retrieve their cars. Number four, parking spaces. I heard the
comments tonight about parking spaces. It appears that they're enough. We are very
concerned at Sammamish Point Condominiums that the residents of this proposed community will
be using our guest parking spots. Part of the reason people have purchased property in
Sammamish Point is the various amenities. We don't have a community center. There are various
things we don't have, but we do have, we have a beautiful landscape. We have
a certain density. It's not above a certain density. And we have guest parking. So
where, you know, what's going to happen to our guest parking once this community that
you're proposing opens up? We are very concerned that it will be at risk. Item
number five, we have a 10 foot easement surrounding the perimeter of our community and
we are very concerned that some of the maps do not reflect this 10 foot
easement. So we would like to strongly encourage that it be taken into account and
really it should be even wider. So Ms. Lopez, I'm going to ask you again
with a three minute limit. Yes. Give everybody the time to speak. If you can
get through the rest of these things in a minute, that would be great. I
will. I will. Sure. Again, we have all these. You have all those. Yes, but
they don't. Okay. So I'm going to run through them very quickly. Apartments. I heard
that the issue of why are apartments versus homeowner residents being built and being proposed
here. Um, Still, I am not, personally, I am not satisfied
that this has been addressed properly. Apartments do bring in residents who
are not property taxpayers and this complex will add to the taxpayer
burden for Issaquah. Number seven, again, just here, this is a request
for mitigation that any of the construction vehicles should you proceed, will
not use Newport Way. Newport Way will be a nightmare for the next many years,
for the next foreseeable years because of construction where you can imagine where there's one
lane in each direction and you've got flaggers with construction and turning it into literally
one lane and people trying to commute to work and from work. Wetlands, the land
itself is wetlands. Our property itself is saturated most of the year. We have
buildings that are now having to have budget where we have gaps appearing, where
the base of our building is appearing because the land is saturated and we
are uphill from this proposed complex. So we are concerned that the construction itself
will put the soundness of our buildings at risk. Number nine, school bus traffic
days. There's no current plan for mitigating the increase in number and frequency, school buses
along Newport Way. And number 10, the proposed two acre park, that would be inside
the complex here. From my understanding, the proposal is for land grading only and the
property taxpayers of Issaquah, not the residents of this complex, would end up covering the
cost of creating and maintaining the park itself. So just trying to run through these
very quickly with a little bit of elaboration, but I appreciate your comments and that's
all I have tonight. Thank you. - Thank you very much. Next is Matt Corsi.
I'm sorry, we're going to have
to charge you anyway, so sorry.
Next is Jessie Claussen. OK. Great,
thank you. Peggy Foster. OK. Hi.
I'm Peggy Foster. I live at
2254 Newport Way Northwest. I've been
living on Issaquah-- excuse me, Newport
Way for about 8 and 1/2
years. And I've noticed-- oh, thanks.
I've noticed that the traffic concerns have gotten worse over the last several years. There
are times when I'm sitting at my entrance, the west entrance, just trying to merge
onto traffic. And I sit there and I wait and I wait and I wait
because there's already so much traffic. But anyway, wanted to -- sorry, I digress.
I know that the project proposed is apartments, but I would like
to invite the committee to consider an urban village, which I believe
was something that was considered early on in the plan. And I'm
wondering, does the Gateway Apartment project align with the vision and the
goals of the Central Issaquah plan? I'm not so sure how that
works. Oh, thanks. Thank you. So taken just directly from the plan,
the vision to inspire an animated and connected urban community where pedestrians are priority,
buildings and open space. The apartment project addresses a lot of this, but it's
just for the residents in the apartment. It doesn't integrate anyone else in the
community. There's two little or two public parks, but again, the city taxpayers are
paying for that, not the developer. And then it talks about the goal
to create a compact, attractive, mixed-use urban community that prioritizes pedestrian safety and comfort
and enhances the quality of life for the community, not just the project. So
I have a couple of examples. I've done quite a bit of research since
I've been getting involved in this. And it's working in other cities, the urban
villages. There's no reason why it can't work in Issaquah as well.
Here's another example, the Juanita Neighborhood Plan. It's a little colorful, it's kind of
fun, but they've got restaurants and coffee shops and things that people can walk
to and anyone in the community can go there. It's not just for the
residents of the building. Again, in Bothell, same thing. They've got apartment buildings that
have retail on the bottom floor.
So I guess my question is why are we doing apartments instead of multifamily residences?
You're proposing 400 apartments, 18 buildings. There's a little bit of talk about affordable housing,
but it's not a requirement. But it is in the Issaquah plan, so I don't
quite understand why it's not included. There's a proposed neighborhood park, but it's just an
open space. And we're concerned that it does infringe on our protected buffer by
Sammamish Point. The site entrance egress which you've heard time and time again, one access
for a complex of 400 units, probably 800 or more people, does not make sense.
A smaller community of 132 units has two entrances. So one entrance
just doesn't make sense at all. A private clubhouse is not a public gathering space
and the Issaquah plan talks about promoting public gathering spaces. And the proposed parkway is
not pedestrian friendly. It's not a good idea for anybody. The traffic study that I
keep hearing about seems to me to be very narrow minded. It's just talking about
the impact that this one project will have on Newport Way. There are several others
that also should be considered. So, not to, I don't mean to criticize, but there's,
you know, I think there's a better plan. I think there's a better way to
use this land to integrate it so that the people of the community are involved
more. And I don't need to go into that. So, just in closing, anyone can
build an apartment project. but it takes vision and a passion to create a
livable, sustainable, and interactive community. I've heard several council members, I've been going to
a lot of council meetings, several council members have said, "We need to be
more forward thinking in our decision making process," and I agree with that.
I want this growth to be a positive change and how we implement it is
going to make a big difference in not only our generation but generations to come.
So I just want to say what's the rush? Can we work with us? Can
we sit down and figure this out together? Lastly, let's make the Western Gateway
the next catalyst project. I know that that's a hot
thing on the agenda for this Central Issaquah plan. So
thank you for listening. Thank you. Next is Mike Pierce.
I'm going to delete this because then I won't know
what to say. So I took notes on my phone.
Mike Pierce, 2228 Newport Way, Northwest of Mamish Point. Moved
in there in 1999. And I live right on the edge
of Sammamish Point and about maybe five yards away from my patio on the first
floor is the fence to the field where this project's gonna be developed. I'm going
to be directly impacted by all the construction and all that. So that's a big
part of my thoughts. Just want to say I agree with a lot with the
traffic, comments from the other people that it's already very, very, very dense and very
hard to get on in the mornings. You have to wait a minute before you
get a break between cars and then go very quickly to get on. So this
will just probably double that impact. So I agree there should be an independent study.
One of the things I personally was told by my real estate agent was that
the land next to the condo complex, that couldn't be developed. That it was protected
environmental land. So I want to know was my real estate agent lying to me
or did the zoning change? And I don't know if you want to stop and
answer or just go into the record and you answer later. We wouldn't be the
ones to answer that question for you. Okay. Sorry. So it can go into the
record, but I would suggest that you could talk to city staff about that. Okay.
Yeah. All right. Uh, what, what is the, I have, you kind of logistical questions.
What's the expected length of the construction project that, you know, start to finish of
the, building? Do we have that information? That would be something that we can bring
up after public comments. We'll make a note of that and we'll ask that question
for you. Yeah, I have other kinds of questions like that. So when we say
affordable housing, is that just cheaper housing or is it government subsidized housing? Again, I'll
let staff maybe give a quick answer to that. It's not subsidized. It just has
to meet certain income levels that are established. All right. And a question about
the access to Poplar Way, I guess, is the private road. It seems like, I
mean, businesses have access to it. It seems weird that you can't get access to
the residential unit. but that would really alleviate a lot of the traffic
problems and that would mitigate a lot of our concerns. So question about
ordinances for when construction can be done. Can they be done seven days
a week or what are the, in time of day? Because I'm living right
next to that. It will directly impact me. So you know what I would suggest,
Mike, because these are all great questions, if we could just have a conversation afterwards,
we'd be glad to answer all of these. Sure. It's only five days a week
unless they get special permission. Understood. Okay. Yeah, so noise impact, I'm concerned about this
could affect real estate value. I'm a homeowner, and we just recovered from-- we just
are barely rebounding from the big crash and getting back to where we were. So
the nature of the housing and the construction while it's going on could affect if
you're trying to sell during that period. So I'm concerned about that. And of course,
the traffic as mentioned. So thanks for listening. Appreciate it. Thank you very much. Jesse
Hartman.
My name is Jesse Hartman. I live at 2274 Newport Way
Northwest and in the Sammamish Point community. And I'm the president
of our homeowners association. First, I want to thank the committee
here and everyone that's worked on this project, developers, consultants, everybody.
I know it takes a lot for this to happen. Before
I begin, I do just want to make one comment about
A concern I have and that is that half the people that were here at
7 o'clock are no longer here and I don't know how this could be changed
in a way that would allow for more of the people that do want to
participate in this to participate, but I feel that there's a void in their voices.
Issaquah The population of Issaquah has doubled in the last 12
years since 2002. Issaquah High School is already overwhelmed and has portables
that they're using. When I was reading the voters
pamphlet for the city can't everyone running for city council the main thing on every
single one of them was transportation infrastructure the population is growing how are we going
to get around and my concern here like everyone else is one of those is
transportation. Also, I believe that a speed study was done,
but to my knowledge, no traffic, full traffic study was done, and that
may be erroneous, but if that could also be looked into. I know
that there was a study and someone said earlier that there's 10,000 vehicles
a day and this would be adding 2,500 vehicles, which would be roughly
a 12% gain because of different factors. What I can say to that is,
although that may be true, there's no study that can convince me that when I
go out every single morning at 7:00 a.m. and try to get home at 5:00
p.m. and I'm sitting at a stoplight at the same red light three consecutive lights
before I can get through, that adding cars, more cars to that is going to
somehow not impact me more than 12%. It's really hard for me to believe.
Also with 10,000 cars on Newport Way every day and my estimate of 100 cars
per day on Poplar Way, it seems like since there's infrastructure there and it would
be easiest for access and a lot of other reasons, that seems like a very
obvious reason to, and I know that there's other moving parts to that, but to
use that at least for the construction part of the project. And
lastly, I just wanted to address earlier, I heard many times discussing the vision of
this project, the vision of Issaquah, the vision of this area, the vision of this
project. And what I kept asking myself is whose vision is this? Who came together
and decided this vision? And I'm sure there was a group and a collaboration and
everything. I'm thinking the heart who is up here with his, you know, the
362 homes that live, all of us that live there, no one has asked me
about my input on this vision. And I don't think anyone else that lives there
has been asked either. And as a major stakeholder in this, I would very much
welcome being part of that. that conversation and that process, as well as
our entire neighborhood and community. And so what I ask, or actually I'd just
like to invite anyone and everyone to, as Jim suggested, come over and take
a look around. Come at seven in the morning or five o'clock at night
and just drive from one end to the other on Newport Way. If you
like coffee, I'll buy you a cup of coffee in addition. But more
than anything, I guess what I want to do is just ask that we slow
down this process a little bit and ensure that all the voices are heard and
that we're making wise choices because these are very long-lasting choices. I want to make
sure that it's not only in our best interest, but in the best interest of
Issaquah as a whole and our community moving forward. Thank you. Thank you. Jan Munion?
- Hi, I'm Jan Munyon, I live at 2136 Newport Way Northwest. That's the Sammamish
Point condominiums and I've lived there for 18 years. I agree with many of the
comments that have already been made tonight. I just wanted to add one brief comment.
I would like to request further consideration about making Newport a parkway with median in
the middle and trees. I do understand the necessity if there's going to be more
traffic of adding turn lanes But I'm already having difficulty when there are bikers, even
though there's a bike lane, sometimes they're right on that line and the only way
to pass them safely is to wait for no traffic coming the opposite direction and
go into the opposite lane a little bit. And if we have emergency vehicles,
as somebody already stated, there's no place to
go to the side to allow them to
pass. So if there needs to be narrowing
of the lanes, please don't add trees in
the median so that there's no option at
all of going any place. Thank you very
much. - Thank you. Wei Li Shen, no?
Mary Lynch. - Where can I put my
drive in?
I'm Mary Lynch. I reside at 2690 Northwest Oakcrest Drive, Issaquah, Washington.
First of all, I do know and want to thank Amy and
everybody for the work that you've done on this project. I know
it's complex, but I also, the email that you didn't get was
one that I had trouble getting. because it was posted online incorrect, as
is a lot of the documents for this project that we've had to call and
get redone or wait to get. But it was a notice of a meeting tomorrow
with Land and Shores where the City Council is still reviewing a major part of
the central area plan to rewrite it and bring it up to what they think
is real. clear documents and to redefine or better define some of the standards
in it. So some of the problems Amy's having is because there are a
lot of conflicts in the existing central area plan. And they want
to resolve those. And that's not going to be done until December 7th at best
is what I hear. But I even had trouble getting the document so I could
get it to you to see what they are going to be reviewing tomorrow night
to show how it might affect this project. The other thing is we really seemed
to be rushing this project. Number one, there was no community hearing for this, so
our input was not gotten. This is the only way we've been able to give
our input. And even these meetings have been rushed, held during vacation time and all.
We did invite the developer to our Newport Way community meeting in July, and he
opted not or they opted not to come to our community meeting because we were
interested in working with the developer on this project. That being said, let me show
you Something that the dot, dot, dot in Amy's presentation as far
as primary uses, well-designed, moderated density residential and office buildings. That's what we've
been told a lot over the years is this was going to be
an office complex, wasn't really going to affect us or have heavy density
or impact our area. But that is what is in the current central
area plan. So residential, moderate, and office buildings. Let's look
at another one. A gateway, an arrival into Issaquah where
it is a unique history and connection with nature is
visible. A harmony with nature and a blending with green
environments. Let forms and the built of environment reinforce the
arrival into the natural and modest in scale. That's also
part of the central area plan.
There's a lot that was said about and been talked about this crosswalk study that
we have not seen. It's supposed to be out on October 1st for Newport Way.
But if it's like every other typical study we've seen from the city, what the
city traffic people study is speeds, the 85% rule. They don't look at the topography.
They don't look at sight line distances. Since July 6th, I have asked the city
to give me copies of Traffic studies that they've done to this date. The
only thing I've gotten is a few 80% speed studies I then also requested accident
counts and you received earlier. We've had over 400 accidents over the last 20 years
along this stretch of road I haven't gotten the copies of the police reports because
all they state is accidents and injuries They don't tell me the nature of that
So I can't tell you was it speed, what it was, but I have seen
no city study that's looked at the accidents and what maybe the topography or the
way our entrances are designed has caused that. So to go ahead with this project,
knowing that we've had major accidents, we've already had one death along here and we've
had near deaths last December with the shirts who were out at due to traffic.
And in that accident, they weren't cited for speeding. but they were almost killed in
that. If you haven't seen that video, it's in July 6th meeting. You ought to
go look at that one. But we've had over 400 accidents on this stretch road.
Nothing's been studied as part of what this impact of putting these additional cars is
going to do to this. The central area traffic plan looked at flow. It didn't
look at accidents. It didn't look at local versus through traffic. It looked at flow.
So when you're looking at a traffic study and when you're gonna bring more cars
onto a local area, you have to look at topography, you have to look at
sightline distances, you have to put crosswalks in. The parkway, if you look at the
conceptual definition, no one's done a design study on how that's gonna lay on the
topography of our area. It's a conceptual presentation, but the definition in the central area
plan is for high speed, not pedestrian friendly. So how are we going to get
to the park? Those of us that live on the other side, not pedestrian friendly.
We can't walk down to where the new intersection is because there's no sidewalks on
that side of the street. So how are we going to get to the park?
It's only not going to be finished unless the city funds it. The other thing
in the transportation plan for Newport Way, there is nothing in the transportation plan that
has any money or funding for Newport Way for 20 years. Mary, just quickly, again,
the three-minute limit, we're well beyond that now, so if you can speed it up
and finish it. I have asked a lot of questions about construction and the use
of Poplar. I want to show one more quick slide then. It's part of the
central area plan on existing streets. Yes. If you look
at this one, Poplar is and was recognized as an existing street in the central
area plan. We've done it for Maple. Why can't we work with this other developer
and get this developer working together? And why are we going to have a multimodal
trail inside this property that goes to nowhere? Why don't we work with Raleigh on
both Poplar and the multimodal trail and make sure we have pedestrian access and safe
ways into the city? Thank you
very much. Is there anybody else that would like to speak? Come on up
and again, your name and address. Good evening. My name is John Dubois. I
live at 1215 Oakwood Place, Northwest Issaquah. That's the Summerhill subdivision. I'm the president
of the Homeowners Association. I've lived in this neighborhood for 30 years. Issaquah and
this neighborhood is basically the home that I moved into when I moved into
Washington State. But the bottom line for me in my comment, and I haven't
heard anybody say this, As a resident of Issaquah, I would not recommend
a new home, a new resident moving into the city based on my experience
living where I am. So if that's shared by anybody else based on traffic,
commitment of the city to building infrastructure before development takes place, for keeping in
mind the interest and concerns of residents. I actually have had people at work
who are looking for neighborhoods and I pointed them in other directions. from
issaquah so that's that's definitely something that points to the health of the community and
should be a concern of the development i also would would like to agree with
some of the comments that were made about the traffic studies averages are not peak
flows trying to get out of the neighborhood in the morning an average flow of
10 is not the same of 500 cars all within a compressed period of time
as opposed to over a long a much longer period of time And I think
that the apartment development itself is probably fairly reasonable in its consideration in some of
the things that have been discussed about it. But I think of it, it's an
apartment complex. It's not a neighborhood. The neighborhood is part of, it's going to be
part of a larger scheme. It includes other communities around it. And I'm not sure
those concerns have actually been adequately addressed. The last comment is that while the pictures
of the neighborhood were very nice, I didn't see any cars in those pictures. It
gives you a very nice view of what that might look like without the parking
spaces and the actual physical condition that that development would actually look like when it's
finally constructed. I'm an electric car owner. I didn't see anything in the plans to
have any electric charging facilities there so people could park their cars. I know it's
very difficult in apartment complex for people that have made investments like that to actually
install places where those vehicles can be charged. In Issaquah Highlands, for example, there's one
or two public use facilities that are close to the apartments that are up there.
And it has been an ongoing discussion with the Seattle Electric Vehicle Association and some
other groups that are promoting the use of non-polluting transportation in the Seattle area, the
difficulty of apartment dwellers to be able to actually access facilities that would encourage their
use. So thank you very much. Thank you. Anybody else who would like to speak?
My name is Connie Marsh and I have a store at 1175 Northwest Gilman Boulevard,
Suite B11 and I also live in Issaquah. And I'm going to start small with
my evergreen trees because evergreen trees actually are one of the stereotypic Pacific Northwest things
and in most of our recent developments they have been excluded. And in J in
the landscape code, it says broad leafed large deciduous trees and conifers are the
first priority to landscape with. So I would ask the city reconsider the concept
of not including conifers. And I've been through this with some of you over
there before and I know you don't like them much but I think people
in this town do like them. Also, These people do own the WSDOT
parcel. WSDOT only has a conservation easement over the parcel with the fencing. I have
a copy of the conservation easement for that, and it is owned by this land
owner. So that's not what Amy said. She said we cannot change the fencing on
someone else's property. The conservation easement expressly allows the changing of fencing as long as
WSDOT agrees. So I know that's true. I read it. The stream is basically in
a ditch and it would be better off being removed out of the ditch because
it is an agricultural ditch that it was shoved into. So if we had actually
been able to get grading on the sides of that stream, we could have actually
created some honest to God good habitat but they refused to do that because they
didn't want to get into the stream and I consider that a loss. They sort
of peripherally are working at it but that made me very sad. Then I'm getting
down to things that are maybe a little more interesting like the people who
live in the area on Newport Way and the potential of having four
individual developments come down simultaneously on a heavily trafficked corridor with not a
very good construction plan. So one thing I saw on our hill is the construction
people set up Twitter accounts that all the neighborhoods got to sign up for. And
so every day there was a new Twitter feed indicating what was going to be
happening a day to alleviate some of the concerns that were happening in the community.
And I think the city needs to begin to create those sort of construction programs
because you're gonna just kill off this entire corridor if you don't do such things.
The other thing is, obviously Newport Way is a huge hot button and no one
knows what's happening and the city has these things going on. out here in planning,
yet developments are going through over here, and as a community, we're all saying, that
just seems so bizarre, the developments are coming before the plan. Now maybe the language
that has been provided is making it so that this development has to adhere to
whatever those plans are, but frankly, it's hard to understand that, and you know how
much I love to read all this lovely literature. So I would like to
understand the pathway for the public to be able to attend and influence these corridor
and Newport Way meetings and also how these people who live in this area will
be able to influence the construction conditions as the construction conditions, for example, in Tallis
starts at seven, ends at six, is on Saturday and often on Sunday. And people
are moving out of the neighborhood because they cannot stand to live there anymore. And
we don't want to do that to our town as we grow. That's called bad.
One last little bit is the traffic study assumed a 10% reduction in mode
split in order to pass concurrency to stay at level D. And so in
theory, you are supposed to be taking 10% of the trips off the road.
per sort of area in order for the traffic to flow according to the model.
In this situation, you're basically not providing transit. You aren't providing a trail to anywhere.
Basically, every trip is a car going in and out. So I think that everyone
needs to think of traffic as, wow, this is going to be full blown unless
we mandate some sort of transit component in a condition. And that is it. Thank
you. Thank you. Anyone else care to
speak? Come on up. Just keep this map up
here. I may use it a little bit. Yeah,
just keep it right there. That's fine. Thank you.
All right. Appreciate it. My name is John Fisher.
I live at 2122 Newport Way Northwest, Olnett Condo,
Smams Point. And read through the documentation that was
posted online and I thought I'd talk a little bit
about this little piece right up here. So this is Sammamish Point.
This is the southern edge of the proposed development. And I believe
Carol Lopez talked a little bit about this. You can correct
me on any of this. The central Issaquah plan, it looks like it
discourages the use of kind of cruft portions of property for parks. And
what do I mean by that? So all the pictures that I saw
of the property were flat pictures. But we heard earlier that there's a
good size slope on this property. If there's a good-sized slope,
what happens-- and much of this is flat-- what happens right
here? Well, I saw some text in the documentation about retaining
walls and putting retaining walls in here. And I'll echo something
someone else said here. If someone would like to come out
and just walk around this little area,
Park might be a creative word for it. It's a very small space. And
if part of that space is going to be taken up with a retaining
wall, I'm wondering how much space is actually left for two, three children to
play in. The only other thing I would bring up on that area is
If you're putting these retaining walls in, I'm not a hydrology engineer, and we're
already having problems with settlement of foundations here in Sammamish Point. Is that a
problem? Maybe not, but there's no way I could guarantee that. Only other thing
I would say about this, I'm a big-time transit user. I hated to see
us lose the 210 bus. I rode that bus. So I'd love to see
transit back in the area, especially with the development this size. Thank you. - Thank
you. Anyone else care to speak? Questions or comments? Well, hearing none, we'll close the
public comment portion of the meeting and open it up for questions from the commissioners.
I'm gonna do a quick start in one so we can get it out of
the way. A question was raised about how long construction would take, and I thought
that might be a simple answer. I would
estimate 18 to 20 months. Thank you. Those people that
didn't catch it on a microphone that might be watching
at home, it was 18 to 20 months. Questions from
the commissioners? You want to group things in traffic and
everything else or? Traffic and everything else. So Mr. Chair.
There were lots of comments, obviously, about Newport Way, the impacts, potential
impacts of this project on Newport Way, timing of improvements, et cetera.
And I think early in the staff report you heard staff say
that The commission has limits on where our authority is and where it
is not. And one of the things that I think is really important to set
the stage for how this discussion happens is again, kind of talking again real briefly
about what our role is here and what it's not. We have a significant amount
of say in the site development and how that works, how the buildings fit within
the design standards of the Issaquah plan. As far as the design of what's going
out on Newport Way, how the project interfaces with Newport Way and the design standards
for frontage improvements, et cetera, certainly we have an opportunity to weigh in on that.
We don't have the opportunity to say Newport Way is over capacity, it needs to
be improved down to Highway 900. That's really out of the scope of our authority.
So I think one of my first, I guess, questions or comments to staff on
that would be, clearly there's a lot of community interest and energy, and I think
Carney used the term that this is a hot button. Newport Way is a hot
button and clearly you have the council's attention on this based on recent accidents out
there, the study that was just done that lowered the speed limit on Newport Way
and attention about future development and investment. I guess the question to staff is what's
the most effective way for the community to continue to stay involved and informed about
Newport Way and future improvements along Newport Way and where in
the process do they engage? So I think from my perspective
it's a little hard to answer that because I'm waiting to
see what comes out of the crosswalk study which is the
main mechanism that is looking at that entire corridor and Because I'm
not leading that, I don't know exactly how that's going to get rolled out. I
know there's a lot of discussion by the council and the administration about how to
communicate that to the community so that they have an opportunity to comment. But because
it's not specifically a permitting thing, I'm not directly leading that. I appreciate that. I
think maybe -- I know it's not a very satisfying answer. I think the other
piece that I would add is, you know, we're certainly hearing a whole bundle of
concerns that are beyond the purview of this permit, and I think our job is
to try and communicate those to the administration so they're aware of specifically what we're
hearing tonight. There's an awful lot that went on the record this evening about that,
obviously. Maybe just a couple of add-ons. to that I think Peggy
Foster was the one that talked about, when she spoke about attending council meetings and
trying to understand how the process works, how investments get made, how the council prioritize,
how vision of the future growth in the city is established. And that's where those
conversations happen. So I would encourage people to pay attention to what our city council
does on that front and take opportunities to make your decisions thoughts known with the
city council at various, through various channels, including email, commenting at council meetings, attending and
listening, et cetera. So as far as the question, it was one of the technical
questions about the traffic study and it was, you know, does changing the speed limit
impact the traffic study? And that again is kind of out of scope, but that's
probably something that, you know, somehow some way that should be folded into, you know,
some sort of feedback back to the community on that unless somebody can answer the
question today. I don't know if Doug or, can answer the question. - I was
writing some notes. For the record, this is Jeff Schramm. Can you just repeat the
question so I make sure. - The question just was raised 'cause the council just
recently changed its, decided to lower the speed limit from 40 to 30 miles an
hour. The question was raised, does that impact or have a significant impact on traffic
study that was done for this project or the traffic study along the port way?
- The short answer to your question is no. You know, traffic volumes, you know,
are measured Based on vehicles speeds come into consideration when you know designing roadways and
certain elements of that certainly pedestrian crossings and that's why. This pedestrian crossing study that
is being alluded to will rely heavily or more heavily on those types of things
in terms of speeds, but in terms of adopted levels of service. concurrency requirements
and things like that, the speed limit by itself is not gonna govern
those standards to a difference of between 30 or 40 miles an hour.
but but you are um once the the council made that decision to change the
speed limit um you you're looking at if what that changes in the traffic analysis
that you've done that's correct and just to go a little bit deeper on that
since we've talked at a you know with with staff on this we did a
speed study out there and found that the and some of the public we've heard
too, very informed, we use a term called 85th percentile speed. Travel out there today,
on average throughout a day, is about 45 miles an hour. I mean, it's even
over the 40 mile an hour posted speed. When we look at signal warrant analysis,
remember we talked about roundabout or signal signal warrant analysis relies heavily on
speeds. You know, whether a signal is warranted considers not just volumes
but speeds. When the speed or as the speed limit reduces, we're
reevaluating whether the signal warrants that we considered before are still warranted
and that's why we considered whether a roundabout would
be a more appropriate control point for the
access. Thank you. More questions about traffic, ingress,
egress? I thought Connie Marsh brought up a
good point of the ownership of the road.
I think she brought that up on Braindead
tonight. It's getting late for an old guy.
Wherever, GERC's and all of that, you know,
the road to the... Poplar ownership. Poplar. Poplar.
And whether that could be reviewed to see if there was possible access through there.
You know, if that could be conveyed to the city or somehow made a more
-- apparently it's a private road? It's a private -- I mean, it's like the
road inside -- Can I answer? So it is a private road and this
is Doug Schlepp with the city DSD. It is a private road and I want
to add to that that it actually terminates in a parking lot. So to say
let's take the traffic through Poplar it would mean take the traffic through Poplar and
the parking lot of Arena Sports. So the road does not extend westerly to the
limits of this project. And so it would be a
challenge to make that a requirement of this project. OK.
Thank you. Connie also talked about a conservation easement with
the WSDOT. I was just wondering, do you know what
she was referring to? Could you elaborate on that a
little bit? Sure. The clarification was that the area that
WSDOT The area that's reserved for WSDOT is not actually owned by
WSDOT. It's actually an easement to them for a conservation project that was done
as a mitigation project. Connie's point is that she's read the easement
and that in her evaluation of that easement that the fence changes
that she's suggesting would be allowed and because as much as I
respect Connie's abilities she isn't an attorney and she isn't the attorney
that would have to talk to to to WSDOT about it, what we've done is
tried to write a condition. I mean, I think the applicant is willing to consider
this, but because they aren't 100% in control of it, such as a fence that
was outside of the easement area, we cannot require them to do something if they
aren't allowed to do it. So for instance, if WSDOT agrees that, you know, if,
as Connie says, the easement language says, if WSDOT agrees, Well, if WSDOT doesn't agree,
they can't change the fence. So we've tried to write a condition that if
WSDOT agrees, and the fence that exists is not consistent with the standards, then
they'll change it. But if WSDOT doesn't agree, then we can't put them in
that bind. Thanks for clarifying that. Sure. I'd like some staff clarification. There was
some discussions and even a PowerPoint brought up about urban village, mixed use, but
this area is not necessarily zoned that way or have an
option? How is it zoned? - So the zoning allows a range
of uses. And the public that spoke is right that a goal
of Central Issaquah in general and in the sort of planning document
is mixed uses. And when we get into the actual standards that
say what you how we're going to implement that, the mix of
uses is currently at the discretion of the builder. So they have the
right to build only residential if they choose to do so. I think
also as much as we would like to have mixed use out here,
I think it's just a challenge given the amount of uses and
people that live out there may not be enough to actually support
retail even if it was put right up on Newport. But they
have the option. The applicant absolutely has the option, but they are
not required to do that. So CIP in that case is an
aspiration but not a requirement? Yes. Okay. I just wanted to understand
that. Absolutely. Other questions about traffic, ingress/egress?
What about the site design itself, the layout of the project,
anything that Amy discussed tonight with regard to the parks or?
I guess I share the notion that it's a steep piece
of ground that is going to be eventually dedicated back to
the city or that park portion and it really does look
like it's a marginal piece of land. I don't
know how that's going to -- I think we're betting on the come that the
Parks and Recreation will decide that there's some value to it and we'll put something
there. Is that correct? No. Not quite. So I just want to answer one comment
that came up a couple of times. There's both a shared use route and a
park shown on this property and in the standards. And when
that happens, the standards require the city to pick one or
the other. So the city chose, the director chose the shared
use route, the trail that connects. So in a sense, we're getting a bonus of
also getting the park. They are not required to give us the park. One or
the, they can have one or the other, but we're, they can choose one or
the other, but we're getting both. Right. So we're getting the land for the park.
And because the location did have some grade to it, part of the requirement of
giving it to the city is that they provide the grading to create sort of
flat areas for those future park facilities. The Parks Department will have to develop that
at some point in the future, but we're getting usable land because they're required to
grade it and put in the retaining walls. to create those building pads
that then the park can decide how they want to use.
- The question is about the site design, parking layouts, the
10 foot wide sidewalk on just one side of the street
and not the Schneider Creek side. - I have a question
about that. I was reading that the developer seems to be
asking for an eight foot sidewalk on both sides. And staff
has suggested that there be a 10 foot sidewalk on the other side. I'd like
to hear a little bit more from the developer if that's okay. - I think
I might be talking about eight foot stall width. - No. - In that discussion.
- No, not the stall width. I was talking about the sidewalks. - The sidewalks
in the standard are only six feet wide. - Okay. - Yeah, I would like
a clarification on that 10 foot sidewalk. That was, sorry,
it's late. And I know I have
it in here. - Just under 24
on page 21 of 26 or 43
of 179. - I had it marked
and then I took it out. -
Yes, number 24, neighborhood street number one.
The applicant states, the applicant is proposing
that the parking would be, Eight feet on
both sides of the street with 10 foot drive aisles. The applicant is providing a
10 foot wide sidewalk on the traveled side of the street extending from the crossing
to the west of the building B15 to the crossing of the west of the
building C07. This has been deemed to comply with the goals of CIDDS through multiple
coordination meetings with the city of Issaquah. I think the
applicant wants to do eight foot stall widths with a 10 foot sidewalk on one
side. Okay. Yeah. And then 10 foot drive aisles. Okay. That's okay. I'm sorry. I'm
getting punchy. No, it's okay. We'll join you right here. I'm all clear now. We're
getting paid overtime though, so it's all right. Yeah. No, we don't get paid. We
don't. Double two times zero is zero. That's right. So
I can still do math. A follow-up question. We had a, and Lucy mentioned a
modification to one of the conditions, I believe you referred to condition 18, had to
do with the termination of the soft trail. Yes, I've got, when you're ready, I
was going to go and type that up. Oh, okay, good. So, and if you're
ready, I can go type that up. I just, Didn't want to jump in too
early. Sure. Well, let's keep going through questions now and then. Okay. I have not
lost it and I have something drafted and I'll put it up there for you
guys to look at. Just a comment slash question. I thought a lot of really
great input came from members of the community about instruction mitigation and things that can
be done to communicate with the community or mitigate the impact of
construction? Is that something that can be a condition or how
is that typically handled? So the way construction is handled, I
don't think is something that, you know, those particular things are
in parts of the municipal code that are not part of
the development commissions. Okay. But I thought Connie's suggestions, I mean,
those are things that we're gonna be talking to the developer about. And I know
I live in Seattle and there are things that we do there and I think
that would be a great We have started to try and push information
out to the community. This seems like even better ways to connect to the community
and we're absolutely open to those. So I think that would be a separate conversation
but probably not a condition. I agree. I think there needs to be a broader
and deeper conversation with the community. i think it was jesse hartman and
jen limpin limpin caught i apologize if i'm mispronouncing that they invited the
developers for coffee and i think that a community meeting would be a
great thing to have happen and maybe post it in the in the
newspaper and get everybody together and you know have have a deeper broader
conversation about everything about the wetlands about um about traffic, about easements, and have
everything out in the open in a more open forum at a more
reasonable hour for people and have the folks who had to leave come
in and have their voices heard too and get a deeper understanding about
what we do too. For instance, we can't change the zoning. That's not
what we do. and talk about what our role is a little
bit more and about what the roles of other departments and other commissions
and council's role and things like that. And I think that would be
very helpful to folks. And I'd really like to see that happen. And
I'd like to be there too. Back to site design, any other questions?
thoughts or comments on anything that was brought up with regard to it? We have
any issues with circulation or who knows? How about building design? We've seen changes from
the what I guess would call a community conference. I'm not sure if it's still
that or not, but community conference to now in terms of eaves being made somewhat
larger, some timber added to the buildings and so forth and different view of modulation.
Any questions about Any of those changes that were made or the buildings
themselves, do they stand now? I guess I'm still kind of interested in the
notion of affordable housing and the request to get a variance on a height
restraint and the options that are available to be, if they can't get that
height restraint, they can change floor-to-floor height. They can offer affordable housing. And
there was one other thing they could do. Would you just tell me what
that was? I just can't remember. I think they could lower the pitch of
the roof. They could change the floor-to-floor height. They could choose to participate in
the density bonus program, which is the affordable housing. And those are options for
them. They get to choose that. I guess my bias or my...
I'm concerned about the notion of affordable housing and the ability to be able to
provide that opportunity for some people, especially when we're looking at what seems to me
is high density housing and the opportunity to be able to bring affordable housing to
Issaquah. I don't see it happening. And it's a fundamental in the central Issaquah plan
of something that we, it's a principle. not a requirement, but a principle seems to
be an overarching thing that we ought to be striving for and it doesn't seem
like we are. Well, it is a principle and we require it under certain circumstances
and those circumstances aren't triggered by this project unless they go over that height. Now,
those are the kinds of conversations, I mean, you know, that's the importance of these
conversations is at some point, and there is an annual monitoring report and I you
know, the council could decide we're not moving fast enough in getting affordable housing and
change the parameters under which that would happen. That wouldn't affect this project. - Right,
understood. - But it could change what happens in the future. - I think it
seems to me that there's one of the binds in terms of this location is
that there's, they're being pinched between a minimum FAR of .75. So as it was
mentioned in the report, if you say, well, take a floor off you drop below
that minimum. The other way you could meet it then would be to
build on more ground, which would then create less pervious surface to meet
the minimum FAR. And I guess I would prefer to have a sloped
roof as opposed to more buildings being spread out to get to a
minimum FAR requirement. I did have a question about the language and the
recommended condition two. And the last sentence, if the city does
not amend the height measurement techniques in a manner which considers
existing buildings as meeting the base height maximum, the applicant shall
either modify the buildings or comply with density bonus provisions. It
seems like it's somewhat been left open as to how they
could modify the buildings in terms of flat roofs, lower slope,
smaller floor heights. So, so I, for us it's implied
that if they change the character of the buildings we would have to come
back and talk to you. But what I'm hearing is that potentially you would
want to see that well or that the applicant shall either modify the buildings
consistent with the character shown in the application or comply with density
modes. Is that what you're getting at, Mel? I guess that's what I'm thinking. And
then the question of how one of the issues we discussed last time was flat
roofs and not wanting those at this location given the look that was intended for
the gateway. Would we want to have something saying if they changed it to a
flat roof, it would have to come back for approval? That or how comfortable are
you leaving it up to So a flat roof proposal was shown in the
application? Yeah, I thought they did a good job of showing, for instance, the group
health hospital. That was a flat roof that they added some architectural detail to that,
while not necessarily a sloped roof, gave a northwest view, if you will, a northwest
feel to what the facility would look like. So I guess I'm comfortable leaving it
to the discretion of the developer, recognizing that our choice would be sloped roof.
I think. And I guess comfortable with then discretion of staff to
approve any changes that it would be in character as Lucy suggested
perhaps changing. Yeah. Any other thoughts? I mean you could make it
a little stronger you say consistent with the character of the buildings
shown in the application materials with providing pitched roofs. So you could say it's got
to be consistent with the character of a pitched roof building and then it's a
little clearer, I guess the boundaries that we're pushing or again, you could leave it
at consistent with the character of the building proposal shown in the application materials. That's
a little more of a discretion on their part. Just a question is how far.
The other question is how far authority goes to mandate a specific roof
condition in the code. Again, yeah, because the FAR
minimum is a requirement. The sloped roofs are not.
Right. Okay. Any other thoughts on building design, modulation,
colors? I liked what they did. I just
would like to thank them for going back and
redoing it and making it look more like we
were specifying in the CIP. You meant everybody's tripartite
requirements? Now that we all know what that means.
That's right. I'll do a one-hour class. Okay, great.
Schedule it earlier. - So other questions, comments? -
So I hear two edits to propose. - While you're going up
there, Lucy, let me ask a question too in terms of outside
of the Central Area Issaquah Plan, we go through the green sheets,
I'll call them. With this, we're going through the CIDDS standards. And
Amy, you've gone through all of those in the first package and
made some other changes. Since there are 80 some different items,
I guess the question is, do we want to try to walk through
all of those? Have we been through them enough to feel comfortable with
the conditions having met the CIDDS, the Central Design Standards? Can you say
that again? Sorry. Do you want us to go through all-- we're going through all
81? Yeah. Actually, I'll leave it to Amy to describe the process. I just wanted
to add one more thing. I'm sorry, Amy. There was a request. from Joe Berner
for what somebody to for us to go out and walk around. And I just
would like to say that I did that. I went out to the site. I
walked around. I went across the crosswalk and A lot of us do that. Many
of us go on little field trips and look around the sites. So I just
wanted to make sure that Joe Werner and a lot of the other people who
are making comments and ask that we do that, I'd like to make sure that
they know that we do do that. That's all. Thank you. Sorry. Thank you. Amy,
on the process. So customarily, I guess, what staff usually does before the
Development Commission makes a decision is that we go through the checklist
and they would all kind of check in and say, do they
all agree on the condition that's recommended by staff? Or that it's
met the requirement in the checklist. Thank you for the clarification. And
so the question tonight is given that This is an unusually large checklist
compared to what you're used to seeing, which was a third. You know, the green
sheets are is basically a third as long as this. And so then having to
go through every one of these conditions, if you're comfortable, if you've had a chance
to review these and you're comfortable with them, then is it OK to not go
through each one of them one by one? - Maybe an alternative would be to,
I think we probably all read them, if anybody has issue with one, they could
point that out and instead of reading every one, they could just go to the
ones that people had comment on. - Right. - Yes. - Maybe that's what you
said. - Everyone comfortable with that? - Yes. - My preference. - Yeah. - Okay,
and Lucy, you've got a couple changes to, there should be a condition two. -
So I was just updating the, number of attachments and then in condition
to adding the phrase which is a not quite I'm not sure
I got matched either one of yours so feel free to edit
away adding the applicant shall either modify the buildings consistent with the
character of the building shown in the application or comply with density
bonus provisions and then there was something about with pitched roofs and
I wasn't quite sure where that since we can't require pit strips I
was wanting to make sure I understood if we're adding that what we're what our
intent is. I think for Mr. Chair. Yeah. I think for me I think the
conversations that we've had in the past two meetings and feedback we've had from the
public I think staff has got pretty clear idea of what consistent would be in
our minds. So if you very too far from that path as we've talked about
it. I'm guessing we would see you again on this project. You would. Right. So
and a pitched roof was one of the things that we've been emphasizing. Right. You're
comfortable with the language? Yeah, I think that's good. And the pitch roofs really would
make a difference driving in. I think we had a really big discussion about that
in the last meeting. Okay. And then on 18? was adding a
new sentence with the intent of that before that connection to the
phase two parcel is built that the soft surface trail would be
extended so it met the neighborhood street. - Yeah. - Looks good
to me. - Is that it? - So any other thoughts on
the conditions that were put in? And I don't know that the
construction conditions are part of the approval as well? - Yes. -
Okay. At this point we have
42 conditions and nine construction conditions. Any thoughts on any other
of those that? - No, I don't get it. - I
guess just as a note, I was pleased to see that
they had reached agreement with Rowley's to connect to 19th to
get the boardwalk, the shared use trail to get through there.
I think that's a huge import to the project and to
the whole neighborhood for people to be able to get
instead of walking down Newport or biking to go down
that shared use path. Any other discussion, questions, comments? You
want a motion? Sure. I would make a motion that
the Development Commission approve the site development permit for the
Issaquah Gateway Apartments project file number SDP150002 as described and
evaluated in the staff report dated August 5, 2015 with
attachments 1 through 10. I think it's 1 through 10. And
the project drawings received August 1, 2015. Briefing response memo dated September 16, 2015
with amendments 1 through 8. And subject to the conditions that we've identified up
there. And I move that the development commission direct the development services-- I'm sorry.
So the first one will be a motion by itself. Second? I've been moved
and seconded to move the project As conditioned, comments, questions?
Hearing none, all in favor? Aye. Aye.
When opposed, no. The motion carries. The
second motion. I move that the Development Commission direct
the Development Services Department to prepare findings of fact and conclusions for review
and approval by the Development Commission Chairman, affirming the Development Commission's decision to
approve the Issaquah Gateway Appointments Project File Number SDP150002, subject to the conditions
listed in the staff report, dated August 5, 2015, with attachments 1 through
10, and project drawings received August 1, 2015, briefing response memo
dated September 16, 2015, with attachments 1 through 8
and subject to the conditions approved. Second. Moved and
seconded to direct the staff to prepare findings of
fact. All in favor? Aye. Motion carries. Any other
comments, questions about this project? I just would like to reiterate that I
think there needs to be a deeper and broader conversation that includes the community and
involves the community a lot more so that the community feels like their voices are
being heard and the developers can hear what people are saying about, you know, what
it's like to live over there and traffic. There needs to be a lot of
-- I think the community really needs to feel like they're being heard about the
traffic concerns around that area. And I think that may be partly the developer.
I think it's more the broader city conversation that hopefully will come out of
the crosswalk study. Yeah, just a general comment. You know, it's all about Newport
Way and that crosswalk study. It's got to have a holistic view of it.
I know that they have a certain responsibility for their part of the development.
I'm just concerned about it doesn't turn into a jigsaw puzzle. that we
as a community can come up with a holistic solution for the whole corridor. Just
a couple quick kind of closing comments. One, to first thank the applicant and the
design team for listening to the comments from our previous meeting and being responsive to
those and appreciate the changes that were made to the project. I think they definitely
were improvements to what we saw. And thanks to staff for very
comprehensive response memo. I think that was very detailed and very
helpful in doing that. And also thank especially the public For
the things that were within scope of the development commission, we listen, we try to
be responsive to what you're saying and what we can do to modify the project
to make it better. But the other thing that I want to say is there's
an opportunity to engage at a higher level, to really participate in how this community
continues to grow and develop. And it's going to continue to develop. People want to
live in the Northwest and they're moving here every day. We enjoy the quality of
life that we have and you're here because you're trying to protect that. And part
of engaging in the community conversations about how we change and grow as a community
helps to protect why we're here. So we're not moving away as people commented earlier
because they're frustrated. So I encourage you and clearly you spent a big chunk of
your evening here and there are probably many other things you'd rather be doing than
participating in a local government. But this is hugely important and will make a difference.
And I think the messages that you communicated here tonight will be heard. They were
here by staff. I'm guessing there'll be a conversation at City Hall tomorrow about this
meeting. And I again encourage you to and share your thoughts with your city council
members too, because they are the ones that are the policy setters. They're the ones
that adopt the growth plans or the central is a quad plan and any changes.
And they also decide where the money gets spent, including on capital projects. So, um,
encourage that. So thank you again for being here tonight. Uh, you do make a
difference and we are listening. So thanks. I think Mr. Burton
put it very well. We very much appreciate the public coming out. It's um and
this is a great example, I think of a time where the commission has certain
purview of what we can and what we can't do. I think everybody recognizes their
issues with Newport Way and none of us would try to be saying that that
everything is fine. But what we can do in terms of our approval process is
limited. Um and again, stay involved. Uh make it a better
project or at least as good as you can make it
in terms of the construction process. And again, I would also
echo the thanks to the developer for the changes they made.
Thanks for the staff for the work they've done. And hearing
that and any other business, hearing none, we stand adjourned. Thank
you.