TODD BANDUCCI: For those of you who are looking at your watch, there we are.
We're on the air. All right. That's what we're waiting for. Good evening, and welcome
to the March 9th meeting of the Issaquah Development Commission. Tonight's meeting will look at
a couple of different things. We have one primary subject, which is the Riva Town
Home project. And we do not have minutes to approve tonight, so we will go
straight to the city staff presentation beginning with an explanation of the quasi-judicial
process that will be done by Lucy Sloan. Good evening, Commissioners. We're starting
to do this with each of the presentations because I did the longer
version last time. I'm going to do an abbreviated version this time.
So this site development permit is a quasi-judicial review by
you, which means that you are acting like a court
and therefore your proceedings have to be fair and appear
fair. And that comes down to both procedural due process,
that our process follows certain specific rules, And mainly tonight
we're focused on your relationship as decision makers with
the applicant. And then also substantive due process that
you follow certain regulations in making your decision. I
guess I can make this even bigger. So again,
I would like you just to take a moment
and read through the questions that are up on
the screen. How many of you would answer no?
Okay. And then the second piece is about
ex parte contacts, which happens to be having communications
with people outside the hearing. And so if you
could again read the questions regarding whether contacts have
occurred. No? No. OK. Great. Thank you very much.
All right. We will go from
that to presentation by the city
staff. Amy Tarrs. Good evening members
of the commission. My name is
Amy Tarrs and I'm a senior
planner for the city of Issaquah.
So tonight I will be presenting
the first of two presentations on
the Riva townhomes, SDP 15-00004. Tonight, my presentation
will focus primarily on the big elements of this project and how
it complies with the Central Issaquah Development Standards. and I will highlight
some of the recommended conditions for your consideration. However, I encourage all
the commissioners to please review the complete set of conditions for our
next meeting, which will be when you will be asked to take
action on the project. I do have three additional attachments that
I would like to submit and you have copies of them. And just
for the record, the attachment 15 is a memo from Gary Schultz, who
is the wetland specialist consultant for the applicant. We've asked the applicant to
update their wetland and stream determination primarily after we've identified the location of
the shared use route on their property. And because it's, and I'm gonna talk
more about it in detail, I just wanted to make sure that you understand
what the purpose of that update. Attachment 16 are comments from the
Washington Department of Ecology. And attachment 17 is a CEPA
comment from the Washington Department of Ecology again. So these
two are related to, again, the environmental elements of the
project, primarily state review of wetlands and in our
process of identifying mitigation required for any encroachment
on the wetland buffers. One of the things that
we are, I didn't include here is a slide that talks about,
I know I usually identify concurrent reviews. So we have two concurrent
reviews for this project. One is the SEPA review, which is ongoing.
And then the also ongoing is two administrative adjustment of standards for
their circulation. Facilities one is on the section of Newport
Way, particularly reducing the width of Newport Way from 11,
I'm sorry, the travel width the traveling width of Newport
Way from 11 feet to 10 feet, which is the same AAS
that we've considered for both two other projects that you recently reviewed,
the Gateway Apartments and the Gateway Senior Apartments or the Gateway Senior
Housing Apartments. The other AAS is again identical to
an AAS that we have reviewed and approved for Gateway
Apartments, which involves a modification or adjustment of the standards
for a primary through block passage. So those are still
open for public comment and We decided not to do what
we did last time for the Gateway Senior Report, where we had
a separate opportunity for the public to comment on it, only because
part of the purpose of that was to also get the commission's
comments. We've actually already reviewed and approved the same type of AASs
for the Gateway Apartments. However, you're more than welcome to send me
your comments if you'd like to for us to consider any other, you
know, for whatever reason that applies to this project. So having
said that, I'll go ahead and talk about the purpose of
the meeting tonight, which is staff to present our analysis of
the Riva Town Homes project for SDP approval or site development
permit approval. So first, just talking about the
proposal, the scope of the proposal includes 36
townhomes with four stories, 86 parking spaces, and
with a lot size of 6.2 acres, but
only 2.19 acres are developable. So just
like how I approached the other two projects on Newport Way, I'm going
to present this project in terms of two major themes that the Central
Sequoia Development and Design Standards emphasizes a lot. One is connectivity and the
other is place making. A lot of the chapters in this in the
standards fit quite nicely within these two themes. And again, I'm
just gonna highlight the ones that have conditions that are also
larger issues for the project. Amy, could I, I'm sorry, I neglected this
procedural thing. Members of the public, I've neglected to tell you that if you'd like
to speak, we'd like you to sign in here and put your name and your
address and you will be given an opportunity after the applicant makes the presentation, there
will be an opportunity for public comment. I apologize. So
under connectivity, I'm going to start off with highlighting circulation
facilities, followed with the green necklace elements, and then discussion
and views. For placemaking, we'll talk again about the sense
of place and arrival and some architectural details for for
the project that falls under both the Western Gateway vision for the
site and also pedestrian friendly public realm. So the location
um is in the western gateway as I mentioned of central is a
qua and the vision for this area is an attractive gateway that maintains
significant open space views from I 90. Um and one of the um
other key um element of the vision is the enhancement of Tibbets Creek
and its buffers as part of the green necklace. So Here's a
map showing, this is more like a vicinity map that shows the existing
land uses around the property. The project site is shown in the center
of the map. And right east of it, the green area that you
see is the Tibbets Creek Corridor. So it abuts, a major part of
it abuts the Tibbets Creek critical area. On the south,
it's right across the Cougar Mountain Regional
Wildlife, am I mixing this up again?
Regional Wildland Park. And And surrounding it
is primarily multifamily residential on the north side along
the eastern side of Newport Way and single family
on the western side of Newport Way. Oh,
I'm sorry. So the other, um, the other significant area, um, that's
close to this property is, um, a conglomeration of retail light, industrial
and commercial uses. That's more commonly referred to as the rally properties.
The red line shows the Central Issaquah boundary, which distinguishes how development
on this side of Newport Way are in some ways different than
the ones on the south side, primarily because this area is governed
by the Central Issaquah Development and Design Standards, and on the west
side of Newport Way is under the Land Use Code.
So just a quick view of the Newport Way streetscape. Pretty
much what you see is a very consistent, very green corridor
on this part of Newport Way with the Riva property shown
on the right and on the left is the Cougar Mountain
Regional Wildland Park. Existing street conditions include a 10-foot multi-use
bike pedestrian area on the Riva side of Newport Way, a
five foot bike lane, primarily a commuter bike facility, two lanes
of traffic, and then on the left is a shoulder that
varies in width. In some parts of Newport Way, still
across the Riva property, it's about a three foot shoulder. And then
in some areas, it's wide enough where, in fact, some people end
up parking there because it looks more like a very convenient parking
space. Site plan again, just in general, I'm just going to call out
the main elements of this plan. What's most dominant when you look at the
site plan is that the as I mentioned earlier, the developable areas limited to
about two point what 16 acres and this is shown by this area
here. Um everything else that you see on the property will be protected wetlands
and um there's also some streams Um in the in the property.
Um again, the townhouses are primarily lined up along Newport Way, creating a
strong street wall. And then there's also some units in the internal of
the property that's abutting and closer um and relates more to the wetlands
and the natural areas. The other element here is uh a shared
use route that is running along the north side of the property.
The main access to the interior units are through this driveway or
alley. And later on I'm going to talk about the other elements
of the circulation facilities. And this is Newport Way. This site plan
obviously shows more of the future alignment and future improvements.
So one of the things I've mentioned in the staff report
is how there's a current public, I'm sorry, city project
that will be on this property. It's the anti-aircraft creek
culvert project meant to mitigate a current flooding issue on
Newport Way. So on the left you see the site
plan that shows how this culvert currently runs along the
west side of Newport Way and crosses Oak Crest, the intersection at
Oak Crest and then runs along more on the north side of
this property. In the future, the new culvert, which will be
uh which will replace the existing culvert um will will be
moved further south and will cross newport way at this location
and um cross through the and and run through the property
and then um dispersed into the the um the wetland so
because of this um city project um the way they have
um designed their their their site plan has to take into consideration
the location of this um public culvert um or publicly owned culvert and
um and they and um and they will be granting a 20 foot
easement to the city for the purpose of this project. Staff
has conducted the review of how this development complies with our zoning
standards. And I'm not going to go through all of these, but
I'm just going to say, just to demonstrate that they met the
basic standards. For circulation facilities, first I'd like to again
bring up this regional map just to show how this property and the
circulation facilities in this property fits into the regional system. So what you
see here is Newport Way shown as a green line primarily because I'm
using the non-motorized routes and parks map. But basically Newport Way is
a multimodal transportation network or street. And so what you see
here is an existing shared use route. And in addition to
that, Newport Way is part of the Mountain to Sound Greenway.
So the property having access on Newport Way is part of
this whole Greenway corridor. The site is also served by,
I'm sorry, so the one thing that's identified in the
Central Issaquah Development Standards is how this site has this
red, I'm sorry, this green dot and a dashed line
representing basically a requirement for a significant community space. The
code allows the director of the development services department to select
the most appropriate community space required for a property. And in this particular
case, especially because the site is constrained by a lot of the critical
areas and the developable, the remaining developable areas, only two acres.
It was determined that a shared use route was the option for this project.
And that's because in the code it also says that a neighborhood park shall
be two acres. So it's not reasonable to ask them to provide a neighborhood
park in a project that has a developable area of two acres.
The circulation facilities includes a parkway. Newport Way was classified
as a parkway. And what you see here is a
diagram that shows the proposed new section. Again, it will
entail adding a center turn lane with two 10-foot travel lanes
and retaining the five-foot bike lanes that are that's already out there.
On the side of the Riva property, they will also be providing
a five-foot tree planter area and then a 10-foot multi-use bike lane
and pedestrian lane or what we call a shared use route. So
what you see here, this arrow points to the width of Newport
Way that will be part of their frontage improvements. And the reason,
while normally we require only half street improvements, in this particular case,
the applicant is required to provide provide the full width because the whole
center line of Newport Way has to shift in order to accommodate the
new development. And in addition to that, they will be required to provide
one and a half feet for right-way dedication.
So other circulation facilities include the true block passages. So this graphic
actually combines two sections of the code or standards and one has
to do with the block length because these two items work hand
in hand. So I'm just going to talk about them together. One
of the standard in the site site section of the standard
requires that blocks that that blocks are no more than 250 feet
long and so um or that breaks are provided for blocks that
are more than 300 feet that's the the That's really the correct
way of saying it. So since they have a very
long facade, they've actually broken it down into multiple breaks.
And what I'm showing here are three through-block passages. The
orange ones are primary through-block passages. meant to also serve as
the main circulation facility for the internal units that do not
access or does not have any access to Newport Way or
any other circulation facility. The Central Issaquah Standards require that every
every front door or primary entrance to a building has to
be fronting or has to front a circulation facility. So
the smaller through block passage is a secondary through block passage.
And this is also, so this site plan has not been
updated, but this would have been the location for the culvert
easement. So they have used this as an opportunity given that that
this has to remain as an open space to convert that into
another pedestrian break for the property. So as a secondary through block
passage, they're only required to provide a five foot wide sidewalk. And
it's shown as a meandering sidewalk to work with the grades on
this part of their property. So I'd like to talk a
little bit about one of the through block passages because we have three conditions
related to it. And so in this In this slide,
what you're seeing are several conditions for different parts of the code,
but all related to the same area. In our staff report, we
have noted that the through block passage as currently proposed is disconnected
both visually and physically because of the driveway and the parking lot.
So while you have a great community space, and a public,
not public, but a community amenity that serves not only
these three units at the end of the property, but
also the rest of the community. It's currently blocked off
physically and visually by the parking lot. In addition to that, the
through block passage is disconnected because of this. So we, I'm not
gonna go and read through every condition, but basically these three conditions
require a 10 foot walkway as prescribed by the Central
Issaquah standards for a primary through block passage. It also requires that
the parking lot and this driveway area be designed more as a
pedestrian plaza like or like a vulnerability. And so that
also accomplishes several standards in the code that talks
about using parking areas for multifunctional purposes, as well
as for visual connection. And also for, let's see,
for this parking space at the very end and
the south end of the row of housing
along Newport Way to be removed in order to
accommodate a more a more generous walkway and and
and create a stronger physical and visual connection for
the interior of the property. So views and vistas
These two photos basically are meant to show
how this property has views of natural areas
throughout the perimeter of the site. So on the top right,
what you see is a conceptual perspective view from Newport Way.
But what you see is the primary through block corridor and
it terminates into a view of the the wetland area at
the interior of the property. So it creates a visual green connection,
visual and physical green connection from Newport Way to the interior of
the property and to the natural areas in the interior. And right
across This particular space is also the Cougar Mountain hillside.
So the property and all the units in the property
has views of green and natural areas either towards the
interior of the property or exterior facing towards Newport Way
and the Cougar Mountain hillside. So while
we're talking about the green spaces, I'm also gonna
bring up two other conditions because they're related to
how users can have a better interaction with the
green spaces on site. So the first one, condition
17, talks about requiring a continued, I'm sorry, some sort of
pedestrian connection for all these green spaces in the interior of
the property along the perimeter, which also allows for view areas
and greater opportunity for people to interact with the edges of
the buffer. The other condition talks about again
under the multifunctional standard using these end stubs
of the parking drive or the driveways as
viewing points wherever the opportunity is, wherever these
stubs are provided. So now I want to
talk about some of the bigger elements again that falls very neatly
into this whole idea of the green necklace which is one of
the main features of the Central Issaquah plan. These include the Tibbets
Creek wetlands, streams and buffers, the shared use route, the mountains of
sound Greenway or bike trail and the Newport Way streetscape, which is both
along Newport Way, the through block passages and the community spaces. So I'm not
going to talk about Tibbets Creek primarily because we didn't really have any conditions
A lot of the mitigation required for reducing the buffer, so maybe
that's something worthy to mention that they are reducing the buffer from
100 feet to 75 feet and providing full enhancement of the wetland
buffers in exchange for doing that. The other The other items,
the through block passages I've already talked about. So I'm gonna
just quickly talk about the other items. So the shared use
route, the bottom thumbnail sketch here or image here shows a
snip of the Central Issaquah Development and Design Standards Figure 7B. In
that, it shows basically that requirement for a neighborhood park or the
shared use route, which is shown as this dotted green line. So
this is the Riva property, and on that map, it shows that
the shared use route is meant to connect to another shared use
route in the adjacent property. and it runs along the full length of
the north property line or boundary line of this project. So currently
what they have proposed is the shared use route running along partially
the north end of their property. Our condition basically requires that the
shared use route is extended to go all the way to the
northeast corner of their property. Um the condition also acknowledges that
if in the future in the near future the city um
ends up owning the um the Tibbetts Creek wetland that is
currently owned by the Gateway Apartments uh property owner that
that this shared use route will will shift further north
and connect to the proposed pedestrian bridge that is currently
being built by the Gateway Apartments. So this this alternative
B has a lot more potential for completing the shared
use route. given that there's already an existing route also being
built on the north end. So required community
spaces include both community spaces for each unit at 48 square feet.
And the project meets that. They are providing balconies for every unit
with a minimum size of 48 square feet. And in some cases,
I think it's a little bigger than that. So the
other requirement is for an on-site amenity.
And in the current proposal, they have identified three open spaces,
A, B, and C. However, they have not defined what type
of onsite amenity they are proposing. So we have provided two
conditions to account for reviewing and ensuring compliance to the code
during construction. Now I'd like to talk a little
bit about the sense of place. Again, being in the Western Gateway, we've talked about
this whole idea of the character of the Western Gateway from two other projects along
the corridor. So using the same line of thought, we reviewed this project. With
with the consideration that this is not and this is not immediately
at the Gateway or or the Northern end of Newport Way so
what you see here is again an interpretation of how the streetscape
will a Newport Way will look with the exist with the commuter
bike lane the 10-foot multi multi use shared use route, the
street trees and the townhouses. It shows the modulation of
the roof forms, the massing, the color as proposed, the
entry, the entry that's defined by a canopy and a porch.
And in this case, they're showing one of the things that I mentioned, the staff
report as far as color is that it's predominantly different shades of gray with accent
colors on the doors. One is red and one is a little like a beige
color. And I don't know if you can see the material board, but I can
bring it up later. So in determining whether or not they they meet
the Western Gateway vision, we took a little bit more of an
interpretation of this project versus, you know, for instance, the Gateway Apartments
or the Senior, the Gateway Senior Project in that we looked at
how well it fit with the natural environment. We believe that in
this In this case, the strength of this project has to do
more with the different ways that they've really celebrated the natural areas
on site and also taking advantage of the Cougar Mountain hillside across
the street and using those true block passages as a way to
connect both the Cougar Mountain hillside green space the the
um and the mountains sound greenway and and the um
interior of the property so having said that uh we
uh we are recommending a um condition primarily to address
more of the just the character of the architecture and
to to look for the applicant to look at adding
more natural materials or materials that evoke more of that
natural character that evokes the Western Gateway or
the Northwest architecture that we've discussed in the
past. So that That concludes my presentation. We will
be coming back to the Development Commission for the final action.
And as I mentioned earlier, we are currently in the review
phase for the SEPA and the administrative adjustment of standards for
the circulation facilities. So those two will be completed and final
and approve prior to our going back to the development commission for the approval
of this project. So that concludes my presentation and I will, unless the commission
has questions for me, I'd like to invite the applicant to come up and
see if they want to address the commission. - I think what we'll do
is, what we normally do is have the applicant, excuse me, have the applicant
presentation. and
then
opportunity
for
public
comment
and
then
we'll
go
around
the
commission
for
questions
and
clarifications.
This
is
a
PDF.
Thank
you,
Amy. Thank you. Members of the Commission, thank
you very much for hearing us tonight. My name is Aaron Golden and I work
for Connor Homes. I'm here to just tell you a bit about us, a bit
about the project and how exciting it is for us to be building in Issaquah.
Again, it's been a number of years. We're a second generation locally owned home builder.
We started building homes in 1959 with Bill Connor. Charlie Connor owns the business. Charlie
raised his family in Issaquah. And this opportunity arose. We love this site because
it's a transition between, as Amy described, the single family homes nearby, the downtown
area. And it's an opportunity for us to build sort of a medium density
project, something we've done successfully in recent years. We finished three others on the
city of Newcastle. city of Renton and the Renton Highlands and now underway
in Mercer Island. This is a product we're familiar with. We've been really
successful attracting either active seniors, very young families, or single
adults. They love living like this. The access to the
transit center, the trail system, as Amy described, with the
multimodal trail in front that we'll add as part of
the project, the elevated boardwalk makes this just a, we
feel, a very exciting project for us and for the
city. Tonight we brought our whole team. We have traffic engineer, we
have our civil engineer, our landscape architect, and our traffic engineer. So any questions you
have, this group of folks should be able to address them. And I want to
thank the staff. I know they've spent a ton of time on this project, a
ton of time working with us. And Amy's report is incredibly detailed and reflects a
lot of hard work. Thank you. All
right, if that's the termination of the applicants presentation, but I'm sorry,
we have a few more things. Okay, good. I was thinking that
was it. I'm Christie Park. I'm representing the design team. I work
with the landscape architecture team. So Amy did such a thorough job
of walking through our site that I'll be pretty brief. We just want to
touch again on circulation. As you can see here, we are providing a 10-foot multimodal
trail along Newport Way and then the shared use trail, which will also be 10
feet in width up towards the gateway property or heading east per the
central isaac plan we also have three significant for the size of the
project green open spaces space b here will be more of a transition
space from newport way into the development providing views back into the main
corridor between the buildings which will provide that view corridor back into the
wetlands and then a smaller space which at this time we think will have a
nature-based play element. You could see with the blue dashed line we have the pedestrian
access to all the sites and I think Amy covered the rest of it. So
talking a little more about the landscape scheme for this, we worked with the architecture
team to come up with an idea that brings more of a formalized modern
landscape to the fronting along Newport Way. The site's more constrained here. It'll also be
a little tougher environment with the traffic and foot traffic that will be along there.
So it'll be a more structured but it'll also have seasonal diversity, a diversity
in texture. So it'll be interesting to look at, but it'll be a little more,
I guess, orderly. As you move through the site, the palette will start to loosen
and become more natural, which towards the end, it's going to be predominantly natives to
complement, which would then be the buffer. And the buffer will have a whole
mitigation plan of native plantings as well. So we'll transition the site from
a more urban front porch feel out to the wetlands and enhancing that
area. So some of the things we're thinking about on site, and all
these elements may or may not even end up on site, but if they were,
we are looking at wall treatments, if retaining walls are needed, hardscape treatments, adding visual
variety and texture to the ground plane. And then site furnishings, kind of blending a
more modern take on natural resourced furniture. And again, a little bit more of
a modern fencing, but again, mixing with the wood products. And pops of color
here and there, we've seen by this winter, you need them every once in
a while. And then also pedestrian scale lighting elements throughout the site.
And just to touch on the project, just one quick point
of clarification. The site is actually 8.39 acres versus the 6.2.
And we're developing 2.19. As you can see by this light
green here, The majority of this area will be buffer
enhancement. So this will have a robust native planting plan in accordance
with City of Issaquah code and our wetland biologist recommendations. And the
architectural features, I'll just touch on them lightly and then we have
our architecture team here to discuss them. We aim to create a
front porch quality to the Newport Way consistent with the Central as a Quad design
plan and the marketing features that we found successful in the past.
The architecture responds to the grades with the front being a more two-story height character.
And with the grade stepping down, you can see in the back here, you've got
more to the three to four story character with the garages tucked under. So the
advantage to this product is you've got basically a front porch characteristic with no garages
along Newport Way. The livable unit, there will be livable units taking advantage,
as Amy pointed out, of the views of Cougar Mountain and the wetlands, bringing
nature into the townhome developments, incorporating all the advantages we have with the site
being immersed in these natural elements. All the units will have an open plan
with a great room. They'll have elevated balcony extending width of the unit and
a habitable attic space. The exterior architecture aims to meet the Central
Izaquah design plan goals and mix architectural flavor and Northwest modern
feel to Newport Way. And with that, I will thank you
for your time on behalf of our design team, and we
appreciate it. And thank you to staff for all your hard
work. And I believe we'll transition into questions. OK, thank you.
Is there going to be anybody else from the applicant to speak?
OK. Before we go into the public comment, I just want one point of
clarification for myself. Could you show where the shared use trail that goes through
the property, where it ends? It's not clear. It looks like it goes up
to the Raleigh property now. But is there a connector on the Raleigh property
for that? Or is it just dead end there? CHRISTIE WOOD: Over here?
As Amy touched on,
do you want --
So basically because their
property ends here, I
can show you on
my PowerPoint -- wrong
one, sorry. I forgot
to save it ahead
of time. Okay. So
I don't know if
I can zoom in,
but May not. I can
just use this hopefully. So what we're showing is that we're
basically limited to requiring them to provide as far as they
can go legally. And so because the adjacent property is a
different property owner, it will take having to then work with them
to see if they would be willing to do that, to make
that connection. Our initial conversations with the representative from the Rowley property
is they're more interested in having the connection further down here. So
this is really more of a placeholder to say that, Given
that we are likely to end up owning the Tibbets Creek
wetland property, we would like to be very clear to the
applicant that the length of the shared use route and what
you can see here is it's relatively of the same length
so that they understand that we're really looking for a completed
route. as far as what, and to be
consistent with what the code requires. And
knowing that we do have some constraints,
given that their property doesn't necessarily connect
to anywhere else, to an existing route,
east, or I shouldn't say east, but
yes, so east of their property line.
But we'll deviate a little bit. Does anybody else have any questions at this point,
verifications? Well, that was one of the things that I wanted to ask about too,
Chairman. I forget when we were looking at the gateway, did we ever establish that
there are trail that cuts across there connects to anything or is it the bridge
to nowhere? So in the case of Gateway, they were able to work with the
Rowley properties to allow them to connect all the way to basically, what's that, 17?
19. 19, thank you. Okay, okay, that's what I thought we had talked about. Yes.
So maybe option B up there. So option B is definitely our preferred option because
we know that it's going to connect to somewhere. Right. Thank you.
I don't have any further questions for anyone at
this point. Obviously we'll come back to it later
in the commission section. So if there is no
further presentation from the applicant, we'll open the meeting
now to public comment. And if there's anybody from
the public that would like to speak, if you've
signed in already, and I think you know the
drill. OK. it's that we ask that when
you do come up to the microphone if you
give your name and your address please i'm going
to use your presentation your site plan looks better
my name is john fisher i'm the homeowner at
2122 newport way northwest it's my primary residence that's
in sammamish point to put it succinctly i live
at the triple point between sammamish point this property
and this property up here that whether it's the Gateway's property or the city's
property, it sounds like that's being discussed. So as far as the property itself,
to me it seems a better fit than the Gateway Apartments was. It seems
similar to what was at Sammamish Point. I'd probably buy here if I
hadn't bought at Sammamish Point several years ago. What I'm here for mostly
are the trails. So I commute by bus and I walk down Newport
Way to the Transit Center, take a bus. It takes a pretty spry
person to manage that every day, so I'm really interested in What these
trail connections look like how can pedestrians get to? the commercial areas because None
of the none of the developments have have commerce on them And we have
to get across Tippetts Creek to to get to any kind of commerce or
to any kind of transit access for that matter so
I can understand why a lot of value is placed on a connection down here
because that would probably benefit me more than anything. But as far as the connection
that's planned up here, I suppose I do have a bit of concern that it's
certainly right in my backyard. This looks like it's kissing distance to Sammamish Point. At
this portion of Sammamish Point, there is no fencing. There is no barrier of any
kind. There are no hedges. It might be interesting
to have a conversation about whether that is or is
not appropriate. Let's see. That probably wraps it up for
me. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Next speaker, if there
is one. Good evening, Commission. My name is Hart Sugarman.
I live at 2550 Northwest Oakcrest Drive. I'm a resident
of Issaquah for 20 years. And Oakcrest, of course, is
directly across the road from this project. So I just wanted
to first of all question the decision to put the driveway into Riva Townhomes at
that intersection versus further to the east. So I guess by putting it at the
intersection, it lends itself to making some traffic modifications or improvements for that intersection. My
concern is the visibility. When we have to exit or egress from our neighborhood looking
right or left, There's curves in the road, there's limited sight lines, the visibility
is poor, there's no street lighting per se, so at nighttime and during rainy conditions
it's very difficult. But putting a tree-lined boulevard here as shown in the picture, it
obstructs the visibility of a car coming out of Oak Crest to turn left.
because we have to be able to have enough sight lines to see the oncoming
traffic. So now this will be the same situation for people living in Riva townhomes
when they want to get out, they're going to have to look right or left
as well. So the tree line boulevard is really creating a barrier which we rely
on for our sight lines. Now, Amy also showed a cross section of the Boulevard
and the current configuration. Today, we have two travel lanes, 11 feet wide, that's 22
feet, one 10-foot, what we call multi-use, shared use, and then the five-foot bike lane
and three-foot bike lane on the other side. So when you add that up, it's
40 feet. If we look at the cross section of the proposed diagram that showed
the left turn at that intersection and you add up the dimensions that were shown
on the map with the two 10 foot travel lanes the center left turn lane
being 12 feet the two five foot bike lanes and then the tree buffers of
five feet each and then five foot shoulder on the one side of the road
and the 10 foot multi-use on the other side when you add that all up
it's 67 feet So we're going to go from 40 feet to 67 feet. Where
do we find 27 feet there today? I've taken my tape measure out and I
don't see it. And my other concern is with the driveway, the sharp entrance driveway
and turning in. With these buildings being four stories tall, this will require a ladder
truck from the fire department in the event of a fire. So can a ladder
truck negotiate that turn to get in? And what if that entry was blocked due
to congestion of traffic or other emergency vehicles tying up? Where's the alternate route for
people to evacuate or for emergency vehicles to enter that site to provide the emergency
response as necessary? So that is another concern. And I guess the thing is
with all this development happening along Newport Way, I go back to that age-old question,
what comes first, the chicken or the egg? So here, what comes first, the development
or the road improvements? Are we going to put in these road improvements first before
the development, or are you going to wait until all the development is done and
then tear up the roads, inconvenience all the people that are living there who won't
be able to get through the detours or whatever construction zone is going to occur
here? So I think we have to really look at how do we balance this
out that we get the development going but also getting the
road improvements to enable this increase in population. Today considering the
local area there we have Summerhill with 55 homes, we have
Spyglass with 60, we have Sammamish Point with 135, we have
Bentley properties with 47, we have up in Pinecone area homes. The
whole area there today adds up to 387 properties. If we add up the
Senior, the Gateway, the Riva, the Bergsma, and now this Vet Clinic property that's
up for sales, proposing at 25 townhomes or 40 apartments, we're
now at 660 units. So we have 387 current, adding 660
new units is a huge increase in traffic. And that traffic
is going to flow through that intersection. So my proposal is
to modify the intersection as a roundabout, A roundabout might not be possible,
I understand that. So then we need to put in a four-way stop or an
all-way stop sign so that vehicles can come to a halt, so pedestrians can cross
safely, cars can get in and out of their neighborhoods on both sides of that
intersection safely. And yeah, there's a lot going on now and I just want to
make sure that the city is aware of all these things and that the planning
department and the traffic improvements are taking place together. And my only other concern is
who would really want to live with their dwelling facing on Newport Way and to
live six feet off the roadway. All the other homes today, it's facing outwards away
from Newport Way. But I really don't know if people want to live smack dab
in the middle of a street that's so busy and only going to get busier.
So I thank you for your considerations. Thank you, sir.
Thank you, Commission. My name is Tina Conforti, and I live on
1220 Oakwood Place, Northwest Issaquah. I am a neighbor of Hart, the
gentleman that you just spoke. And in everything that he said, I
supported that very much. Because be a resident of Summerhill, the area,
It's very hard now getting in and out from our area. That area with the
S curve and Newport Way, it's very critical. Yes, if you're going to intend to
put a holiday seat development down on Newport Way and how did the impact of
traffic is going to affect us getting in and out. Yes, we have to consider
to have a stop sign. On that corner, the Newport, Ococrest Drive,
it's very now hard to get in and out from that
area. Imagine when you have three block in you, you view
right and left, the people getting out and the people getting
in. It's not, we're talking about a safety. We had
too many accident already on the crossroad, on the road. I
also request a traffic study for the whole entire New Parkway
corridor from 900 to Lake Monday area. With all of the
increase of this development project, I don't think we have a
full study on the traffic impact. I would like to have
a copy. I know the last study analysis, traffic analysis, it was
done on September 2015. We don't have any late on a traffic
impact. So we need to take in consideration what are the safety
first? People coming first or development coming first? So I leave that
in your hands. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.
Good evening. David Kapler, 255 Southeast Andrew Street. I'm not disagreeing with the previous speakers,
but I'm here tonight as Vice President for Advocacy of the Issaquah Ops Trails Club,
so mostly dealing with trails and access to parkland. I think there's been some new
information here tonight, so I'm hoping that this hearing will not be closed tonight and
the public hearing will continue on to your next meeting. Now, part of it
20 hours ago or something like that. I was in New Zealand and I stepped
off the 554 bus here a little over an hour ago. So I'm not quite
in the stream of things, but I think there's been some news new things tonight
that deal with trails and some concerns that are legitimate. The trailhead here
for Cougar Mountain Regional Wildland Park is extremely important. That park started at 40 acres
and that was the anti-aircraft site up there where they had the radar and then
the missile site which was closer to Newcastle. We now have 3,400 acres. To
try and get trailheads where people coming by vehicle to that park is very
difficult. There's a potential of expanding the trailhead just south of Talus and that's
constrained by two creeks very close together and a terrible place to get in
and out of off of 900 at that location. This is a very important
trailhead that exists Just a few weeks ago, it must
have been close to a month now, I met with King County, which is
working on design for that trailhead. Now if you were to go to this
proposal, if you were coming from westbound on Newport in that area, you would
have to go and somehow make a turnaround to get to that trailhead that
will be constructed there because of this median that's proposed in making it
a write-in only trailhead i think that's a huge mistake the um the bergsma property
is not subject here tonight but it's tied in with that in terms of there's
potential of a lot more additional property being added to that park and making it
even more an attractive place to to go and the chance of the big trees
are mostly gone on big tree ridge which is this part of the park But
fortunately, it looks like the proposal for the Bergsma so far tentatively includes
12 and a half acres of open space of really nice big old
trees. And that's going to be real easy walking distance from Newport. Down
further, there's public property on the Newport side of Tibbetts Creek owned by
the city in alignment with Maple. Years ago at the Isquab Trails
Club we sponsored an event wilderness by the Metro 210. The 210 was the
only bus that came east of Bellevue at that time. That's always been an
interest of ours is connecting the wilderness to the park and ride, now the
transit center, so people coming can get to Cougar Mountain Park and enjoy it.
So that is a potential crossing at that point in that
area. The Maple did not work for roads because it's too
steep on the Newport side of the creek. But it's an
easy crossing for the creek at that point. Now, the problem
is also there should be a crosswalk. In here now
the only proposed crosswalk I believe is west of the intersection over
there People are going to want to come across Newport to this
trailhead It won't be especially, you know pedestrians Up on the top
up here. You see the warehouse buildings. I We did not
appeal, the Issaquah Environmental Council, Issaquah Ops Trails Club did
not appeal the Rowley Agreement because Rowley agreed to keep
the 100-foot setback from the creek. In order to do
that, the creek restoration project, which is really great and
really effective in here, needs to continue further downstream.
That's part of the agreement and I think Lucy can can vouch for that that
it's a hundred foot agreement That they have to be a hundred feet back from
Tibbets Creek and the idea there was to relocate Tibbets Creek further to the the
West and do it right making a nice braided channel and restoration of the creek
whereas now the creek is in a ditch roadside ditch real close to those buildings
existing buildings and The concept of this trail going across that
corner over there, Rowley's not going to build a bridge or nobody's going
to build a bridge after the restoration and we have a nice wide
swath for the creek to go through and a braided channel hopefully and
some good restoration like occurred upstream from that point. The two crossings
of the creek are going to be at Maple and the one proposed for
Gateway. And to try and suggest that it's going to, dead ending the trail
at the top, very top there, it's not going to, There's not going to
be a bridge there. I don't know who's going to build it if it were
to be there. So let's be realistic about how we're going to be crossing the
creek. It has been frustrating that all of the, during the Central Issaquah Plan, we
talked so much about all these connections and having all these cross streets and getting
shorter blocks, but once we got west of 900, that philosophy kind of fell apart.
Now the Gateway Trail is proposed to be multi-use and it's going to
be right next to the Sammamish Point Homes, 10-foot wide trail. Does that
need to be a bike and pedestrian trail or would it be better
off as less impacts, narrower trail, and more of a natural type trail
and being a pedestrian only? There was mention tonight of a trail
here which I assume would be pedestrian only. I think that would
be really important there because it just would not make sense to
have kids or something making their loops through there right up against
the wetland buffer there. i think you know
i think let's figure out this trail thing and come up with
a proposal even if there some bonding or something goes on for
future construction of the trail rather than building a trail in a
place that maybe isn't the best place or the place where it
should be thank you thank you uh let's let uh yes you
may but let's uh Give this lady a chance to do it
and then you can. I've got to set my slides up. All right. Go
ahead, Mr. Sugarman. Thank you. Just following up what Mr. Kapler mentioned. Reidentify yourself,
please. Hart Sugarman, resident of 2550 Northwest Oak Crest Drive, living right at the
intersection of Oak Crest and Newport Way. We have the trailhead that Mr. Kapler
mentioned, and today people park along the shoulder of the road. We can have up
to 10, 15, even 20 cars, depending how they angle or parallel park. With
the new road design, the parking on the shoulder will disappear as we'll have no
parking available. So where do we plan on having these people park? Are they gonna
come into our Summerhill community and park? Or are they gonna park in Riva's guest
parking? This has to be addressed as part of the cohesive plan. Thank you. -
All right, thank you.
Yeah, part of my comments-- Would you identify yourself, please? OK, yeah. My name is
Mary Lynch. I reside at 2690 Northwest Oakcrest Drive, Issaquah, Washington. And I'm going to
take some of my comments a little bit of order since we've got this one
up here. But I also concur with some of what Dave Kapler was saying. This
originally they were talking when we first saw this something about a driveway entryway here,
but all of a sudden now with the anti-aircraft creek being relocated, they're talking down
here. One of the things during the pedestrian crosswalk study, I don't know if any
of you went to that open house and the discussions that they had as a
follow-up, we were asking the consultants, what about this? And they actually said if a
stoplight or four-way stop was not going to be put in an intersection like this
on a curve, that is really not advisable to put a street across the side
because of the congestion and the possibility of accidents. They said it really should be
alternating street entries. along a street like this to protect safety so i would say
i would request why aren't we looking at an entrance way down here that they
would have an opening so you can make your turns into the trailhead you could
also have the multiple modal trail connect here um So that's one of my requests
is to look at a different entrance way into this project and then to make
sure that you do have a turning lanes and entrance into the trailhead here. I
would also like to say versus putting the multimodal trail here, why not because the
developer is getting credit for this, why not look at transferring those development credits to
someplace else toward Towards this side to maple like Dave was saying because even though
we have the agreement with Raleigh I had want to point out one of the
things during the Gateway Apartments that doesn't have to happen for 30 years So it
is right now a trail to nowhere He does not have to build his connection
on the other side for 30 years That was part of the agreement and there
is no commitment that I've seen in writing from the city that says otherwise that
he's going to do it any sooner than that and I may
be wrong, but I haven't seen
it in writing. Let me open
up my presentations real quick then.
I'm just looking for the view
slides. Isn't it view? Okay. So
to start out with, I still
have the – I gave you
a handout. I still haven't gotten
questions to the anti-aircraft SEPA, which
has been revised, and I would
like – you know, questions answered there as far as who is
responsible for the anti-aircraft relocation since it's going to be on private property and also
who's responsible for making sure that the wetlands, the discharge from this relocation is going
to empty into their wetlands and who's going to be responsible to making sure that
the discharge, which we right now from our creek at the end where they're talking
about relocating, we have 68-inch rocks that the city routinely goes and digs out and
cleans out the current culvert there. So who's going to be in charge of making
sure that the system works and then is going to manage and make sure it
doesn't build up on the wetlands that's going to be emptied there? The other thing
that's in both the drawings and the CEPA comments for Antiaircraft Creek is there's
currently an 18-inch culvert that provides drainage off of Newport Way. and that's going
to be vacated. I don't see anything that's going to enhance the western edge before
our curve. If you see here on the slide, before that crosswalk sign, I don't
see anything that's mentioning that any drainage is going to be approved. So what I
see is going to happen potentially is water from Newport Way is going to run
down and across our intersection, making it very dangerous if there's ice or something like
that. Also in the drawings it shows that it's going to cut off basically our
sign, the crosswalk sign, and the light's going to have to be relocated to make
the entrance as it's proposed now. That's just going to make it harder for us
because if you can see the front tire of this car at this intersection, I
would say two-thirds of the cars when they come around that corner, they're already into
the bike lane. It makes it really hard because we have to pull down past
our stop sign, and basically commit ourselves to be able to look at the traffic
coming there. And so, and the same thing, you know, so traffic pulling, we have
to commit ourselves to be able to turn left. So I have a number of
other views I'd like to show, or I could easily show, I won't tonight. But
I would like to also point up the 49 miles an hour. That was pretty
consistent this summer. We have dropped the speed limit to 30, but it's still not
consistently 30. So in doing any design analysis, you can't really plan on traffic coming
around that curve at 30 miles an hour. You've got to plan 40 or above.
So not having a stop sign or a... stoplight and having other traffic then
across the street from us trying to get out of there is just going to
create havoc. And we've had, I said, we think more than a third of our
residents have been rear-ended trying to turn into that street. And yes, the left-hand turn
is going to help some, but it's still going to be very congested. So that's
some of them. Let me go to the next one. Well, let me go back
one. This is also where that car is, is our school bus stop zone. We
need to have with the culvert being replaced, the ditch is gone. If a car
comes around this corner fast, it's no longer going to have the stop sign or
the crosswalk sign, the street light or the ditch in which the car can go
in. before it hits our students standing there. We need to have, if anything happens
to this intersection, we need to have something done to improve our school bus stops.
And what I'm proposing is, given the danger zone, we need to have guardrails which
they can stand. We need a better light. They talk about moving the light. Well,
hopefully not to the other side because the light right now at least highlights that
kids are standing down there in the morning. And with current bus pickup, it can
be as early as 7 o'clock. And in the wintertime, you're talking almost four to
five months in the dark. And with your elementary in the winter that don't get
dropped off until 4:30, they're getting let off in the dark. So something needs to
happen on our side and I would say you need to at least look in
advance on what's going to happen on the other side. And we heard with the
presentation made by city council about two weeks ago that there is an astronomical large
number of kids and children that are moving into the apartments more than what they've
ever seen before. So to assume that there aren't going to be any children in
this complex I don't think is you know, is justified. So you need to
look at school stop zones and go on with that. The
other thing when you fill the culvert in, as Hart was alluding to, there's been
mentioned that you'll just turn this into a gravel path, so maybe it could be
parking. Right now, last weekend, we had this cars parked along here because they were
trailhead parking. We couldn't see getting out of our development. And then since they're also
parked in what is the gravel, which we normally do walk down and use the
trail, there was no place for us to walk safely along this path. Yes, the
culvert is going to be filled in, but if you're talking about moving the road
over, all I see addressing is putting a five-foot graded shoulder. Nothing is said about
a walking path along there, nothing said about a berm. And whatever happens to this
road, we need raised sidewalks on that side of the road to be consistent with
the new portway design. And yes, it's shown on the front there that we are
to get sidewalks, but I would like to just remind the commission again, our concurrency,
this project can be concurrent. And as long as the project is on the project
list, We're concurrent. It doesn't have to be funded. And so far that
sidewalk project has not been funded for 30 years and it's not shown to be
funded for the next 30 years. So yes, we're concurrent. Are we safe and doing
what's right for the neighbors? You can answer that question. So I would ask whatever
happens here, we get safe sidewalks on this side of the sidewalk. Going back to
the other... The entrance, again, the tough right hand curve in, it's the
same thing that we saw because it's going to have to go downgrade at
the senior apartments. asking people to make a hard right hand turn or an emergency
truck, a dump truck or any garbage truck along there is stupidity when we can
have other options of how we enter a property. And to enter it at a
complex curve like this I think is crazy, just like the senior housing.
And I guess that ends most of my comments. Since we still have time, I'll
have more additional ones. This was a large package and we've got a lot of
other developments going on in our neighborhood and it's hard to keep up. Thank you.
Is there any other member of the public that wishes to speak tonight? If not,
we will close the public comment period and go to the Commission. And at
this point, we will seek any clarifications or ask questions of the applicant
and/or the city staff. Actually, there's an opportunity if we want to as
well, as you know, we can also ask for clarification from members of
the public if we-- anybody that's spoken. So as we've been doing,
let's see if we can bring up a single subject at a time
for clarification. So if Commissioner Long, for example, has a question about a
specific thing or a request for clarification, We'll do that. Anybody who has a follow-up
on that can do it then. We'll hold our comments until we go around for
the last round. So this will just be questions and clarifications at this point. Okay?
Okay. Commissioner Lal? Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Question for the staff. For
garbage pickup, what's the plan there? Is that individual units, the
garbage trucks are going to come through or is there a
dumpster? It's individual units. Individual units? Okay, good. For school buses,
where is the school bus stop going to be? So
um the school district basically determines where they want the bus stops or the school
bus to stop. So um I don't think I'm not I'm not sure if there's
one here and so I will chat in front of their property. I'm not sure
if there's one. One thing I can add is that um I think later this
month we have an uh this development services department has an annual meeting with the
school district and that meeting is coming up later this month, which is very timely
given all the projects that are happening. The school district is exactly as Amy said,
determines where the school bus stops are and those may change from year to year.
But we do have these annual meetings to make sure that they're aware of what's
coming online so that they can plan ahead. And just for those of you
who weren't here last week, last development commission meeting we talked about the new
Clark Elementary. And the gentleman from the school district noted that the growth that
they are already experiencing, the numbers on the book are unprecedented for the number
of new children moving into the Issaquah School District. So this is a real
critical time. And just for further clarification, as I recall when we were talking about
the Gateway Project, Amy, it was pointed out then that the school district does
not want their buses going into a project. So the bus stop has to
be basically somewhere along the main arterial, in this case Newport, as I recall.
Yes, that's correct. Yeah. OK. So chances are, it sounds
like we're looking at a school bus stop somewhere along
Newport Way. On some of the drawings, I'm trying to
figure out the sidewalk. You got the street, and then
you have a sidewalk, and then right next to it
you have the patio. Am I looking at it correctly?
Whereas on the rendering, we're seeing, it
looks so nice. You have
the street, you have a
planting strip, and then you
have a bike lane, and
then you have planting strip
before you had, you have
the patio. So can you
clarify on that Amy? So
Amy, could you pull up
that perspective that both you
and Christy used? Yeah, that
looks really nice. Is that the reality?
It is. It's actually consistent with the site plan. So basically
you have your porch, right? In some cases because the grade
changes, the porch is raised and then so you do have
the pavement. If you look on sheet, yeah, you could do
that. And I'm looking at one that's a more detailed plan
so it's easier to read. Heat L2.05 since
this is typical. So what you'll
see is that the porch abuts
the 10 foot multi-use trail and
then where you have the rest
of the face of the building,
there's actually a little planter area.
Okay. And I think also the applicants sort
of suggested imagery showed that as well. Do you
know which one I'm talking about, Amy? The sort
of egg planting example? Oh, okay. Oh, go back.
Yeah, that one. This one. Right. So it's not
meant to be a suburban backyard, obviously. It definitely
provides that, and as you said, Commissioner Leong, so
in most of the spaces or with, I'm sorry, on most of
the stretch of Newport Way, what you'll see is green on both
sides of the multi-use trail or the shared use route. And it's
only punctuated with paving wherever you have the porches. Okay, so in
other words, then the property line is at the edge of the
patio then. Yes. So this is, yes. Okay.
Okay, thank you. You know, we talk
a lot about parking. So for the
parking for the trailhead, who's responsible to
provide parking for the hikers using the
trailhead? So King County is responsible for
doing that. And we have already started conversations
with them about looking at providing off-street parking
for the trailhead. I'm thinking along the line,
you know, there's the requirement for parking for
hikers, but who is responsible to provide that?
And I understand that there's an issue about the turning, as Mr. Kaplan has mentioned
about it. If you're coming from the parking ride, you're going west, and then you
see the trailhead, you've got to make a U-turn to come around. But who's going
to provide the parking? I don't see why the applicant would have to provide for
that. CHRIS JERRAM: That's county jurisdiction. Okay. That's all that
I have right now. Thank you very much. Okay. Mr. Sala? There seems to be
a lot of concern over the traffic that's going to be generated or may be
generated or even anticipated. And I noticed on page 59 and 153 it talked a
little bit about the traffic impact analysis being done and it says that the EIA
included approved development projects that apply to background traffic growth rate. I'm wondering which projects
have been approved, because we've been looking at, I think, three more projects that
are going to be developed along that road, and I don't think they're approved
yet. Is that correct? They're proposed, but they're not approved. So my concern is
in the traffic impact analysis, when they define level of service, if we're seeing
unprecedented growth in school kids, the reality is we'll probably see unprecedented growth in
traffic generation. And I'm wondering how that gets accounted for.
So the good news is all three projects that
I've presented to you so far has the same
traffic consultant. And Jeff Schramm is here tonight. And
I don't know if you'd like to address that.
Good evening. My name is Jeff Schramm. I'm with
Transportation Engineering Northwest, NW, address 11400. Southeast 8th Street, Suite
200 in Bellevue, 98004. It's good to see you commissioners again. I've been in
front of you for both the other Gateway projects. I was here last week
for the Clark Elementary as well. I know that there are significant concerns, traffic
not just on Newport but throughout the city. I too have heard a
lot of public concerns about traffic, anticipated growth, how is that accounted for
on Newport Way. Let me answer it two ways. Number one, when the
city does their comprehensive planning in their central Issaquah plan, that plan needs
to, is required to account for growth, the anticipated growth, and the build
out of the zoning that's allowed within the central isaac plan so
from a long-term perspective the city has included in their transportation models and
their concurrency consideration build out of this area which includes all these projects
along newport the city has determined that newport way over the long term
will accommodate all of the growth that is anticipated in the build out of the
central is a plan with the understanding that Newport will be approved to a three
lane road like we've talked about and that will be funded and that will be
improved Newport way as these developments occur along their frontages. So again, First question,
big picture is the growth from these projects has been accounted for in a long-term
perspective. And more of a short-term analysis, that's what our traffic studies are required to
do. We look at how each of the access points operate. In this case, the
intersection of Oak Crest Drive where our driveway comes in. We have, I was author
of the traffic report and it did say, and it does say, that all of
the development projects that have been approved along this corridor have been accounted
for. I'll just clarify, while those projects may not be ultimately
approved. All of the projects, Gateway Apartments, Gateway Senior, and in addition to
that, we've included a 2% background growth rate for a couple years to
account for other development that's in the area. So those projects, the traffic
that's generated by those, the improvements along Newport Way further up the road
have all been accounted for in our analysis. So
if I could continue on that just a little bit. I thought the comment of
the trees in the median was a really valuable one, and I didn't see any
plan of the road construction. So I don't know if there's been any alignment, horizontal
or vertical adjustments being made to increase site distance or the speed studies that might
have been identified to give proper site distance for people coming at
30 miles an hour, but reality 40 miles an hour. Right. Can
we go to a view that has-- I think one of the
site plans showed the center turn lane improvements. Yeah, that will work.
That'll work. Safety is very important. Obviously, you know that.
The public knows that. As a professional traffic engineer, it's one of the most important
things that we will look at when we determine the impacts of a project. What
the widening of Newport will do is it will not only widen the road
to accommodate a center turn lane, but that widening will also enhance the sight
lines and the visibility from both sides of this intersection. If you notice here,
the turn lanes-- let me see if a mouse will do it. This section
of center median right here will be a turn lane for people turning left to
Oakcrest Drive. This section of Newport will be a turn lane to turn into Riva
Townhomes. Not only will that center turn lane allow for getting left turns out of
the through traffic, but it will open up the sight lines so that these
landscape median and street trees will not inhibit those sight lines looking to the
left or to the right. And so the widening also even along this section
will include some enhancements because of this center turn lane widening here, this looking
left will also be improved. So the sight lines will, whenever these
projects are constructed, we make sure that there's adequate sight distance that meets
the city and federal requirements for that level of posted speed that exists
on Newport. - Just a comment, why wouldn't you move the center median
further east because if you are traveling westbound and you wanted to go
to that King County Trail, which is getting increasingly more
popular, why wouldn't you-- allow for people to turn
left into that if they're going westbound on Newport? So I don't think Jeff
can answer that question. It's a separate project. And that is why Amy identified
that we are talking to King County. Where the trailhead is now may not
be where the trailhead is when they construct it. We are trying
to understand that location to figure out do you put another break
in the median? Do you rely on the roundabout at Gateway? Do
you -- so we just met with them a week or two
ago, so we don't have those answers yet. Okay. We're not trying
to ignore it. It just is a separate piece that we're going to have to
fold into it as we get those answers from King County. CHRIS JERRAM: Yeah, because
right now, as it increases in popularity-- and it really seems to be growing in
popularity-- living here in Issaquah as I do and using that road, it's a haphazard
ad hoc Wild Wild West parking situation on the weekends down there. And I
think King County recognizes that. They're going for a grant to build, I
don't want to say a number because I don't know if I'm remembering
it correctly, but it's a lot more than is there right now. So
I think they-- and they feel that this has a good chance
in whatever way they evaluate that, of getting approved for a grant because of the
kinds of things that Mr. Kapler brought up, that you can ride a bus and
walk to this, that it is significant use, that there aren't that many other trailheads
with parking that access Cougar Mountain. I mean, we heard a lot of the things
that I think we all recognize are true about that. And I completely understand why
it's coming up with this project. The challenge is-- they aren't responsible for the trailhead.
We'll try and bring some information back to you when we bring the project back,
just because we can see there's a high interest, even though it is an unrelated--
it's unrelated to this permit, but it's clearly in proximity to this permit. CHRIS JERRAM:
OK. I'm glad to hear somebody's at least thinking about it. And may I add
one interesting point when we talked to them was that they became even more interested
in really looking at this particular trailhead when they heard that we are, we have
all these new developments on the pipeline because it makes this trail even, it makes
for them a more compelling reason to be able to get a grant when they
know that there will be, this will be a very popular and heavily used trailhead.
- So I think it's, what I'd hate to see happen is have the developer
go in and build the median that we see there with all the trees and
do all that work, and then have the county come in a week later and
say, we need to tear all that out to put a turn lane in. Is
there a way to, I guess, sort of provisionally approve that median work so if
the road is expanded, you don't install all the median stuff until you know where
A turn lane might need to go. You're taking all of our fun
away. No. We had exactly the same reaction. And this is at a
land use concept level of road design. And we had exactly the same
thought that we need to figure out What is the form of access? Is
it right here through the median? And if it is, then we need to identify
that so that when we're doing the construction permits that's identified and built into this
We just don't have that level of specificity and certainly not in
time for the preparation of the drawings for this presentation. Okay, thank
you. But absolutely. Are there any other questions on the turn lane
there? - Maybe a question for Mr. Schramm, just
related to the transportation to the design. The question
about access location offset versus across from another road
or driveway access and the benefits or detractors from
that design solution. - It's a very good question.
As traffic engineers, we kind of debate this all the time. What
I can do is kind of give you the merits of both
sides of it. So there's obviously advantages of, like what was mentioned,
of having offset intersections. It disperses traffic to multiple locations instead of
one. The advantage of having an intersection that is aligned in this
case is that all of your pedestrian crossing activity, your vehicle activity is
all identified in a single place so that the pedestrian experience will have
kind of one point of conflict interaction, a point where the city has
studied very hard. They've hired consultants to look at what is the proper
safety improvement that is necessary here. And in this case, in early communication and
coordination with the city, we determined that the best location would be to be
aligned with that intersection as opposed to putting it in an offset location where
there will be kind of two different conflict points for pedestrians and vehicles. So
what I can say from a traffic engineering perspective is One is not more
right than the other. I think it's based on the environmental conditions that exist
there and also meeting safety requirements, offset driveway standards and as such. So that
is the best I can do with that difficult question. - One more real
quick, just related to the question about a bus stop location that apparently currently exists
there now. And was any thought given to, you know, is there a more accommodating
and safer location after this reconfiguration happens? or kid pick up and drop off or
bus stops just because when you're redoing the road, it creates an opportunity to address
that? - We have not gone to that level of detail yet with staff or
with the school district to identify the type of enhancement that's necessary here. What I
can tell you is that I also work with the Issaquah School District and they're
very careful to make sure that the stop locations that they have and if there's
an opportunity for enhancement that they will do their best to accommodate that here. But
it's not something that we've studied in a lot of detail that I can share
at this point. - Thank you. I'm going to go
back to the trailhead alignment. So my understanding is
that the county has put a higher priority on
the issue of accommodating increased interest on the Cougar
Mountain Island Park trailhead. So now they're looking at
funding for-- enlargement perhaps moving the trailhead. Did I understand that?
I don't think that they're moving. Because I don't know how you move
a trailhead. Right. I don't think they're moving. So in the swath of
King of... Sorry, let me see if I can get my brain and my mouth
synced up. - While you're doing that, Lucy, let me clarify because there is a
question. If the trailhead stays in the general area where it is and the parking
lot is generally there, it appears to me just on the basis of this drawing
that if the median strip, the planted median strip were moved to the east, 100
feet, just 100 feet shorter of where it is, regardless of where the trailhead
is not going, the parking is not going to actually move. It's either gonna
be, it's in the same area, but it's gonna be expanded. So if the
median strip were just moved back or truncated somewhat, it would provide
that access. And the turn lane was extended where the
median strip is now. Wouldn't that accommodate the turns into
the parking and also increase the sight line? So the
sight line may not need to be increased. I think
that if-- I think we're trying to accommodate the trailhead
if it is built at this time. Our follow-up
discussion was that we wanted to return to King County and see if
we could settle down a location. Now, because they are increasing the size
of the parking lot, they are having to see where they can get
the grades in, which might change where the access is. It's still in
that frontage of Cougar Mountain. I mean, it's not like it's moving
to a different part of the park. I don't think we were able
to pin down exactly where it was going. The point of this conversation
was for them to get enough information to actually go away and study
it more closely. So as we're proceeding with this application, If it was
approved, then we would go before they got too far with construction permits, that
would be something we would want to integrate together because we completely concur with
Commissioner Morgan's comments that we are not interested in building something to have it
taken out in the next couple of years. That's not a good choice for
anyone. - Anybody else? I have one more thing on the Newport alignment.
Anybody else have anything on Newport? I think all of my
questions are being answered right now. Well, I guess one thing
about the Newport alignment is that the far left hand-- this
is a comment. And since we're into this inter-jurisdictional gray area,
the far left hand of the chart, Newport has a very
subtle bend there that is no fault of anybody it was
probably just a country road at one point in time or but it's very dangerous
i think all of our awareness was raised last summer with safety problems and that
subtle bend there does create a lot of sight line issues and it's bad enough
for the people that are trying to use the crosswalk and the people coming out
of oak crest but now it's going to be compounded by people coming and going
with the trail and the new development. So I just, again, hope that
the city can take another look at that from a traffic safety standpoint, because
that will just add to the complication factor. And I just don't know if
it's been addressed yet. CHRIS JERRAM: OK. CHRISTIE WOOD: I think we hear that
we have a piece to spend some time answering. I
have one point of clarification. Mr. Sugarman raised the question of
what I think is maybe a math issue more than anything
else. When he questioned where is the total of 67 feet
coming from, he did the addition there. Is there correction, addition,
deletion to that? question that Mr. Sugarman had. I think his
point was, as I understood it, when you look at what's there
now and you look at the plan for the sidewalks and so
on, he believed that the total for the new plan was 67
feet, which differs from the width that is indicated. So I
think one of the things-- could you pull up that drawing that
you had that showed the right-of-way? Yeah, that's-- So the improvements that
are built out there today don't fill the existing right-of-way. My memory
is that the existing right-of-way is-- it shifts in there. So I
think it's at least 60 feet. So you may remember-- either aim, Stacia,
do you want to go back to the site? Because this is kind of confusing.
Could you identify yourself, please? My name is Stacia Bloom. I work with Core Design
and I'm on the applicant's design team. And we spent a huge amount of time
working through like very fine-grained studies of trying to balance how much right-of-way we needed
versus how much right-of-way there was there. So it is something we've thought about. And
I just want to be clear that there was a member of the public who
raised the question of the numbers. And I'm number impaired, but when I did a
real quick check, I thought it was a legitimate question. It is a legitimate question.
There's actually two different sections that we have along Newport Way. We have this that's
to the east of Newport Way, and it's going to be a 63-foot wide section.
The difference being where this median is, it's an eight foot wide median and then
where the median tapers off, it then introduces a left turn pocket for this Oak
Crest community. That left turn pocket is 12 feet wide. So we transitioned from eight
feet wide to 12 feet wide in the middle of the Newport Way. So this
is where the 67 feet is. You can see here that the city actually owns
this portion. of right-of-way, where it bows out and it sucks back in towards Newport
Way. So across here, 63 feet wide, our project itself is doing a 1 and
1/2 foot dedication along the whole frontage. For the section to be completed, this 63
foot wide section along the median, Cougar Mountain will have to dedicate another foot and
1/2 on their side. So that will complete the 63 feet. The city already has
enough width in the right of way to complete the 67 feet. so if he's
pulling a tape measure along here um it would be hard to come up with
the 67 feet but we by our contribution of foot and a half and cougar
mountain's contribution by a foot and a half we can achieve the 63 feet okay
and and cougar mountain by cougar mountain you mean king county i mean king county
yes how it does that happen as a matter of course in these kinds of
things how many do you expect that to be a normal process to get that
extra I guess the thing I would say is we
discussed frontage improvements with King County as a-- I don't know
whether this is the right term-- a superior agency. It is
a request, not something we can require. That's why. Right. On
the other hand-- As I mentioned, they are very interested
in this being a facility that can be walked to from the transit
agency. So that requires having the land to build the facility. So it
was a very friendly conversation, and we'll see how it evolves. Just
to-- I hope the last question on this. The pedestrian access to the trailhead
from the transit center is on the north side of Newport? In other words,
is this plan now that they walk along the north side and then cross
Newport? Or is there a south side of Newport? So the section for Newport
has walkways on both sides. Yeah. We are in-- The section does.
The section does. It is being incrementally developed with development. And I
think one of the questions we'll go back and confirm with Public
Works Engineering is the timing of the missing teeth. However--
Bergsma is also doing a development agreement. They're required to do a development agreement
because of the type of development that they're doing. And so the improvements in
that section, including the sidewalk on the trail head side, is under discussion. So
it is both wonderful and challenging, the number of projects that are happening simultaneously
along this stretch of Newport. All right. Is there another subject that somebody
wants to clarify, bring up? Are we going to talk about buildings? Yeah. That's-- Go
ahead. Well, look, I guess the trailer thing. I feel a little frustrated because all
these projects we've looked at, we've looked at some internal circulation within each project and
then where it maybe goes off the project itself. But we don't have anything that
shows all of this together and both. And the circulation, like the green necklace
graph we have here just goes to the edge of the property. And I'm still
somewhat confused as to where all the trails come in for all these properties, Maple
Street, the connection for the Gateway Apartments. I know we don't have it now, but
that would be something that would be very helpful to see what's been approved, what
is going in for sure, and then what might go in. Because I'm sure Mr.
Kapler is concerned very much that We spend a lot of time and effort building
a trail that goes nowhere. It doesn't really help us at all. So I want
to make sure we don't build the trail to the north end of the site
that then just stops. And if it's not the best trail for the whole system,
I'd rather not do that either if the better trail is down at Maple. So
again, I don't feel qualified enough to know where all these connections should go, given
the information we have. Just for the record, I share that. I
don't have a comprehensive picture of the trail system proposed. CHRISTIE WOOD:
Yes, I agree. If we're going to make decisions or make recommendations
about-- about trails and where they should be and what's best for the public and
walkability. We need to have a bigger picture of how they connect, and that would
be very helpful. - And on that trail that ends up there, it was mentioned
by a member of the public that there's, the property owner has up to 30
years to comply. Is that, do you want to comment on that? - So the,
oh, go ahead. No, you go first. So we recognize
those same concerns and this is where timing is probably
everything because at the end of the day, we would
really rather see that trail going further north and connecting
to the proposed shared use and boardwalk of the Gateway
Apartments. But in terms of the 30 years, the Rowley
development agreement is 30 years, but the Gateway project, we understand,
has reached an agreement with Rowley to actually connect all the
way to 19th. So the piece that has potentially 30 years
to be achieved is, for instance, what Mr. Kapler was
mentioning, the relocation of Tibbets Creek out of a ditch and kind
of completing the restoration that they did in the central portion. Yes,
they have 30 years to do that. Gateway does not have 30
years to complete the project. So the I'm not sure if I'm
right about this. We've had some of the same challenges understanding where some pieces are
relative to each other, such as the rally, the connections in the rally development agreement
relative to things on this side. So I think that the southern one may be
the one that people are calling Maple. That is the one that the rallies are
currently identifying. There are three different options that were shown in their development agreement.
They are required to build one. So they have indicated that now that southern
one is the one that they prefer. They don't have to make that commitment
or build that now. That is within their 30-year time frame. And so we're
trying to... complete the pieces within the framework
of authority that we have established through Central Issaquah, we cannot
require someone to build on someone else's property, which is why
the condition is written in not the most satisfying way.
But we are hoping that over the course of both the Gateway and
Riva projects construction that we're able to bring those two pieces together. I
think that if for some reason that wasn't possible, I think the fee
in lieu could be something to discuss. But there is a reason that
that connection was identified and desirable at this time because it
would provide more, if we're able to connect north to the
Gateway connection, then we are getting much more activity in that
area and providing both Gateway and Riva better connections to various
areas of this district. - Mr. Chair, just a couple
on similar thinking. So I think agree it would be very useful to have kind
of a, essentially a trail master plan or as much of one that
you've created so far, understanding that we've got a kind of unique alignment of all
of these projects happening very close together. So we're getting this kind of piecemeal. But
it is an opportunity that we don't want to miss too, as far as creating
an appropriate alignment. A couple other pieces of information I think would be helpful too
is for me, some of these are or public access some of these trails and
some of them are private property access only and I remember asking a question about
this on the Gateway project and we were talking about the trail on that site.
The answer was well that's for the residents of the Gateway and it wouldn't be
accessible to other people and so maybe I'm just remembering that but it that's a
little confusing for me too. Where does the public gain access the trail system and
where are those trails that are integrated into some of these larger projects or the
private property owners or leases. So that clarification I think would be really useful as
we're thinking about this on a more global standpoint and trying to plug these projects
in and what would be a really appropriate kind of interconnection between the two.
these trails. One more clarification would be there's also been discussion
about whether it's pedestrian only or would be a pedestrian and bike trail and
there was even a conversation about whether or not we should be taking cars across
the bridge on the Gateway project and I guess in thinking about that kind of
master trail plan what are they for what for what purpose and the thinking may
not be that far down the road yet but I think that kind of master
planning work around the trail network would be really beneficial for these projects across the
whole central Issaquah plan as they develop. - I'll pass that along to the long
rangers. I'm teasing. Just so you know, the shared use routes are required to be
publicly owned. So the Gateway project, you know, the one that starts at
their Newport entry and goes through the wetland, and then this piece that
goes hopefully north, are required to be public, publicly owned. And the time
frame, so obviously there's going to be a construction, an extended time frame.
What is the target completion date for Riva now, as it stands now?
Well, I tell you, yeah, go ahead if you would because then
there's a follow-up. Sure. The tentative schedule -- I'm sorry. Eric Golden
with Conner Homes. The tentative schedule is for land development to commence
either this summer or the summer of 2017 followed by home building
which would begin in the fall of either '16 or '17. and
delivery of homes, say, five months after that, so about spring
of either '16 or '17. CHRIS JERRAM: Thank you. So by
that time, the applicant would know where that trail is supposed
to go, right? I see Amy shaking her head there. AMY
MCCORMACK: We think so. And I guess I may be speaking
too soon, but-- Let me backtrack. I don't think at
this point we have the crystal ball to say exactly how all the
pieces will fall into place. And so I mean, I think the idea
of having that quote unquote master plan might be helpful. And then to
understand how we want to look at this. In so many ways, we
are... Like what Lucy said, it's not the perfect condition, but
it was a condition that tried to capture what we think
is most beneficial to the community, given the certain constraints such
as we have shown a regional trail system that requires private
property owners to basically be willing to have the system on
their properties. It takes a lot of coordination and
goodwill, I guess, to be able to get the
vision for our trail system to be implemented. Okay,
thank you. Next topic? Still topic on school buses.
Amy, can you tell us where the existing school
bus, where does it stop right now? Does anybody
know? Oh, at the stop sign on Oak Crest. Thank you. We don't let you
except in the east early direction there. They're not allowed to cross the street. So
where do they stop? I'm sorry. Just for the record, we have to have people
identify themselves when they're speaking. So we're going to open this just for one person
from the public to address that question. And then if the city disagrees with the
information given, it needs to be clarified at this point. OK. Mary Lynch, 2690 Northwest
Oak Crest.
Have
to
have
a
bus
stop If they wanted another one,
if they didn't want them to walk down to where the current one is, they
would have to walk down here. And they'll have to be a new one for
Gateway because of the number of people. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Is there
another topic that -- sods, construction material, so on. Yes,
thank you, Mr. Chairman. On building setback, we're right there
on the patio and the property line. What happened to
building setback? So the required setback for this zone is
actually 0 to 10 feet. So they have opted to
basically put the building about four feet to six feet from the
property line. That being the patio, is that? So building setback is
based on basically where the exterior wall of the building is, right?
So where you have the planter area, in some cases it's four
feet, in other case, and then where you have the patios, you
have six feet. Okay. Got you. Thank
you. Thank you. Other questions? I thought a good comment was
made on thinking of the bed load of the aircraft creek,
the new culvert and what constraint was going to be put
on somebody to be able to manage the sediment load dropping
out into that wetland and how that was going to be
taken care of. We'll try and get some of that information.
It is a separate project from this, so it's not part of this
permit. It's happening, again, concurrently. It's not a project that our department is
running. It's through Public Works Engineering. We have some familiarity with it because,
obviously, of its interrelations, so we'll try and get some answers on that.
Thank you. I have a building question. All
right. Shoot. Let's just go for it. Amy, a question in your
-- this is on site design. It's your page 23 of 33
under 11.2 item C. In the last paragraph you mentioned consistent with
its contemporary style, the building exterior does not use any natural materials.
But then you have a condition saying the building elevation shall be further refined to
incorporate natural materials. And so it seemed like a conflict there that you were saying
that the design is a contemporary design that doesn't include them, but it needs to
include them. And so I wasn't sure, is that a requirement? Is it just something
staff would like to see? CHRIS RODGERS: Shall, the magic word. DAVID BURRAGE: Yeah, yeah,
the magic word. So basically what I was trying to say is that,
again, going back to the vision for the Western Gateway, it has the word
that says, like using natural materials such as wood and
stone. And so that's where I took that guideline to
say currently they are not using natural materials and in
order to meet the vision, you know, they're pretty close.
I mean, we think that like what I established earlier,
there's more ways that you can achieve that Western Gateway character. However,
because it was very specific in the vision that it mentions natural
materials, and we as staff wanted to make sure that that's being
addressed and conditioned. Great, thank you. I would, along on the
same topic of the materials and the color palette, I also appreciated
the fact that you talked about that in the condition that Commissioner
Morgan referred to, because I think we already have evidence of the
benefit of a color palette that emphasizes blending in with the environment
as opposed to creating contrast that attract the eye. And
so one of the things that I was interested in seeing
in the presentations is the fact that we have stark white
and the other colors that are on there. And there are
some other examples that we've already seen in projects that are
underway of pretty significant color, bright color, a use of bright
color palette that doesn't blend into the environment. So the question
is, are we talking about the brown and the red and
the brown are for the doors?
So there's two color palettes. And yes, the
quote unquote brighter colors are just accent colors
for the doors. So this shows, these illustrations
in the package show the white there. Is
that? That looks great. Yeah. It looks gray
and white. Is there going to be? So
what you're seeing is why this basically a very light shade of gray,
okay, that's different from okay That's that's been as you know, that's been
a concern of the Commission about what we see in the presentation what
ends up being built That's great Okay It was also mentioned by a
member of the public that there was a concern that the fire trucks
might not be able to access through that point, get to the four story structures,
but I noticed in the packet that the fire department has already given its full
approval to access and the ability to get to buildings, to all of the buildings
on site with all of the equipment of the fire department. So that is the
fire marshal's decision. Already on the record is that good there and there's a condition.
Yeah, yeah And there is a condition to ask about the condition because it looks
like there will need to be some building modifications to allow for firetruck turnarounds There's
some clearance problems Can you describe that a little bit more how significant that is
and whether that's going to move buildings? Are we just talking about minor modifications to
accomplish that so hopefully this is good enough to show. So when
you look at the, I don't know if you have
your sheet. I think it was an attack.
attachment seven yeah oh yeah it's it's on i think it's like
talking about 15 to 33 page 15 to 33 uh uh fire
turnaround yes so this is attachment um so basically um it will
it will require them moving some shifting some of the buildings by
two two feet to the south. So what may end up happening
is where you see these two two pairs of buildings, excuse me, with an
open space. One of these buildings will shift two feet to the south. So
you still have enough room here. This is like 40 feet of open space
here. And then same thing for this alley or driveway. It will shift one
of the buildings two feet. So given how they've set it up
where you do have some open spaces, then it's basically more of
a construction detail. And one thing I would add is that the
current plan accommodated the fire truck turning movements exactly. And I think
we all know that that is-- It's a computer generated.
And I think the fire marshal wanted a couple of feet
of safety. And so not running into balconies seemed like a
good thing for both the applicant and the fire marshal. So
it wasn't that they weren't meeting. They met the auto turn,
but there was no room for error. - Amy,
I have a question on your, I guess it's page 25 of one,
or 21 of 33, your condition 18, the driveway aisles within the building
setback line that are used for vehicle turnaround shall be designed as viewing
areas. I was just curious what a viewing area would entail. So
again, because those spaces are, I mean, it's not like you have a parked car
there. It could be as simple as special paving so that it feels, I mean,
obviously you can't put seating there. But again, it's a level of detail that we'd
like to work out with the applicant. Unless, I mean, if the commission has some
suggestions, that's fine too. Okay, great. Thank you. I have a couple of
questions for the applicant, if that's OK, Mr. Chair. Sure. I guess
first question is, Amy has lots of suggested conditions in the report.
Is there anything in there that I guess you vehemently disagree with
or have any opinions about? We were given an advance copy. Aaron
Golden with Conner Homes, pardon me. We were given an advance copy
of the staff report in draft form, reviewed it, we met
with staff. There was some iterative process and at this point
we're generally satisfied with the conditions as written. We understand that
this is also a process and that the finished product may look
a bit different and I suspect that iterative process will continue. - Okay, one other
question. This isn't really that germane, I guess, but in looking at the floor plan,
I noticed that the master bedrooms face onto Newport Way and that the second bedrooms
face out towards the Greenbelt and I guess just intuitively I was thinking it seemed
like if I had one of these, I'd want my master bedroom looking out to
the Greenbelt instead of the Main Street and I was just curious how that design
decision was made i don't know you know our architect
probably better answer that question for the design programming rick
tallisow milbrandt architects that's a very good question by the
way i i would point out that at this point
these are both conceptual floor plans and conceptual elevations and
i would agree with your comment and i I would think
as we massage these plans and they further evolve, we'll get a chance to-- I
think there's opportunity to actually flip those. On those interior units that are 16 foot
wide units, I mean, the two bathrooms are back to back in the center. And
one bedroom is on one side. And the stair presents a little bit of challenge
than when the landing. And those stairs are fit in pretty tightly. But we've done
it before. so that we get the master bedroom getting the better views. So we'll
take that into consideration. CHRIS JERRAM: OK. And again, I don't think it's part of
our approval. I just was more curious than anything. So thank you. CHRIS JERRAM: Thank
you, Mr. Chair. CLARE DUDA: Mr. Chairman, can I return to our favorite subject for
a minute? Newport Way. CHRIS JERRAM: OK. CLARE DUDA: Just something I caught in the
drawing here of the cross-section view of the plan for the parkway. It mentions
power poles in conflict relocate in Parkway. Does that mean
buried utilities? So, yeah. We've got trees in the Parkway.
I'm just wondering what that comment meant. So city
policy is that whenever you do frontage improvements that the
applicant is required to underground the power pole or the
power line. Right, thanks. And I'm not sure
whether this is for you or the applicant, but I did
have a question on 10.8.D says, quote, no exterior mechanical equipment
will be there. And then 16.2.C in the packet says, when
location of ground-mounted mechanical and utilities are identified. So is there
going to be mechanical equipment on site? because it would seem that there
is there's a flat statement that there isn't and then later it says when they're
identified we'll determine where they're going to go So probably I should have clarified that
it means all kinds of utility equipment instead of just mechanical. So at
this point, the applicant has told us that there won't be any ground
mounted mechanical equipment. But as we have experienced in most cases, you still
end up with all kinds of utility, including power boxes. Those are usually
just standard. And I don't think in this case they would need those
big transformer boxes. So I've developed a habit of making sure that we
have some sort of a catch-all statement that requires them to do that
in the future. And Amy, do you know what kind-- I know
the subject of signs are who's on first and who's got it. But I
assume there's going to be a sign that identifies this as Riva Townhomes. Do
you have a proposed location for that? Because we're talking about sight lines and
visibility and everything like that. And there are some instances around where we've seen
signs identifying the site going up where they clearly block traffic sideline. So
staff is basically aware of those kinds of safety issues and
the sign standards actually has clear guidelines on where the location
should be so that the site distance triangle is not obstructed.
You know, there is a limit to the size of the
monument sign if they choose to do that. All right.
I have a question about the building. And I was wondering
if you could bring up, Amy, the landscaping that's sort of--
yes, thank you. But go back. AMY MCCORMICK: Oh, this one?
Yes, that one. And I realize the applicant has the option
to have zero feet to the road or to the sidewalk,
but I think front porches might have a little bit more character
because as I look at this picture I get sort of a retail
feel. The buildings are absolutely beautiful. I think all of the landscaping is
gorgeous and it seems that you know maybe the front porches could have
a bit more character or modulation or something like that and I do
have a concern about or units one, two, and
three on this turn, this slight turn. And
the reason why is because of car accidents.
And if a car were to lose control on that turn, I'm
concerned about the front porches and the buildings there as there's not
a whole lot of landscaping or trees or barrier. on those
particular ones. I would be less concerned about the units further down
the road. But I do have a little bit of a concern
there, especially in the wintertime when this road gets a bit icy.
So maybe consider some two-man, three-man stones in your landscaping. That might
be a little useful to protect and also give a little
bit of a breakup between the sidewalk, the street to sidewalk
to porch feel. I do want to compliment you on the
gorgeous landscaping plans and tree plans. I usually have a lot
more to say about stuff like that, and I just think
it's absolutely wonderful. So Commissioner Hicks, are you talking about where the
person-- Yeah, the guy-- see the guy in the green? Yeah, right there. You're talking
about something that-- Yes, I'm-- exactly. --like a wall or two-man, three-man rock wall or
something like that? Maybe. Yeah, yeah. That's what I'm thinking is that maybe just some
simple two-man or three-man stones in that landscaping plan there may protect those units.
from a car that might have lose control on
this bend. Are there any other topics, questions, clarifications?
Just one more question or maybe clarification. Now I
turn my page. There is, I'll just wing it here, there's discussion
in the staff report about an active play area, particularly for kids, and it talks
about a nature-based play area. I don't know, is that climate tree or, it would
be useful to know on the site plan kind of where that is and what's
intended. Because as you heard earlier and we're seeing in the demographics in the city,
we're seeing a lot of kids coming and expect there will probably be kids at
some point living in these units. And it's hard for me to see on the
site plan where the kids will have an active space to go to outside. I
think when they get a little older and they can cross the street, their parents
will just send them up Cougar Mountain. the younger kids. Or to the new neighborhood
park at the Gateway. That could be a good spot. Or they'll just think
this whole thing is their backyard. I would. Tell them to go climb a
tree. On a more serious note, young kids that need to be supervised, where
would they play? I'm Christy Park with Core Design again. In our
STP submittal, this area here was planned to be a
nature-based play element. And we had looked at defining that further,
but through two key elements, the shifting of the buildings due to the fire,
adding some additional fire allowance around the buildings, and then the 10-foot requirement for
the sidewalk right here, it's shown as five feet in our STP. This space
is shrinking. So what our plan was after discussions with Lucy and Amy is we
would be looking at some of these shifts between now and the next meeting and
then coming up with some ideas for feedback. There is a potential we could potentially
utilize some of this area as well. It might be more appropriate at this point
to maintain appropriate fall zones from anything that's over. 2.5 feet. But we can
come back with more specific ideas for the next meeting. Thank you. And one
of the things I would add just for you to either reflect on tonight
or noodle on for the next meeting is that the applicant had proposed the
nature-based play, but I think staff's reaction was that given the limited
amount of open space that nature-based play uses, you know, rocks and mounds and
other elements that aren't like a big toy that is just limited to children.
So if you don't have children or adults want to use the area, it's
versatile for many ages. And so given the tight site, that seemed like
a good approach. And we had some of the same questions and are
looking forward to seeing some more detail. Chair Greg Musil: Well, in that
case, if there is nothing more, we will conclude the meeting by
on behalf of the development commission the work that went into preparing the package and
the presentation on the part of the staff and on the part of the applicant
as well. We always appreciate as much detail as we can get from the applicant.
And also the members of the public who have come and not only spoken
but stayed. This is, as we say in all these meetings, this is really, really
critical part of the deal is to get the public input into the concerns and
the recommendations. I think they, I would presume to speak on behalf of the Commission
that there are some really good ideas that came up here tonight from everybody, also
some clarifications and also some expectations for the staff that I
think would go specifically the map of the trail
system as it is and it is as it is proposed to be and I
would suggest even further to connect it to King County's system what you know what's
already there and different color coatings or whatever what what the county's planning on because
you know we advertise ourselves as the trailhead city I mean that's that's in the
official issaquah documents so so the more we can do to show that not only
to people that live here that are looking for recreational opportunities but people that are
living in seattle that you know want to come out here so i think that's
a real good idea and we'd like to see that coming from the staff for
application everywhere and we're looking forward to the next meeting where we get to see
what the results of this one were, as well as all the work from folks
coming forward. So two things. We'll do our best to knit things together. I think
part of the reason why you haven't seen it is we don't have all the
resources in one place. So we'll do the best we can. I don't think we're
talking about the next meeting. I assume we're talking about something that's going to take
a while to produce. So I -- Right. And we are -- I mean, some
of this is being updated over the course of the year with the amendments to
the central squad plan. because we've also learned things from working with you
guys for the last couple of years. Second, I just wanted
to put on your radar that the tentative date that Amy
showed you is a two-header, a double-header meeting because of various
commitments, both Sunrise, Senior housing, I'm not sure that's the right term,
senior living. And the second meeting on this are coming on April 6th.
- So that's two. April 6th was on it, I mean this was
on it, but the sunrise is gonna be there as well. And next
week, next Wednesday is-- - Gateway. - Gateway. Senior again and
then I think you get a week off for good
behavior. Go spend our pay. All right, with that the
meeting is concluded. Thank you. Thank you.